Travelling the Golden Battle born Pelican Empire

[rock86]

So the time has finally come around for mrs rock and I to visit the US of A for our first time (it will also be the first time on a trip without our boys, so very mixed feelings!!).

Our travels will see us start in San Francisco, then onto Vegas with Thanksgiving being spent in NOLA, and our final destination the Big Apple.

Currently sitting in the QF Lounge at BNE awaiting the first premium long haul flight taken.

I will try and keep it as 'live' as possible throughout the trip, but it's my first trip report so please bear with me

 

[ellen10]

Sounds like a great family trip. How old are your boys? We did our first trip to the USA when our boys were 8&11, a good age.

 

[rock86]

Sounds like a great family trip. How old are your boys? We did our first trip to the USA when our boys were 8&11, a good age.

We unfortunately don't have the boys with us.

My wife needed to go for work and the grandparents encouraged us to make a trip of it and they'd take care of the boys for us.

We struggled with the decision (and still are!!), but they do love going and staying with both set of grandparents who are both on property. We've already got another trip pencilled in to take them over with us in 18 months time.

 

[ellen10]

@rock88 sorry I must have misread your post.
It is wonderful that you have both sets of grandparents to care and spend time with your boys. I'm sure they will have lovely special times together.
Enjoy your trip, I will look forward to following your trip report.

 

[craven morehead]

First long haul premium flight and first TR ........ sounds awesome ...... Enjoy!

 

[VPS]

Always appreciate anyone making the time and effort to do a TR - following along

 

[rock86]

Soooo first long haul premium flight, and no photo's for the trip report.....woops. But thoughts on the flights anyway:

QF55 (BNE-LAX) - Business

• Service was very good, very helpful and friendly FA's.
• While the food was better then economy (what isn't though) it was still fairly average (and one of the reasons I didn't take any photos of it) but maybe I was expecting too much? Anyway:
  • For dinner had the crab cakes, they were actually pretty good. The beef wasn't though, it was overcooked and fairly tough. And the ice cream sandwich was okay.
  • For breakfast the granola was good, but the bacon & egg brioche bun wasn't that crash hot.
• And the best bit by far, the seat. All the photo's and reviews you read still can't really prepare you for how much more comfortable it is! I never ever, ever sleep on a plane and usually disembark feeling like a zombie, but I got a solid 3.5-4hrs feeling good when getting into LAX.
• We got into LAX 20 mins early, but there was an Etihad a380 still in our bay so we spent an hour taxiing around LAX, so disembarked 40 mins late, oh well.

AA1319 (LAX-SFO) - Business

• Nothing special, just your average domestic business seat with some snacks since we were in the air less then an hour.

 

[Major]

Enjoy the trip

 

[love_the_life]

Enjoy the trip - bet the kidlets will be just fine. Looking forward to reading more,

 

[rock86]

San Francisco - Day 1

Didn't ventured out till late after catching up on some much needed sleep hrs.

As soon as we stepped outside there were people with lanyards everywhere, and the reason for the absolutely eye-watering accommodation prices that week. (4* properties were starting USD1,000 night - we managed to snag a room redeeming purchased World of Hyatt points luckily). It was the Salesforce Annual Dreamforce conference that was on which I read brings in over 100,000 people to the city (60,000 attendee's to the conference alone), we use Salesforce for our CRM, but I had no idea how massive a company they actually were.

First up we walked past Union Square due to the Grand Hyatt's close proximity, and Christmas decorations already in full swing (no lighting of the tree until this weekend though).



Good thing about the Dreamforce conference though was that there wasn't too many tourists and we managed to get fairly empty cable car rides up until Saturday.

 

[rock86]

For the rest of our first day we just wandered around to take in the city as we didn't have any plans for the day. As we took the cable car to the final stop the first place we come to was Fishermans Wharf.

Found some retired old Navy vessels.





And the sea lions lounging around.



Stopped for lunch and my first clam chowder ever, with crab - delicious!! (also just a precursor that I'm not one to take photos of every meal, so it'll only be the unique/delicious one's which will be in this TR).



Then a lovely walk down to the Ferry building (and seem a little bit of home in San Fran).

 

[rock86]

The night saw us do more exploring from the cable car routes.



Ending up in Ghirardelli Square and having a delicious sundae at the Original Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory.





Some old machines showing their original chocolate making process.



And then a short stroll to the cable car stop, with a lovely view of the Golden Gate bridge (even though not the best photo).

 

[snabbu]

Stopped for lunch and my first clam chowder ever, with crab - delicious!! (also just a precursor that I'm not one to take photos of every meal, so it'll only be the unique/delicious one's which will be in this TR).

View attachment 198103

I still remember my very first clam chowder in sourdough from fisherman’s wharf and it looked exactly like that... mmmmmmm
Enjoying your report keep it going

 

[ellen10]

Ooh yes I too remember my first clam chowder also, delicious!
Enjoying your report.

 

[rock86]

Well the 'up-to-date' trip report certainly didn't end up as planned - I tried several times to keep it up to date using the smartphone, but it was just way too difficult. Then when you get home, well normality just resumes - plus a lovely middle ear infection (I can't remember the last time I've had one, but it certainly made me realise again why kids feel so cough when they get them!!)

Anyhow, I'll try and get a few posts up this weekend and finish it off over the holidays - that's the 'plan' anyhow

 

[rock86]

The next day saw us head over to Alcatraz, what an interesting place. And while the prison and prisoners are the centrepiece, what was also very interesting was hearing about how many kids lived on the island and about their daily routines - imagine looking back at your childhood and having lived on Alcatraz.... But also just how expensive running the facility was, while it certainly makes sense given the location the fact that housing prisoners on Alcatraz cost more then it woud have at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC, it's a wonder how it operated for how long it did.

Anyhow, to the pictures.





D-Block: Nicer cells then the 'general population', a shame you were in them all the time apart from an hour or 2 a week....


Solitary confinement - how do you not go crazy in there? (I guess some of prisoners who were in there probably already fitted that description though...)



One of the Morris or Anglin bros escapees cells.


A view from the west side of the island, I'm not sure if the teepee is there permanently, or if it was part of the recently opened exhibition they had for 50 years since the Native American 'Occupation of Alcatraz'.


And looking back from where the buildings were that housed wardens and facilities required to run the prison, all fallen now.


And the views from Alcatraz, they are awesome aren't they (unfortunately there was a bit of haze around on the day we were over there).