Monday, March 31, 2025
My very first visit to San Francisco was in 1972. We were fortunate to have relatives that lived near San Francisco and didn’t mind being our tour guide. I can remember going over the Golden Gate Bridge, taking a cable car ride, driving down Lombard Street, eating lunch in Chinatown, and visiting the Japanese Tea Garden, the Ghiradelli Square, and Fisherman’s Wharf. I also remember how cold it was.
I just didn’t remember that we visited in August of ’72 until I found these photos that my Dad took, and the dates were on them. Maybe, if I had remembered, I would have thought to bring more warm clothes since we are now visiting in March/April. But I didn’t.
So fast forward to 2025. I woke up at 5:00. Didn’t sleep great. The seas were especially rocky last night. I heard a lot of clanging noises coming from the Lido deck above. Not typical.
At 7:00, the Captain opened the bow for the sailing into San Francisco. It was too windy for me, so I went to the Sea View area where the wind wasn’t as intense.
It misted rain for quite a while but by the time we finished breakfast the sun had come out.
We were docked at Pier 35 at Fisherman’s Wharf. We decided to walk down to Pier 39 looking at the shops and making our way to the sea lions – a staple of Fisherman’s Wharf since 1990 when they arrived in droves after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and just made themselves at home.
We stayed quite a while enjoying their antics of circling the docks and trying to jump aboard. I just couldn’t understand why they didn’t spread out. There were plenty of docks.
We then strolled back to the ship and had lunch at the New York Deli.
It was still sunny, so we decided to take advantage of it and go to the Sea View. Chuck even went swimming. I wasn’t brave enough for the water.
Suddenly, we all heard a huge bang. We looked over the side of the ship to the pier and saw that one of the moorings holding the ship in place had broken on the pier snapping the line. The ship had to deploy its thrusters to keep from banging against the dock. Then the whole gangway fell away. It was so lucky that there was nobody on it at the time.
People coming back to the ship couldn’t get back on the ship and people wanting to get off the ship couldn’t leave. Took 2 hours to get the gangway fixed. Had to call in a tugboat to help keep the ship in place. All this was caused by high cross winds. Crazy.
We enjoyed the time at the pool until it turned cool again. We got back to our cabin to find our laundry was returned, and candy had been delivered from the Casino.
We had dinner in the Pinnacle Grill. The rotating menu had some Mexican-inspired dishes. But, we chose our main course from the regular menu – lamb chops for me and filet mignon for Chuck. Meals were excellent.
Tonight’s world stage show was Humanity by the HAL singers and dancers. We’ve seen it previously on other ships so decided to skip it. The Casino was closed because we were in San Francisco overnight. We went to the second set of the Rolling Stone band and then called it a night.
Tomorrow – San Francisco
Travel Trivia*
San Francisco’s Chinatown is one of the largest Chinese communities outside of Asia and the oldest Chinatown in North America.
The Beatles held their final show in California performing at San Franciso’s Candlestick Park (now Oracle Park) in 1966.
The U.S. Navy originally planned to paint the Golden Gate Bridge black with yellow stripes. The Navy thought this would make the bridge easier to see through the fog, especially while under attack. The “International Orange” color, the current hue of the bridge, was intended to be a sealant—not a color option—to protect the steel, but during transit, it caught the architect’s eye and became the official color.
San Francisco’s cable cars are the only moveable National Historical Monument. The cables that pull the cars run at a constant speed of 9.5 miles per hour.
Philo Farnsworth invented the first electric TV in 1927 in San Francisco.
Chinese fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco by a Japanese resident named Makoto Hagiwara. As the story goes, he was the landscape designer for Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden and served the treats in the tea garden, popularizing the fortune cookie in 1909.
*provided by the California.com website