This morning when we awoke around 6 am, we were already securely tied at to Pier 35 in San Francisco! I think it was the lights of the pier shining through our curtains just a tiny bit that awoke me. Being on main Deck, or Deck 1, we are positioned just one floor above where we would disembark. We have never had such a short walk to get off the ship!
We ate breakfast in the Lido Buffet, enjoying the view of the San Francisco Bay. We then returned to our room to pack up our belongings to go out for a walking tour today. We walked along the wharf towards the Golden Gate Bridge. First stop was Pier 39 - know for the constant presence of sea lions!
We then carried along and saw the Jeremiah O’Brien Ship - one of the remaining Liberty ships built amazingly quickly to deliver food and supplies during WWII. This one in particular was built in 60 days! A lot of the build was done by women! It also survived a fire on the wharf in May of 2020.
We then took a cab ride to Alta Park, in Pacific Heights, where we met with City Guide Julia Morgan. City Guides offers about 50 free walking tours in San Francisco - but they gratefully accept donations. We had about 12 people on the tour, and there was a mix of locals and visitors in attendance. Pacific Heights has a number of expensive homes that one could ooh and ahh over - but it was the history shared by our tour guide that made this tour incredibly informative. We heard about architect Julia Morgan, and stories behind the generosity of Maude Flood and Alma Spreckels who donated homes and land to schools. The guided walk was two hours in length and walked at a leisurely pace (if on some very steep hills) about 2 miles. I would highly recommend seeking out a City Guide tour if you are ever in San Francisco!
Once we left Lafayette Park, where the tour ended, we made our way down the hill towards the water and found a wonderful little place for lunch. I had a market salad with avocado and J had a buffalo burger. J bought a nice leather string for his hat - because a couple of times it has nearly blown off his head while walking around the ship!
We then found Ghirardelli Square where we bought some chocolate! They don’t put chocolates on your pillow at night anymore (we don’t think the cruise industry has recovered from two years of COVID - just one of the small things we have noticed on this cruise). We then stopped at a drugstore where I bought some dramamine (anticipating rough seas) as they don’t sell dramamine in Canada!
Once back on the ship, we went to the Lido for a snack and a cup of tea. We made an effort to stand outside on Deck 10 to watch our sailaway under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was chilly up on deck as we were dressed for dinner and had to make a B-Line for the third floor for dinner, where we were about 8 minutes late! That is when I saw the Golden Gate bridge out the rear windows from the dining room and it was a stunning vantage point! Hhmmm, well we will know for next sailaway!
After dinner, I was still cold from being up on deck for sailaway, so we decided to go for a hot tub! We went to the rear of the Lido Deck and had two hot tubs to ourselves. Lovely way to warm up and get ready for bed! Well our 20,456 steps are making my bed seem very appealing, but I will try to stay awake at least until 10 pm so we don’t wake up quite so early as tomorrow is another Sea Day!
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