First arrival into San Francisco

We hired a car service to take us to the airport and spent the first few minutes of our trip rolling our eyes as the driver tried to stuff our two large suitcases and small carry on into the trunk of his sedan. You would have thought we were trying to bring 20 suitcases the way he struggled to fit them in his small trunk. The carry on ended up on the front passenger seat by the time we were finally on our way. Personally, if you run a professional car service, I think you should invest in only SUVs or something with extra trunk space. This car was fine if you based it solely on the amount of people needing transport but our other traveling companions would have had quite the struggle with their six pieces of luggage between the two of them.

We had hoped to try new airlines like Alaska or Hawaiian Airlines but United won out when we compared their direct flights. It's amazing how just a cross country flight could include so many layovers and delays. I believe one such search result had a 9 hour delay in between the connecting flights! Thanks to the time difference, our dinnertime flight had us landing in SFO at 9:30PM. If only that meant it was really only a 3 hour flight. I joke that if I was as lucky at playing the lottery as I am at getting "randomly" selected for extra security screening at airports, I'd be rich. Long ago we'd gone through the steps of getting TSA pre-check status and except for a few places where that line was just as long as the regular one, it's been a great time saver. For this flight from BWI to SFO, not only did the metal detector stop working and have to be reset over and over, but it kept beeping as they ushered the first people through. They still let them go on but when it beeped for me, the agents announced that I was randomly selected for extra screening (why am I never the one millionth customer in line at the grocery store with this kind of luck?) and this time it was for my cell phone to be checked for any sign of explosives. As we had to still dump everything out of our pockets to go through the x-ray machine, I was a little surprised when the agent seemed taken aback when I told her my cell phone was in our carry on bag. She escorted me over to retrieve my own bag and stood over me while I opened the bag to retrieve the phone. A quick swipe later and my phone was returned allowing us to go on our way.

I had looked up the amenities for United's first class passengers and the consensus seemed to be that the plane we'd be on didn't offer media screens but instead suggested we download their app to our own devices which would enable us to watch movies there. Tried downloading the United app only to find that we instead needing to download a different app solely for streaming entertainment on United's flights. Tried downloading that other app and was told it's not available for my Kindle Fire tablet. Dad tried it on his iPad and found that it didn't work for him either. However, we were pleasantly surprised upon boarding the plane to find that this particular flight had mounted screens. I stuck with reading my book and playing games on my Kindle anyway. Dad's only complaint was that when many passengers started reporting the wi-fi going out, the captain reset every media system right as Dad was nearing the end of his movie.

For our time in San Francisco, Dad had settled on staying in the Fisherman's Wharf area and sent me on the mission to find the best deal for booking the Holiday Inn Express at Fisherman's Wharf. We usually end up at Hilton owned properties for progress toward their Hilton Honors program but this time we went with an IHG owned property. I signed myself up for their loyalty program and used Ebates to book directly through IHG's website. One of the features I liked on the Holiday Inn Express' web site was that you could list in your booking preferences when your flight would have you arriving after 10PM. It was nice to have that added comfort that let the hotel know you hadn't bailed on the reservation. At Dad's choice, I booked us a 2 queen bed mini suite for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights.

I'm 5'7" and this lamp over the chaise lounge nearly conked me in the face every time I went to stand up out of bed.

Loved how instead of "Do not Disturb" the signs said "Hang On I'm Busy". Here you can also see the doors have the sensor for rubbing your key card over it to gain entrance.

This little lineup of plastic silverware was so funny to me

I had been getting over a cold just before we left so by the time we were landing at SFO, my usual ear popping feeling felt more like a vice across my forehead and every noise for most of that night sounded like I was hearing everything through a bag on my head. We had also rented a car service to take us to the hotel (thankfully this time an SUV) and it was a little off putting that the service insisted you get all your bags, get outside, and then call them to come get you. Thankfully it was decent weather as we waited the 15-20 minutes for this guy to show up. He was cordial and polite as we spent the ride asking questions about the area and how easy it would be to get to specific attractions. At the hotel, because of the late hour, we were the only ones at the front desk so check in was a breeze. This was the first time I'd booked a hotel for us under my own name and it was a unique experience trying to get through all the forms and instructions the woman at the desk was handing me when I could barely hear her because of my clogged ears. We had snagged a luggage rack that someone had left outside the lobby and made our way to the 4th floor. It took me until the 2nd morning in San Francisco to notice the sign outside the elevators identifying the 4th floor as the IHG Rewards floor. Don't know what made the 4th floor so special but we had to pass our room cards over the sensor in the lobby to call for the elevator.

There was a small set of steps leading to the rooms from the elevator but a long round about ramp off to the side for the luggage carts and anyone who needed wheelchair access. Our room was down the first hallway and then a couple rooms in after you turned so it was a quick walk back and forth to the elevators when we didn't have a heavy luggage cart to push. Our room featured a desk, dresser space doubling as the TV stand, an open closet with safe and ironing board, a chaise lounge by the window, and a bar area with sink, microwave, mini fridge and coffee machine. Dad immediately used the chaise lounge to stow our suitcases for easy use as except for hanging coats and our nicer clothes, we didn't bother to unpack our bags for our few days here. This was Dad's first cruise with me using his C-Pap machine and other than having to swap beds so that he could use the cords in the same position as how he sleeps at home, it worked well sitting on the nightstand between our beds. He left it sitting there the entire time so there was never an issue with it being moved or touched while the maid was cleaning. Dad used regular water for his machine during our time here but we had reached out to NCL's special needs department before we left and placed an order for distilled water to be left in our cabin. We didn't really use the fridge in the room except to store leftover drinks we'd picked up on tours and never tried the microwave.

I've noticed in several hotels this tendency to have heavy oversized doors to the bathrooms. When our bathroom door was opened, it lay flush with the wall but took up the whole wall.

I liked that we had a large assortment of towels stacked in our bathroom but found a couple issues I'd like to see modified. One is the limited amount of safety precautions for the tub shower. There was one safety bar right by the edge for holding onto when you get in and out but nothing to hold onto once in the shower. Also, you couldn't even tell there was any sort of anti-slip device on the bottom of the tub until you stepped in and it felt rough under your feet. Could have used something that didn't feel like it once was whole and had worn away.

The other issue in the bathroom is that the light was motion activated. You'd walk in to use the bathroom after being sound asleep in the complete darkness and be instantly assaulted by the bright fluorescent light. After a couple times of standing there blinded for a few minutes trying to convince my bladder to wait for my eyes to adjust, I started remembering to trick the motion sensor which was positioned on the entry wall just above the sink. I'd open the door, swing my arm into the room while keeping my head turned away. That was enough motion to trigger the light and I could then gradually swing my head around so my eyes were accustomed before I walked all the way into the bathroom.