Goodbye, San Francisco

San Francisco, CA
February 17, 2015

Where did that nice sunny weather we had yesterday go? Oh, I forgot - it's supposed to be foggy and chilly in San Francisco. Yesterday was an aberration.

Today's first challenge was to get from our hotel in Burlingame (south of the airport) to Pier 27 in the Fisherman's Wharf district A taxi would be very expensive, so we decided to go with SuperShuttle. We took the hotel's free shuttle back to the airport, walked a few yards to the SuperShuttle pickup area, and after about 10 or 15 minutes we were in our own van on the way downtown. It probably helped that we had made reservations online the night before. It was inexpensive and we were very lucky that we didn't have to share a van that was crammed to the gills.

When we got to the Embarcadero traffic just crawled along. It would have been brutal in a cab with the meter running.

There was chaos outside the terminal, but once we got inside boarding went quickly. We went to our room and all our bags showed up within an hour. This, despite the fact that the longshoremen were in the middle of a lockout. Lucky for us that cruise ships are exempt from this dispute.

Why are they worried about shipments going OUT of the US? Looking for bombs, not drugs?

We followed our usual routine when we arrive at a hotel room or a cruise ship cabin: we wiped every surface that we might be touching with Clorox Wipes. It's impossible to know who was there before us and how good they were about hand-washing. Then we watched pallet after pallet of food get loaded onto the ship after a police dog had sniffed it. A whole pallet of rutabagas! Can you imagine? I wouldn't know what to do with one rutabaga.

View from our balcony

Alcatraz

As we hung our Alaska flag from our balcony we realized there was another couple about 4 balconies towards the aft who were also hanging an Alaska flag! Represent!

Leaving the dock

Looking back

Looking ahead

Looking to the port side

Meanwhile, the weather had improved and we were going to be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge when we sailed away. Last time we sailed into SF, it was very early in the morning, so we missed it. The time before, it was so foggy we couldn't even see the top of the ship. Today was our chance to experience sailing under the bridge! And that's how our adventure started.

 

I can still see the Transamerica Tower