The W's go West, May 2015 TR COMPLETED

Welllll..... as you asked so nicely Jan....

Day 2, San Francsico

We were all awake and moving by 7am, and by moving I mean managed to drag our bums to the living area and put the coffee machine on We sat round watching morning TV eating the bagels we bought the night before and decided what to do this morning.

We are Disney nuts, you can imagine where we wanted to go first... Walt Disney Family Museum of course! It didn't open until 10am and currently it was about 8am so we had a bit of time to kill before so we decided to do part of the 49 mile drive, starting the drive part way through at Golden Gate Park. We got dressed and ready to go and were soon on the road. What we didn't know at this time was that we were starting the drive at the most difficult part which was the most badly sign-posted. Damn. So we kinda just drove around for a bit till we got bored and then went off in search of the Museum. I dunno where my head was at this morning, but I left my ipad in the condo which had the Navmii app on for us to get around, i'm gonna blame it on the jetlag so we were trying to navigate round using the useless map Alamo gave us. I knew the general area where the museum was so we headed in that direction, we stumbled across an amazing place to get some pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge so not to pass up a photo op we got out and took a bazillion pictures! I won't bore you with them all, just a couple of highlights.

We then pulled round the corner and found an even better place to get pictures without the crowds so we took even more pictures...

Back in the car we made our way to the museum and found it without too much trouble considering I only knew the rough area lol

Like any Disney nut, we loved the museum. We spent about 2 & 1/2 hours in there, though it got to the point where my brain was full and I couldn't take anymore in. Jane was a little bored at first but once it got onto the films she was more interested. I would definitely go back to look and take in more than I did this time. If we find ourselves in SF again (which is highly likely as we are thinking of stopping over there on the way to Hawaii) we will definitely make another visit.

Prepare for picture overload, if you aren't Disney mad then feel free to skim past, I won't blame you but for like minded people I'm sure you will enjoy!

Whoa, that was a lot of pics! And that's not even half of them hehehe

Once finished we went for a drive to find some lunch Those bagels felt like a lifetime ago. Sy had a vague idea of a sandwich shop he wanted to go to, we drove past and it was packed which of course meant it had to be good but we were hungry and didn't want to wait so we went in search of somewhere else, and found Mel's Diner

A couple of pics of the hills we drove past, they have to be seen to be believed! Here's one of them.

We were seated right away in Mel's and ordered some drinks.

I got a chicken sandwich

Sy got a french dip

Jane went for a hot dog

Jane and Sy loved theirs but I wasn't keen on mine, I didn't realise it would be chicken mush with loads of other stuff in it including raw onion. Ah well.

Jane and I went to use the restroom leaving Sy to pay the check and we then made our way back out to the car. There was free wifi in Mel's so I was able to bring up the 49 mile drive on my phone and screen grabs of where we were going. First stop was the Palace of Fine Arts. It was very pretty! If we had time, I would have loved to go inside but we settled for a selfie from across the lake.

We then drove along to Coit Tower. The view was pretty amazing from up there!

We drove through Chinatown and Japan Town before finding ourselves on Lombard Street right by the famous zig-zag street. There were loads of people gathered there taking pictures. We actually found it by driving up rather than down the wiggly bit so we parked the car and got out with some difficulty. For anyone who hasn't been or doesn't know the road, its steep, its like really steep, scarily steep! The pictures don't do it justice at all. It felt like the car could roll over and roll down the hill! Took some pictures.

We then drove along to the seafront, past Pier 39 and Fisherman's wharf and right beside the Bay Bridge. We turned around and parked up in Fisherman's Wharf and hopped out in search of somewhere to grab a drink. We ended up in a bar called Jake's.

We felt much better with a drink inside us so we then went for a wander to Ghiardelli Square. The doorman on the Argonaut stopped us to chat and comment on Sy's sore looking leg (from where he fell up the stairs) asked us if we would like him to get a first aid kit for it - how sweet?! Sy assured him he was a big tough man and would be fine He did point us in the right direction of the square though so we got there quickly.

We stopped on the way to get a picture of a cable car (which we never got round to riding boo! We just ran out of time)

There was some work going on in the square so it looked a bit meh. I certainly didn't see the appeal however we went into the chocolate shop to mooch around.

Not gonna lie, I wanted to stick my head under there...

We got some ice creams and headed across the street to watch the water (and the crazy swimmers) while we ate them.

The view

It was soooo much ice cream! We only had 1 scoop each!! I ended up feeding some of my cone to the pigeons and then we watched for ages while they fought over who got which bit LOL small things eh?! It was really funny at the time, must've been the jet lag and sugar combination LOL

When we had finished bird watching we made our way back to the car, I then gave Jane another giggle. I had rubbish that I wanted to put in the bin, only the bin had a lid on it and it was dirty... Jane said she could see the inner turmoil in my face, I didn't want to carry the rubbish but I didn't want to touch the bin, I stood there a few minutes debating what I was going to do before deciding to use the bin but then dive into my handbag for the hand sanitiser after hehehehe.

Walking back to the car a drunk man (homeless I think) came out of a liquor store and started yelling at me and Jane (Sy was walking slightly ahead of us) we just kept our heads down and picked up the pace but it did upset me and make me all nerves.

We drove round some more but we were all flagging a bit so before long we headed back to the condo. We stopped at the seafront and took some pictures of the sun setting across the sea, it was beautiful.

The ruins of the old baths

We decided to skip dinner as we were all still full from ice cream but Sy got hungry a bit later and went to grab something from the supermarket. We managed to make it to 10:30pm before finally admitting defeat and heading to bed.

Ahhh that's awesome colonel! Do you love SF as much as I did? (I loved it a lot)

Jan you sooooo need to pay the museum a visit. I really enjoyed it!

Day 3, San Francisco

We were up fairly early again, Sy had slept on the sofa as his snoring was driving me nuts already (and that was just 1 night, how the hell did I cope the rest of the trip?!), though he had managed to even wake Jane up from the sofa from the opposite end of the condo! We got dressed and headed out for breakfast at Louis, which was a family run cafe right by the sea with beautiful views of the ocean.

The staff were not the friendliest of bunches but the food was good, it was a shame really as we had such high hopes of the 'family cafe' thinking it would be warm and friendly inside but it was more cold and indifferent. I went for a waffle while Sy and Jane went for eggs benedict. I would probably go back there as the food and the view was good, I'd just hope for a better service experience.

We paid up and then made our way outside for some pictures in the sunshine.

I also took a snap of this for Sy's dad as his name is Cliff

We then hopped back in the car and headed for the Japanese Tea Garden. I actually remembered to bring out my ipad today with the navmii app so at least we would have some idea of where we were going We were only about 5 minutes drive away so we arrived in no time, parking was easy on the street. I have to say i'd heard a LOT of horror stories about parking, never being able to find somewhere and then it costing a bomb, we didn't find it a problem all trip. There was 1 evening along fisherman's wharf where we had to drive round the block a couple of times but got parked in the end.

Anyway, I digress. We parked up and before we knew it we were walking into the gardens. This was one of the highlights of SF for me, I just loved everything about it! I'm sure it helped that there was a beautiful blue sky as backdrop. It was still very chilly though, it looked a lot warmer than it felt. Prepare for photo overload...

We stopped in the little Tea shop where Sy got some green tea. I tasted a little and I wasn't keen. I'm a black tea kinda girl.

Afterwards we decided to do some more of the 49 mile drive, we drove round a few different places each time being marvelled at the beauty of the city. Last up was Twin Peaks, it was somewhere I don't think we would have seen had we not had a car. It was breathtaking up there! The views were spectacular!

About a month before we left home I read an article online about 10 patisserie's to visit before you die, number 1 was somewhere in SF called B so of course, we had to find it! We knew where it was roughly along the 49 mile drive and we found it without too much trouble (and with the use of Navmii). It was very pretty! In what I gather was in quite a posh neighbourhood. We couldn't decide what to have so they girl who was serving us made some suggestions, Jane and I decided to get 1 thing each and share. We got a kouign amann (plain) and a 10 hour apple tart, Sy went for a raspberry kouign amann. I got an Orangina while Sy and Jane went for coffees. O.M.G. WOW! Jane and I both agreed that the kouign amann was the best, in fact Jane went in and bought us all another 1 each to take away. We sat outside in the sunshine with our cakes and drinks, it was so chilled out. In fact I could have stayed there all day if the sun hadn't disappeared behind the buildings.

When we'd finished we headed back to the condo to chill for a bit, Sy and Jane watched a bit of Grease while I had a nap. I was informed later on that Sy went to the toilet while they were watching the movie and promptly fell asleep on it! HAHAHAHA! Awwww think he was still a bit jet lagged Sy and Jane had been googling while I was sleeping to decide where to go to eat, they had decided on a burger place called napa valley burgers. We all got ready and headed out for dinner and a mooch in Sausalito.

We hopped in the car and made our way over the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped the other side to get yet more pictures of it.

We drove around and took yet more pictures of the bridge before parking up in Sausalito and heading to the town for a wander. Little did we know, everything closes at 5/6pm! Including restaurants and the burger place we were hoping to visit. What restaurant is only open in the day time? It wasn't a cafe or anything, it was a proper burger restaurant! How very dare they

With everything closed we headed back to the car to decide what our next plan of attack would be. I had made a list of places to eat on my ipad before we came out so we drove along the water looking to see what was open and hopefully find one of the places on my list. Well we did in fact find somewhere from the list, and it was gorgeous. Bar Bocce. We dined al fresco as the sun was setting, right on the seafront. It was beautiful, you could tell it was a real local's place. The service was a bit rubbish, kinda like this morning in Louis cafe, I'd read that the service was better on the West Coast than the East, hmmm.... not sure I'm convinced of that

Jane and I ordered pizzas (Jane went for mushroom and garlic, I had margarita) while Sy had a shrimp Po Boy with coleslaw. Sy was brought out his meal and had finished with his plate even cleared before our pizzas arrived, that was mighty annoying but what made it worse was that there was no apology even when we complained. That being said, the food was really good.

Sy and Jane had desserts, Jane went for something like an Eton mess while Sy had a bread and butter pudding. I did end up sharing some of Sy's with him, it was scrummy.

We paid the check and headed back to the condo, back over the bridge at night with all the pretty lights of SF in the distance.

Back at the condo we made it to 10:30pm before falling into bed completely shattered.

Tomorrow our last full day in SF.

We all loved it in there, in fact today Jane popped over for some lunch and bought me a candle which is scented with Japanese tea! It smells lush

We don't feel adventurous, the roads are so much wider and all straight, we are used to narrow swirly roads so it feels easy

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Thanks for reading along

You won't regret it!

Thanks Amy

Thank you!

Thanks Ken, we loved it there, it almost reminded me of key west, a similar vibe about the place.

We are already planning the next trip out there!

Day 4, our last day in San Francisco

We were awoken at 1:20am by the fire alarm going off! It stopped after a while, and we went back to sleep, at about 2:30am it went off again, Sy and Jane went round investigating things and I went back to sleep (I'm used to sleeping through Sy's snoring next to me so I can get back to sleep pretty easily) but it was soon going off again intermittently, I was kind of aware of it but I was so zonked still it didn't really wake me up completely, I'd already made the assumption that it was a low battery as this is what happened when we were in animal kingdom lodge. Jane and Sy dealt with it, luckily the owner came home from a night out and heard it (they lived downstairs) so she came running up with batteries and sorted it out. I had no idea she had been till the morning after.

After such a disturbed night's sleep, it was no surprise that we struggled come morning. No one was in the best of moods, not bad moods but you know, generally overtired. We had plans to get breakfast at Boudin's bakery in Fisherman's wharf so we got dressed and headed out in that direction. It was pretty cold this morning, the coldest so far and no sunshine to take the edge off.

We managed to park the car easily and started to walk towards Boudin's. Weirdly we came across the couple from our flight who were on their honeymoon, they were also looking for somewhere to have breakfast so I told them Boudin's was meant to be good and they decided to join us

I took aaaaaages to decide what to eat inside Boudin's. I finally settles on a sourdough waffle sandwich filled with bacon, cheese and scrambled egg with a blood orange san pellegrino. It was lush! We also got a roll each to take away (I ate some of mine right away, not because breakfast hadn't filled me but because I cannot leave fresh bread, its a weakness of mine!)

We chatted over breakfast with the couple from the plane and then made our way over to pier 39 to see the Sea Lions They didn't disappoint! I had been ill just before we came away and I'd lost my sense of smell (and most of my taste too) so I didn't notice that it reeked of fish down there, Sy eventually said we had to leave cause he couldn't stomach it any longer while I was none the wiser. I could have stayed there hours watching them play, I have a feeling it could have been mating season, there were quite a few getting frisky

We started to walk back to the car before realising that we maybe didn't time it quite right and we were at risk of running late for our Alcatraz tour. Where we parked we weren't sure if it had a time limit so we wanted to get back to the car and move it, I was holding us back a bit as I was feeling dodgy so Sy went to grab the car and came back through to pick up us girls, we then went to park right opposite the Alcatraz dock. We had to queue up for a little bit before getting on the boat, it was very chilly down by the water! Before long we were on the boat on our way over. I dozed off on Sy's shoulder.

Alcatraz, I don't really know what to say about it. It wasn't somewhere that I would have probable visited if it hadn't been for Sy, but it was amazing to see. The guided tour was so interesting! It could have carried on for another hour and I wouldn't have been bored! Jane braved it into the cells, while I chickened out cause I'm a wimp lol.

The sun even started to come out from behind the clouds while we were on the island.

We couldn't hang about too long before getting the ferry back as we had only put 3 hours on the car parking meter. Sy went to visit the garden while Jane and I visited the ladies and then sat in the sunshine by the dock. The queue started to build so we got in line but watched out for Sy, then people started to board, and still no Sy. I was starting to worry as we didn't have time to wait for the next boat but as we neared the front we could see Sy in the distance, we managed to get his attention to say we were getting on so he joined the back of the queue and got on. We sat at the front of the boat this time with a beautiful view out in front of us.

We made it back to the car with a few minutes spare. Sy and Jane were hungry so we went in search of Ike's sandwich shop, it was along the last part of the 49 mile drive. Sy had found the place from watching a tv program and it was one place he really wanted to eat, he even knew what he wanted to order I wasn't hungry so I sat in the car while they went inside. Jane decided to go for the same as Sy, the menage a trois. Chicken 3 ways on a Dutch crunch roll. I tried a bit of Sy's and OMG! I was regretting not getting anything, not cause I was hungry but it was just SO GOOD!!

Love the name on the outer wrapper

We went on to do the last bit of the 49 mile drive, this was not a highlight. We had seen all the good stuff by now, this was the dodgy area and involved going past the Giants baseball stadium, where there was a game on. We could have skipped this last part but nooooo, Sy wanted to get a baseball cap for him and his friend, so we had to keep on going rather than turning around. And then when we got to any shops there of course was no where to park without a $40 parking charge. I went to sleep from the boredom. Jane went very quiet in the back too, Sy's name was mud... Not only did the drive take frigging AGES sat in traffic but it then meant we didn't really have time for a ride in a cable car!!!! Not a way to impressed the ladies Simon...

The only pic I took...

So tired and grumpy we head back to the condo to get freshened up for dinner. I had another nap (in my defence, I was still trying to get over the flu!) and then we headed out in search of some dinner.

We then couldn't decide where to go to eat. Sy mentioned a mexican and burger place but both were a bit fast food like, I suggested we try to somewhere a bit nicer for our last meal but after a looooooooooooot of driving round we ended up at the burger place anyway lol. Though I have to say, it may have been fast food like but damn it was gorgeous! Super Duper Burger by name and definitely super duper burger by nature We all had great food. The garlic fries were amazing.

Outside we got back in the car and looked up to see this sight...

Turns out we were in the gay district, who knew?! Hehehehe We were only down the road from the bar we had earmarked to go to tonight, Martuni's gay piano bar. We drove round for ages trying to get parked, we found one space but there was loads of glass on the floor where a car has obviously been broken into so I wouldn't let Sy park there. Sy and Jane were getting annoyed with me cause it was in quite an iffy place so parking somewhere that didn't look dodgy was proving difficult. But after a bit more driving we happened to be driving past the bar again and there was a space to park right outside! Woohoo!

We headed inside and grabbed some drinks before heading into the room behind to watch the pianist. I didn't realise it was audience participation. After a few sing a longs with the guys on the table next to us (Part of your world from the Little Mermaid being a highlight!) I decided to put my name down I dunno what came over me, I think it was Jane in my ear saying 'when will you find yourself in SF again singing in a piano bar?!' It was probably quite misjudged considering I still had the left over of the flu (which turned into whooping cough!), I know from listening to Jane's recording that I sounded pretty ropey LOL but hey, I did it!! The downside was I totally missed Sy getting checked out like he was a piece of meat by a guy on his way back from the bar, he stood right next to him and looked him right up and down, Jane said he undressed Sy with his eyes PAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh how sad I am that I missed that! Sy said he was just offended that the only guy who checked him out was a guy who looked at least 55 years old, none of the young guys bothered hehehehe.

We called it a night around midnight and headed back to the condo. We still hadn't made it to the beautiful beach by the condo so we decided to hop out and put our feet in the sand, we tried to get a selfie but it didn't come out very well. Damn it was chilly on that beach, the sand was freezing!

Back at the condo we packed and then finally fell into bed at about 1am.

Time to say goodbye to the city I left my heart in <3

Yes there is a video, no I will not be sharing as I sound like a cat being strangled hahaha

Day 5, Goodbye San Fran, Hello Vegas!

We were up early this morning as we were off to VEGAS! We packed up the last of our things, tidied up the condo and then heaved all of the cases back down the stairs and into the car. We wanted to make sure we would get to the airport with plenty of time to drop off the car and get the monorail so we skipped breakfast, we kinda hoped we would find somewhere on the way but we didn't

We got to the airport but then had to drive around for a bit looking for somewhere to put in petrol, we still had plenty of time though. We dropped the car off with Alamo and headed inside to catch the monorail. We picked a good day to be leaving, it was rather chilly and grey outside.

We made our way over to get checked in and pay for our bags. We were flying Virgin America and it was obviously the hip place to be, they had music playing etc. Virgin Atlantic could take a leaf out of their book that for sure! We dropped our bags off with no trouble and made our way through security. By now it was about 11am and still no food :-/ I was about ready to chew my arm off, so we went in search of food. We found a burger place and had a rather early lunch. I went for a chicken burger (of course) while Sy had a BLT I believe. I dunno if we were just starving or if it was really good but we are every bite! Jane enjoyed hers too (but I forget what she ordered).

We had time for a quick mooch about the shops before our flight was called. The flight and crew were excellent, I can see why they are so highly rated as a company to fly with! The flight was quite bumpy, not scarily bumpy but not what you'd call smooth either. There were some beautiful sights out of the window.

And I saw this on our way in...

Once off the flight we followed signs to the car hire desk, what we didn't know was that it was actually off site and we had to get on a bus. Luckily there was one there so it was no trouble, but it was a fair old journey to the car hire desks and after a bumpy flight I started to feel a bit queasy! Once there and our bags unloaded, we tipped the driver and headed inside to pick up the car. We were told to choose any with a California licence as we would be dropping the car in LA.

Finally we were driving out of the garage and straight onto the strip.

We were soon pulling up at the Trump. It didn't disappoint!! Jane and I grabbed a selfie while Sy dealt with valet.

Pretty lobby.

We headed in to check in and were told our room numbers, which were on the 54th floor! Ahh! We had our own special elevator which made our ears pop on every journey in it lol. The view was pretty spectacular.

Loads of pics of the room.

We got changed and headed down to get the car again before heading out to explore some of the strip.

Another selfie while waiting for valet.

We decided to go for a look round the Venetian. Lots of unaffordable shops (this was to become a theme with all of the hotels!). Saw the gondola's which before we arrived I had down as a must do... I saw how short they were and soon changed my mind. I dunno, I just wasn't wowed by this hotel (I wasn't actually wowed by any of the hotels it would turn out), I was expecting more, more wow factor. My mum says she thinks Disney have spoiled me HAHAHA Disney does everything so well that I have high expectations LOL, I think she might be onto something While we were in there we stopped to grab a drink at the food court, Sy got some pot stickers and spring rolls for us to share from Panda Express, while Jane went for an ice cream, we then went to wander round some more.

Next up was Ceaser's Palace. We wandered around looking in the shops and through the casino.

We started to get hungry for dinner so we made our way over to the Cheesecake Factory. We put our name down and had to return half an hour later, that was dangeoous as we were right next to a bath and bodyworks... Poor Sy's wallet took a bit of a hit hehehe but afterwards we only had a little while to wait! Woohoo! We waited for about 5 minutes outside before we were shown inside to a table.

I had been feeling a bit dodgy all day and the theme continued through dinner, I ended up not eating much and having to leave Sy and Jane to eat their food while I went to the car (which was a fair bit of a walk away), I wanted to get to the car before I got too ill and couldn't walk for the wobbles.

Our server was erm, he was okay. He wasn't very attentive at all, we had to ask a few times for refills and bread. He wasn't bad per se, but he was typical Cheesecake factory. When we were finally able to order Sy went for Bang Bang chicken, I had a chicken quesedilla appetiser and Jane had carbonara. I wasn't a fan of mine though it may have had something to do with me feeling rough, Sy and Jane though absolutely LOVED theirs!

Sy got us a mango key lime cheesecake to go and Jane got cookie dough I believe? Sy and Jane paid up while I was walking back to the car and they joined me shortly after.

We then drove back to the hotel, we valet parked and headed up to our rooms. I took some pictures of the lobby looking all pretty lit up.

I was still poorly for a while and finally got into bed at about 11pm.

Day 6, Las Vegas

This morning we were up and moving by about 9am. Sy had found us somewhere to go for breakfast which was off the strip so we grabbed the car and headed to the Egg and I. There was no wait but the place was rammed. We were handed menus which were like newspapers, as expected everything either came with egg or had egg in it.

There was a little smiley/sad faced egg so we could get the attention of our server.

We ordered our food and then took a few pics while waiting.

Sy went for corned beef hash.

Jane had an omelette.

I went for a waffle.

The food was excellent. It was a bit of a mission getting the bill paid, there was a huge queue to pay at the exit with people taking forever to pay. Sy went to get in the car and get the air-con on

We decided to go for a wander round the Bellagio so we parked up and went inside. Lots of unaffordable shops. We knew we wanted to see the botanical gardens so we made our way there. I was underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, it was lovely, I just expected more. I guess I thought there would be more to it than 1 room/area. Took all of 5 minutes to see it all.

Some pics.

We then went for more of a walk around the hotel.

Stopping at Jean Philippe for some cake and to see the world's largest chocolate fountain.

CAKE!

It was HARD trying to choose which cake, and we may have deliberated for quite some time... But eventually we went with Key Lime for Sy, Jane went for a Snickers and I went for my good old favourite, Mille-feuille.

We decided to go back to the hotel afterwards to have a swim, well us girls went for a swim while Sy went to the Mob museum (we weren't really bothered about going there so wanted to catch some rays instead).

Sy dropped us at the hotel and went off. We got changed and made our way to the pool.

It was breezy up there but beautiful blue skies with wispy clouds. We stayed there swimming, chilling and reading for a few hours.

Sy said he would only be gone about 1&1/2 - 2 hours so I was starting to panic 3 hours later (being overseas Sy's phone doesn't work).

We went back up to our rooms just as Sy appeared, good timing! Sy went for a quick dip while I started to wash my hair (yes, it takes that long). Once we were all showered and ready we headed back out for the evening.

We parked up at the Bellagio again as we wanted to watch the fountains. Grabbed a quick pic in the lobby.

The fountains were quite amazing, one of the best things about Vegas. I'm glad I saw them before World of Color or I might have been disappointed again

We went for a walk around Paris, I'm glad we decided against staying there, it felt a bit cheesy. Though that's probably the same for any hotel if you've been to the original that it's based on. We went into Bally's after and I didn't care for that hotel either. We walked up the strip a bit more looking for dinner, we were getting really hungry but not finding anywhere that looked nice without a huge wait, eventually we happened upon the Tilted Kilt, given that we had been to the Orlando one and had a great meal we decided to head inside. The staff were very uninterested in us, almost verging on miserable! We all agreed that our food was only okay, nothing special, and it was cold when it came out but by then we were so hungry we didn't complain and just ate it.

Some pics of us inside.

We walked back towards the Bellagio, we weren't quite ready for bed so we tried to go into a bar there called Hyde, however I had no ID so they wouldn't let us in BOOOO! Ah well. So instead we had to go back to the hotel.

We chilled in the hotel for a bit before heading to bed at about 11pm.