# 12: Homewood Bound

No rush, let's take a few extra days and go via San Fran!

With all of the Islands of the cruise now behind us, it was time to relax for two days at sea on our way back to Fort Lauderdale. Alana and Dan, (along with Adam and Jessie) had suggested that Mary and I join them for a few days in San Francisco before flying back home to New Zealand. We hadn't been there, so it sounded like a good plan to us.

Firstly though, it was two leisurely days around the pool, basically with nothing to do and all day to do it! 😁 These can be very social days; you are all together, it is hot, you are just in and out of the pool, and also very thankful that you purchased the "Drinks package!"

Generally, it is at this time that the cruise line offers some very tempting deals on future cruises. In this case, with Celebrity Cruise Line we found the deals on offer were pretty much too good to turn down. Mary and I had a good talk about the options and took the plunge and rebooked for a Mediterranean cruise for 2015. For anybody who hasn't been on a cruise before, my advice is as follows. Firstly, make sure you get a cabin with a balcony. I know that there are cheaper options but personally, I couldn't cope with an inside cabin with no windows or even an "Oceanview" cabin, these have a porthole but that is it. Secondly, if you don't get a drinks package as part of your package then it is well worth purchasing one. These don't just cover alcohol but also specialty teas, coffees, and non-alcoholic beverages. I have heard some horror stories of travelers getting a huge fright when they receive their account before getting off the ship!

The future cruise that we booked included the Aqua Class upgrade, a drinks package for both of us, gratuities, and a balcony cabin. We only had to pay a 10% deposit, and this was totally refundable should our circumstances change, and we couldn't travel. It was also heavily discounted!

While these are fun filled days, they are also tinged with sadness as we all know that our fantastic cruise experience is coming to an end. The nine of us from New Zealand that embarked on this adventure will all get to see each other again, sadly though, we have to say farewell to our new friends Roy and Sally, although I'm sure we will reunite again in the future. We have planned to possibly catch up following our newly scheduled Mediterranean cruise. The last night of a cruise for us was a bit quiet, (apart from farewell tears) as we had to be packed and in bed early with the aim of being off the ship as soon as it docked. Alana had booked a taxi van to get us to the airport for our 8.30 am flight to San Francisco. This not only meant been prepacked but also collecting our Passports and settling any outstanding accounts. As mentioned in one of the earlier posts from the cruise, you don't pay for anything with cash when you are on board and every purchase goes onto to your ship pass for settlement prior to departing. We hadn't been too bad as there were no drinks to pay for but there had been some duty-free shopping to sort out from the shops on board and a couple of meals from the "specialty" restaurants.

There was also a story to tell about the casino on board. I had a win of a few hundred dollars on the first night and ended the night with 4 black chips still in my pocket, (US$100 each) and had forgotten to cash them in before heading to bed. In the morning, I just put them into the safe in our cabin. A couple of nights later the same thing happened so they went into the safe as well; to say I had a successful time in the casino is a bit of an understatement and I continued to collect the black chips at regular intervals throughout the cruise. On the last day I remembered that I had to collect these and cash them in, (all 30 of them!), (obviously not all profit!) I went into the casino and took them up to the cashier's window to collect, little did I know what a stir I'd caused, and I was put given the third degree with questions about how I had obtained them! 😏 Luckily, they accepted my explanation and paid me out!

The ship was docking at about 3am the next morning and the plan was to be down and ready to be one of the first off. I had envisaged that there would only be a handful with the same idea, but I was shocked to see upwards of about 100 or more waiting to get off early. We had only been able to get about 4 hours sleep so I was hoping that everything would go according to plan, and we could get some more shut eye on the flight to San Fran.

We got to the airport, and it was chaotic with people everywhere. We hadn't realized that it is actually Easter Sunday, obviously we lost all sense of days when on the ship! We finally managed to find our terminal and checked in; we were flying with Jet Blue on what should have been a 6-hour flight. On boarding the flight, we were informed that there could be a delay in taking off. I didn't worry too much about this because at least we were on the plane, with that I proceeded to drop off into a deep sleep. I woke up quite some time later, (over two hours) and we were on the ground, I mistakenly thought we had landed in San Francisco! But no, alas we were still on the tarmac in Fort Lauderdale! 🤬

This is where the fun started!

We were then told that due to a mechanical issue we had to disembark, collect our luggage and try to rebook flights. I won't bore you with all the details, but the condensed story is our direct 6-hour flight that should have had us landing in San Fran at 11.30am West Coast time got us there at 11.30PM after having to go via Denver to LA with and then on to San Fran and getting on and off the plane at each stop! We finally arrived in San Fran and just when you think it can't get any worse, Mary's suitcase didn't arrive, and this had her cancer treatment injections in it. We had to leave the airport without this and finally got to our hotel, (the Westin St Francis) at well after midnight. The airline was made well aware of the urgency with the suitcase and so was the reception at the hotel. Obviously, the news that it contained essential cancer drugs meant that it got some urgency, and we were woken up around 3am with the news that the suitcase had been left outside our door.

All of this meant that we had totally missed one of our two days in San Fran. After what we had gone through to get there, we really wanted to have time to have a decent look around, so I managed get in touch with Air New Zealand and without spending too much was able to delay our flight home by a day.

San Francisco was everything that I had imagined it to be, a truly metropolitan city full of hustle and bustle, heaps of top end shopping and some very iconic sights that are a must to see. We were staying at the very beautiful Westin St Francis Hotel on Union Square. Famous as the home of celebrities and dignitaries while in San Francisco and the foyer area pays tribute to many of those that called the hotel home while in town. One of the more notable, (or notorious) events from the hotel's history was the assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford on September 22nd, 1975. Sara Jane Moore fired two shots at the president as he walked out of the hotel towards his car in Union Square, both shots missed, this fact and along with more recent events probably explains why the US didn't win any medals in shooting at the latest Olympics! 😉

The Westin St Francis hotel and foyer.

A sample of the special guests that stayed at the Westin, Shirley Temple, The Queen and Ronald Regan!

Worth a read, The hotels history during WW2

Even though we were totally exhausted from the previous day's events, we still didn't sleep in for too long, we had a lot to see and only a short time to see as much as we could! We started the morning with a tram ride from Union Square that took us down to San Francisco Bay. One thing that I'd really wanted to do was the trip out to Alcatraz but to my disappointment this is something that needs to be booked in advance, my inexperience caught me out on this, but we still took advantage of a beautiful morning walk around the Bay. One highlight was Pier 39 where the seals and sea lions "sunbathe" on the floating pontoons, (and anything else they can climb onto) in the harbour. This was quite a sight, and they are certainly the centre of attention for everyone with a camera, while they look good though, be aware that they are quite pungent!

From the bay we caught another tram back to the Westin as we knew that the double decker tourist busses departed from Union Square at regular intervals during the afternoon. I can suggest that for anyone with a limited amount of time, the sightseeing busses are a great way to see the main attractions. For us, the Golden Gate Bridge was a must see! The tour lasted around two hours, and you can get off and spend more time if you want and then get on the next bus that comes through. We didn't bother doing that as we were both tired and time was of the essence. The bus stopped on one side of the bridge for photos and then took us over the bridge to get a good view. Driving over the bridge toward Marin County you look to your right back over San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz and to your left the Pacific Ocean, since it opened in 1937 it has been the most iconic images to portray San Francisco.

After the tour we went and freshened up at the hotel before joining the others for a meal at "Lefty O'Doul's", a typical SF bar that Dan and Adam had found just around from our hotel. Mary and I were too shattered to give the SF nightlife a shake up, so it was early to be for us!

I have a pretty good appetite, but I couldn't do justice to the meal at lefty's!

Our last day involved some last-minute shopping, Alana had introduced us to Nordstrom Rack and Saks Fifth Avenue outlet stores where there are bargains aplenty! One necessity was for a new suitcase so we could get everything home!

All good things must come to an end, and we had crammed a lot into a little over three weeks. As mentioned in the first edition of this series, Mary had been to hell and back with her cancer treatment prior to this and to be able to complete this journey without any major health issues was a godsend! We were truly grateful to those that joined us and made this adventure so amazing. It has certainly given us the travel bug for more, that is for sure so once home it is back to the drawing board to plan for the next adventure that life takes us on!

Thanks for reading!

A beautiful day for the topless bus tour and as close as I got to Alcatraz, the model on the shoer!

A typical San Francisco scene!

What seems like thousands of sea lions, but

man do the smell!