8th August 2016

San Francisco Cloudy start but Sunny afternoon.

We were due to arrive at 10am but it was after 10.30am when we did. By the time we were tied up it was nearer 12 Miday. As we are now back in USA after being in Canada we had to go through another face to face immigration inspection. It was once more an unbelievably slow process. As we were not on any ships tour we did not bother to line up early however as usual a lot of people did, even though a letter delivered to our cabin the night before suggested not to the line again stretched almost the length of the ship. We decided to go and have a coffee on deck 5 and watch for when the line got much shorter. We had our coffee and got sick of waiting so we went to lunch. After lunch we did join the line and there was still about 100 in front of us. They took us in batches of 50 so we did not have to wait long. We had decided to get a 48 hour ticket on the Big Bus HoHo ( Hop On Hop Off) bus which is what we did and went on the Red line tour which took us around the city and over the Golden Gate Bridge. Headphone were provided through which we got a commentary. We choose to sit upstairs of this open deck bus and this gave us good views. Actually Betty sat on one side and I sat on the other so that we both could easily take photos. The bus was full. The tour of the City was quite long but good. As we got closer to the Bridge and the water it got colder and we were glad we had cardigans. The bus turns around on the other side and after a short stop it re-crosses the Bridge, by this time it was getting quite cold. This tour had a stop right outside Pier 35 where our ship was berthed so we got off and returned to the ship for something to eat. Our 48 hour ticket also entitled us to a night tour so we walked back to the Big Bus office and caught the 7.30pm tour. This time we sat inside, down stairs which was much warmer. The Lady guide said to us that if we felt the cold during the afternoon the night time on the top deck is 10 times worse. However, this did not stop lots of people climbing the stairs. The tour was a little shorter than the afternoon but it did travel along a similar route but this time we went over the Oaklands bridge instead of the Golden Gate. This is a much longer bridge and is a double decker with 5 lanes on the top going one way and 5 lanes on the bottom going the other way. Its construction is similar to the Golden Gate and has been taken by some people to be the Golden Gate Bridge which incidentally is not painted golden but is actually orange. At the turn around point on this tour our guide announced that we could get off to take pictures but to note that the seat you are now sitting in is the one you should return to. The bus was full and some of the people on the top deck realized their mistake and would have tried to take the lower deck seats but could not. It was now beginning to get dark so the city lights now came into play giving it a new look. The lighting on the Oaklands Bridge has recently been changed to all Led lights and it looks spectacular and only cost $7 per night in electricity. When we returned to the ship we had a lovely view of the bridge from our balcony. It was then time for a hot chocolate and bed.