I will use any excuse to travel, a friend's birthday, a relative's birthday, an acquaintance's birthday, therefore, my bachelorette weekend was no acception!
Here is our itinerary for our ladies' weekend away in San Francisco that doubles as a guide for yours! 😉
First off, I chose this destination because it was fairly inexpensive for everyone to get there from Denver and Vancouver. The second biggest reason was that we all love wine and going for a wine tasting in wine country sounded perfect for this group. So we set off from Friday night to Monday afternoon.
Day 1:
We left day a bit open since we were coming from different cities and getting on later flights so that we could still make it to work on Friday morning. Once we all arrived to the Airbnb we got settled in and hung out.
Day 2:
We looked into tours and the famous wine train. Both looked awesome but the were very pricey. Paying for a wedding gets pricey and so does participating in one, along with all of it's events, so we did some research to get the biggest bang for our buck. Schedule Ahead for sure!
We did the math and between five us it was the best value to get a limousine that did a wine tour. We went with Allure Wine Tours. You can call and give them your itinerary so they can schedule the stops accordingly. We chose to do the champagne tour considering the occasion. We went with the day tour of 6-8 hours that ranged from $360-480 and customized it a bit and asked them to throw in a couple different vineyards. Seemed like a great deal and all in all it was. There were just a few cons.
When we called to schedule our tour they said the minimum time would get us from San Fransisco to Napa, to three wineries, and back to our Airbnb in six hours. It was suppose to only take an hour to get to Napa but it really took about two hours with traffic. According to the driver, there is "ALWAYS" traffic so there was no way it would only take an hour. An hour into our journey one of us had to make a pit-stop to the ladies room. The driver told us we were almost there, but in all reality we were only half way there. It became an emergency pit-stop at that point. I know it was a bit difficult for him to stop at a gas station with the length of the limo but it was must. Luckily, we came across a McDonald's/gas station stop.
A pro to this service was that they provided croissants, mimosas, and fresh strawberries with our ride. Another pro was that our driver was awesome, we nicknamed him Heazy.
Once we finally arrived to the first vineyard we were dropped off at the front and had to explore on our own. Not a bad way to experience a vineyard but it was not as expected. We all pictured a tasting of different wines before we decided to purchase but we had to decide from the menu. They offered a taste of whatever bottle you wanted but the bar was swarming with other visitors, no different than a busy bar on a summer day. We had to fight our way to the front of the bar. Although the atmosphere was not as expected we still had a great time!
The next vineyard was red wine vineyard. Here we stopped for lunch and a bottle of wine. Since it took so long to arrive to Napa this was going to be our final stop in Napa before heading back to San Fransisco. There were a few vendor tents serving food in this gorgeous setting and nice little picnic area next to the train that passed over so often. The hard part was finding a spot to sit in the area, it was a bit overcrowded but that seemed to be normal for a vineyard.
So funny story happened here that I just have to share:
A good friend of mine, that was with our group, had to stop at the busy ladies' room after a few glasses of wine/champagne. When she came out she swore up and down she left her phone in the bathroom stall and when she went back it was gone. Trying to resourceful, we used my phone to track her phone. Sure enough, her phone was on the move! We had to act quick. The phone was now across the street at another vineyard that didn't seem to have many visitors so it would be easy to find the people that the little blue ball lead us to. I found it a bit strange that the "thief" didn't think to shut the phone to not be tracked but I went along with it. We had to find a way to get across a busy street and over a median. I was wearing converse with my dress so I was thankful for that. Once we crossed the road with were led to a grassy area that we thought we be a shortcut to the location of blue ball that finally stopped moving. We didn't pay much attention to the sun in front of the grassy area, but I imagine it said something like "do not walk through grass because it was soggy and muddy". Running across it we found out the hard way, before I knew it my entire shoe was engulfed in mud a few steps back and my white socks were no longer white. We were half way through the grassy area so we had to either go back or finish our journey through the swamp. Crossing the swamp we saw a limo that looked like ours and as we enclosed on the location of my friend's phone it appeared that it was closer and closer to our limo. As we approached our limo I turned to my friend and said "any chance you left your phone in the limo?" We discovered that in fact she did leave it in the limo, it had fallen onto the floor. The driver had to find a place to park and that is why he chose the parking a lot across the street at the empty vineyard. Case solved! Even though my feet and shoes were covered in mud and I had to clean up in the sink of the bathroom, and cut my friend off of the wine tasting 😉, it created a fun memory we will never forget!
That incident about wrapped up our trip to Napa. We grabbed a bottle of wine for the road, for the rest of us 😂 and were on our way. Note to self and the rest of you: If we decide to take a wine bottle for the limo ride back be sure to bring some kind of wine bottle opener or cork screw. It was quite hilarious trying to use the shoe trick of opening a wine bottle in the back (look it up on youtube if you don't know what I'm talking about). We ended up using a key to shove the cork into the bottle, rather out but it worked!
That night we got dressed up and went out for a few drinks. My friends know I like speakeasies so they found one for me at the top of the hotel. San Fransisco was and still is one of the most expensive cities in the country so anytime we ate we had to be careful of what we spent. It was be easy to go overboard but the prices also kept our appetites and thirst at bay.
Lucky for us one of the girls has a cousin that lives in San Fransisco and works at the famous Anchor Steam Brewery, so he hooked us up with a fridge full that left for a great gift to our Airbnb host. If you read this email us an we might be able to hook you up as well, who doesn't like FREE BEER?! This trip was my first experience with Airbnb, read about it here. Since then they have redeemed themselves and I use them often, turns out there was a glitch in the system and it affected everyone that booked at the exact moment I did.
The house we stayed in was super cute and not a bad deal on Airbnb!
We went out for a few cocktails and planned on going out dancing since we were all dressed up but we ended up back at the house playing games and breaking into our stash of Anchor Steam. It was much more fun than if we would have gone out, that is what I think anyway. :)
Day3:
Brunch and Sightseeing was the plan for the day. The couple of us that did not stay in bed made our to buy famous cruffins at MR. HOLMES BAKEHOUSE.
There is an actual countdown of when they will be open. They sell so you want to get there early, like before they open. We made it just in time to grab a few to try. We stocked up on a few of their baked goods for the entire crew to try since they weren't able to join us early enough ;) The cruffins were delicious but I do not think I'll be standing in line for them again anytime soon. The rest of the group finally was finally able to muster up the will power to join us for some sightseeing and hardy food.
We made our way, on foot, to Fisherman's Wharf. Anyone who has traveled with Travelista Life knows we do love walking everywhere, it is the only way to take in the sights!
We were all starving arriving to our destination so we stopped at the first place we thought we found a good deal for a clam chowder bread bowl. It was a bit of a tourist trip. It was a lot a bit more than the sign advertised on the sidewalk. We should have known better, but it happens from time to time as a tourist, but in our defense we were desperate for some food at this point. Little did we know if we would have kept walking we would have gotten fully into Fisherman's Wharf where loads of options could be found from the busy vendors, not to mention much larger portions for the money. Don't judge us but we sampled more once we came across other things we couldn't wait to try, like oysters and calamari!😋. After indulging ourselves on so much tasty food we made our way over to where the ferry for Alcatraz departed. It was about a 15-20 minute walk from Fisherman's Wharf. Be sure to book your tickets ahead of time, weeks in advance. Times sell out quick, proven by this solo picture down below. It is the product of me booking my ferry ticket and telling others to book that day but no one takes you seriously haha.
It so happened to workout, my friends just left before me and had to wait for me to arrive on the next ferry before we could continue with the tour. I know this seems like a bit of an odd thing to do on a bachelorette party weekend but we are all kinda nerdy and love a good history lesson. We highly recommend taking the tour. It is very interesting and went pretty quick. It is easy to imagine it in it's hay day with the narration provided. We even got to meet a lady that was one of the officer's children, that lived on the island. We spoke to her about how it was first hand living on an island with some of the most dangerous criminals. So cool!
After the tour, we get on the next available ferry back to the mainland where we had to part ways with of the girls.
We had plenty of leftovers to take home for dinner so we were not worried about dinner that night.
Day 4:
Monday finally came around and our weekend was coming to an end. We had until the afternoon to
get in some last minute sightseeing. On my previous trip to San Fransisco there were a few things I didn't get to see unclose, Alcatraz was one, and the other was the Golden Gate Bridge. I felt like this was a must at least once. We stored our bags at our Airbnb during checkout, which we arranged with our host, and set out to see the bridge. We was a bit chilly and foggy, naturally so we got some pretty cool snaps of the bridge in it's element. I had to stop for some hot water to hold in my hands to help me through the cold at the on sight convenient store.
After some photos we grabbed an UBER back to the house to collect our things. On the way to the airport we had to stop for some dim sum. We were craving it as we reminisced about our trip to China the year before. We stopped in a business district and ordered a lot of dim sum, we were definitely going to be in a food coma on the plane. We didn't think we had ordered as much as we did but once the bill came, there was no question about how much we had ordered haha.
We arrived at the airport together only to depart the only way we know how, in a hurry! We never get a proper goodbye in, it has become our tradition, but we know it won't be long until we see each other again. We knew we would see each other for the big day in about a month anyway. 😊 (Can you believe it has been about a year already)?
Who better to be there with me on my special day than these two beauties. 😘💕
