This was our last day in San Francisco. We’d be flying to San Diego in the late afternoon to begin the next phase of our adventure.

Late Breakfast and the Gym

Since the boys and I were up late the previous night at the basketball game, we slept in as late as we could. For us, that meant about 7:30 am. Our youngest was still sleeping when Tomatico started to demand breakfast, so my wife took him to the lounge. By the time they were back, our youngest was up, and we decided to go to the gym as a family to keep our workout streak alive.

We had originally planned to go to a museum or a book store, but with the afternoon flight, we didn’t want to rush things, so the gym was a good alternative. We spent about an hour getting our sweat on before heading back to the room. Our youngest and I showered and got dressed first and headed out to our favorite bagel shop instead of going to the lounge. While the lounge was pretty good, we had a hunger for bagels.

It was a short 10-minute walk to the shop, and it didn’t disappoint. Fresh warm bagels are the best! We ate them as we walked back to the hotel to figure out what to do next.

Packing and Lunch

The previous day I had requested late checkout at the front desk, so we had the room until 3 pm, though we’d be off to the airport before then. The boys watched a documentary on TV while we packed our suitcases.

We then decided to head to an Italian place located in the hotel building. We got there just as it opened and quickly got seated. The food arrived shortly. My wife loved her pizza. Tomatico tried the chicken parm, but it was a bit spicier than he liked, though he still ate most of it. The cheese pizza I shared with our youngest was enjoyable though nothing all that special.

Splitting Up

After lunch, we had about 90 minutes to fill and no consensus on what to do, so we split up. Our youngest and I decided to walk through part of Chinatown to see what it was like. It was a 10-minute walk, right past the bagel shop, to get to the decorated entrance to Chinatown. From there, we walked up a hill, and the stores became less and less western with each block.

We didn’t venture into any of the shops as we weren’t interested in any of the souvenirs most were selling, but the street was interesting to walk down. I’m sure down some of the side streets, things got even more interesting, but my youngest was getting bored, so we headed back towards the hotel.

On the way, we realized one of the streets was California Street that one of the cable car lines runs on and is very steep. My youngest was up to the challenge, so we decided to walk up to the top to prove that we could do it.

Pictures don’t do justice to just how steep the hills are. It was a challenge to walk up to it, but we managed! From the top, we headed back down to Union Square and then back to the Metreon shopping complex across the street from our hotel. My wife and Tomatico were at a technology showcase store-within-a-store at Target, and Tomatico was trying out some of the VR gear and video games they had.

Earlier, they had gotten some ice cream in a taiyaki cone. It’s all the rage. It’s a fish-shaped come that tastes like a waffle cone mixed with cake batter, according to my wife. They both liked it.

We met up with them at the Target technology showcase and decided to check out the cones ourselves as the shop was next door. They had some extreme flavors that we weren’t interested in, so we passed and got some yummy cupcakes in the booth next door. We are not the foodies my wife and Tomatico are.

Getting to the Airport

It was getting time to start thinking about checking out, so I left the three of them at Target and went up to the room to finalize the packing. When they made it up, we grabbed all our luggage and went down to check out. We verified the bill and requested a Lyft. The app did the driver no favors as they directed I’m to a route where he had to cross over four lanes of traffic to get to us, but he was eventually able to get over to us.

There was minimal traffic on the way to the airport, and the airport itself wasn’t all that busy. Most people were smart enough to travel before Christmas Eve! We checked our bags and were through security within 10 minutes of arriving at the airport.

Dinner at the Lounge

San Francisco has two lounges listed in the Priority Pass app, and both are restaurants. We found one of the restaurants but not the second. Luckily that one had food that looked (and smelled) good, so we ended up eating at the Yankee Pier. Since my wife and I both have the Priority Pass, we could get a total of $112 credit towards our bill, excluding gratuity, just like we had in Boston before our flight to San Francisco. We had eaten an early lunch, specifically knowing we’d be eating an early dinner at the airport at one of the Priority Pass restaurants.

The food was excellent and came out relatively quickly, even though we said we weren’t in a rush when they had asked when taking our order. As soon as I sat down, we got a notice that our flight was delayed by 20 minutes. Bummer.

While we waited for our food, I looked up my brother in law’s flights to see if he was running into any delays on his itinerary. Luckily he was not. He had made it to Chicago from JFK and was waiting for his flight. I noticed in the app that the plane he was to fly had been switched out at the last moment, but the scheduled times had not. He texted us that JFK was pretty chill like San Francisco was for us, but Chicago was a madhouse. Luckily that didn’t seem like it would affect his flight times.

Our flight, on the other hand, looked like it might be delayed further. I could see that the plane we would be taking to San Diego was still on the ground in Eugene, Oregon. It wasn’t clear the reason, but it was estimated to take off about an hour later than scheduled, so there was no way we were only going to be delayed 20 minutes.

Waiting in the Terminal

After dinner, which was completely covered by the Priority Pass credit, my wife took the boys to the book store while I headed to the terminal to catch up on some blogging. I continued checking the status of our flights and saw our departure time getting pushed out further and further. It didn’t feel like this was going to cause our flight to get canceled, but it was annoying not knowing why it was being delayed. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, though.

Our plane finally arrived at the gate about 30 minutes after we were supposed to depart, and they quickly deplaned. We saw some people rushing out of that plane to another gate to try to make their connection. Unfortunately that flight had left about 15 minutes before. The people were not happy as it didn’t look like they’d be making it home for Christmas.

Walking around the terminal, I noticed most of the stores and restaurants were closing early due to the holiday. Good thing I didn’t need anything, and luckily the restaurant was still open when we initially got through security as we would have had some hungry and angry boys to deal with! It did have a sign that it was closing early, so it’s good we arrived when we did.

Our plane was being cleaned and catered, and we went to stand in our boarding lane, so we’d be ready to board when it was our turn. We noticed the catering and fuel trucks had moved on, but they still weren’t boarding. Not a good sign. The agent then announced that maintenance was looking at an issue with the plane and would be giving an ETA on if it was going to be a short delay or a long delay. Ugh…

About 5 minutes later, we got the good news that the issue was fixed. They must have rebooted something to get it working again! We were now ready to board our short and uneventful flight to San Diego. It was just over an hour in the air.

Welcome to San Diego!

On the approach, we could see our hotel just before we landed. The airport is right in the heart of the city, so it’s easy to get to all the places you need. The terminal we were in was nice as well. Our bags came out relatively quickly at baggage claim, and there was clear signage as to where to get a Lyft or Uber. Lyft and Uber each had their side of the curb for pickups.

We requested our ride, which was only a couple minutes away before we watched it inexplicably drive away from the airport for a few minutes before stopping. After another minute, they slowly turned around and headed back to us. Then, when they were about 2 minutes away, the app said they had arrived and was waiting for us, even though they hadn’t. This drives me crazy because if it takes them too long to get to me, I get charged for making them wait even though they were the ones making me wait.

Luckily it was only a short ride to our hotel. I think we waited longer for the Lyft to pick us up than it took to get to the hotel. We quickly checked into the SpringHill Suites Bayfront, which overlooks the water. It’s a relatively new hotel, and a Residence Inn is in the same building with some shared facilities like the pool, fitness center, and breakfast area.

We got upgraded to a room with a better view due to my wife’s status. At this hotel, everyone gets a free breakfast. For her status, she also got a welcome gift, which was a bottle of water and some snacks.

From our room, we could see the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum as well as the water. The room itself had two queen beds and a double-sized sleeper sofa. The room wasn’t large, but we’d be able to fit all five us in as my brother in law would be staying in the room with us once he arrived.

His flight was looking to be on time. He had boarded his flight to San Diego when we were in the air. When we checked in to the hotel, we added his name to the reservation so he could get a key card when he arrived. We also go his bed set up so he could crash right away when he came as it would be pretty late for him.

Laundry on Christmas Eve?

The hotel had some pretty nice laundry facilities, and the kids were starting to run out of clothes. We had initially planned to bring our laundry to get cleaned someplace locally. We weren’t sure the kids had enough clothes to wait until the end of the week as we wouldn’t likely be able to find a place open on Christmas Day. My wife decided that since she was going to wait up for her brother anyway, she might as well get the laundry out of the way. The laundry room had a TV and some comfortable seating with modern machines, and they, fortunately, took credit cards. She also bought a small bottle of wine to help pass the time and add some holiday cheer!

She was done just about the time that her brother arrived. At least that’s what she said. I had passed out by that time as I was still recovering from the late night at the basketball game the night before. I didn’t even know he was there until I woke up the next morning.

We had all arrived safely in San Diego, and the hotel was going to work out nicely for the few days we’d be there. The boys would wake up to find their uncle for Christmas. They had been talking about him joining us ever since the trip began and had been counting down the days until they got to see him.