Day 18 San Francisco to London

  San Francisco, California, United States
Monday, June 2, 2008

Woke up at 7.30am and had a long lie, the bed was extremely comfortable. I noticed the pillow menu by the bed the night before, a pillow for all occasions. Even one with a speaker built in to allow you to listen to music (or strange whale humping sounds if you so desire I suppose). It was 8.30am before I heard my first police siren. I know there have been some reviews commenting on noise and heat in some of the rooms in the Chancellor but we found neither a problem. Both rooms have ceiling fans and the hotel is located in a convenient location a few yards off Union Square - you can't have it both ways. 
 

West & North side of Union Square

On the way out I asked if we could extend our room, we had it extended no problem till 2 pm. We made the most of our last few hours in the City and went for a walk in the sunshine - no fog for our last day. We had been going to have breakfast at Sears again but the queue was out the door, along the street and disappearing rapidly into the distance. We walked down to Bloomingdales and Catriona stocked up on Clinique products as they were about 70% of the price of even the Duty Free prices in the UK. Also, for any other visitors to San Francisco from outside the States, Macy's offer an 11% discount card if you show photo ID at their Visitors Desk on Level 6 (or we got given the voucher by the Chancellor Hotel on check in). Unfortunately it doesn't cover cosmetics :(
 
We then walked back up to Union Square and up at 11am to The Cheesecake Factory for Brunch. We got a seat outside in the sun and ordered Farm Fresh Eggs ( Two Farm Fresh Eggs Served with Potatoes. I had a Bagel and Canadian Bacon, Catriona had English Muffin with Bacon. Although the place had just opened it still took 20 minutes to get our drinks and 30 minutes to get our food. The bacon was another 5 minutes behind the eggs. There were others waiting longer than us as well, not as good service as we got yesterday.
 
We headed back for the hotel and did some final packing and chilling. At 2pm we went downstairs and checked out and sat in the lobby with the complimentary coffee and cookies until Lorrie's came to collect us. The Chancellor was an excellent stay and I was glad we managed to get at least a night here. I will have to start writing the reviews for all the places we have visited/stayed at for this trip and put them on TripAdvisor. Better do it before I forget.
 
Another tip, as we walked down to Bloomingdales we passed the queue to the Trams. There was a massive queue for both the Trams and the Ticket Booth. Firstly, the Guest Services just inside the door in the Chancellor sells MUNI 1 and 3 day passes, so go there to buy to save the big queues at the Tram turnpoint. They also sell Lorrie's bookings too.
 
Secondly, we noticed that the trams do not fill up completely at the end points. They always seem to leave room for other passengers. So don't queue at the star or end points for the tram lines - go one stop up. You are more likely to get on a LOT quicker than waiting down at the big queue at the start of the line.
 
Lorrie's duly arrived and only had one more pickup to do before heading for the airport. We arrived at SFO at about 3.30pm. Check in was fine, no queues. Why is it every other airport in the world seems to be nice and quiet and Heathrow is ALWAYS like a zoo?
 
The big bag weighing time came - one bag was 18.5kg, woohoo! The other was 24.5, doh! So when we get to London we need to move 1.5kg from one bag to another and squeeze another 3kg into our hand baggage to get both cases in limit for our next flight from Gatwick to Inverness. We got our pre-assigned seats, two upstairs in Club on the Upper Deck of the Jumbo.
 

SFO BA Lounge

We went through Security - again no big queues - and through to the British Airways Terraces Lounge. The place was fairly busy as there was another flight oiut before ours. We were there 3.5 hours before our flight as it was better to wait there than in the Hotel lobby.
 
Found some 2 day old UK newspapers and started catching up on what's REALLY happening in the world (all we have heard is Obama/Clinton). I started on some nice New Zealand white wine while Catriona managed to break the coffee machine (it stopped dispensing milk). Free Wifi in here so I did some more updating.
 
We were called to board at 6.10pm, you board directly from the Lounge which was good. We went upstairs to the Upper Deck (God Bless BA miles for upgrades!) to 63 J & K and got settled in. We had our first Champers of the flight (Charles Heidsiec of course)
 

San Francisco fron plane

The plane took off on time and climbed North, turning NE with a good view over San Francisco which was still fog free so got some good shots, especially of Golden Gate park.
 
Catriona settled down to watch a movie (National Treasure Book of Secrets) while I chose Jumper. We got a couple more glasses of Champagne and were served our dinner. Unfortunately the Laptop power for the seat was not working anywhere on the plane so I couldn't continue writing up my TA reports.
 
Our meal was Green tikka shrimp on crab and coconut salad with a Thai dressing, followed by Chicken Makhani with gobhi matar malala and basmati rice. Finished off with Caramel apple tart. Yum.
 

Free champagne onboard, woohoo!

I watched another movie (The Spiderwick Chronicles) before settling down to try and get some sleep. There was a call over the PA "If there is a Doctor onboard could he please make himself known to  a member of the Cabin Staff". This was second worst only to hearing any call beginning "if there is a Pilot onboard would he please..." OOer.