buckminster

Does anyone know which company offers a boat-only tour in San Francisco?

We are going in about 2 weeks and will only have 1 1/2 days there (arrive Sat. afternoon and leave Monday morning). We have been before with two of our kids and gone to Alcatraz, which we enjoyed, but don't want to do again (our oldest daughter wasn't with us last time).

I was thinking it would be nice to go out on a boat on Saturday afternoon but the tour company recommended on another thread seemed to only have bay tours packaged along with bus tours. We have 7 pm dinner reservations saturday night at an Italian place in North Beach, which we can walk to from the Argonaut Hotel where we're staying (in the Cannery buiding). So I'm looking for something to do Saturday afternoon after we check in to our hotel. After dinner, we'll probably walk to Coit Tower.

On Sunday, my husband would like to go to Golden Gate Park if the weather is nice, since we've never been there on past visits. I was thinking we could eat dinner at Ton Kiang afterwards, which is near there, and serves dim sum all day.

Sunday morning/lunch, not sure where to go. Any suggestions? I've heard the Ferry building is interesting, never been there. It's not near where we're staying (neither is Golden Gate Park), but I assume we can take cable cars/buses to these destinations. Our kids are older--17, 20, 23. We can walk through china town, but don't want to eat lunch there since we plan to have asian for dinner.

Thanks!

janisj

http://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/

Kerry392

My husband and I took the Blue and Gold Bay Cruise last summer and we were not impressed. First of all, the boat was mobbed. There were not nearly enought seats for everybody. Second, the tour was pre-recorded; it was very difficult to hear and childish.
We did not think the cruise was worth the money.

buckminster

Thanks Janis, that's perfect!

They have one tour that lasts an hour, or we can take the "Escape from the Rock" which is 90 minutes and circles Alcatraz for 30 minutes with narration. That might be interesting, anyone done it? (We've already taken the Alcatraz tour 3 yrs ago, although our oldest daughter wasn't with us so she's never heard any of the history).

Anyone have any comments on the Ferry Bldg near the Embarcadero as a place to visit/eat lunch on Sunday? I saw there is a restaurant called Hog Island Oyster Bar, that also serves good grilled cheese sandwiches for the non-oyster eaters in the group. We are not really interested in shopping, especially not in Union Sq. at the big dept stores, since we have all those same stores in Chicago and most of us don't like shopping that much anyway. I think we're going to spend the afternoon in Golden Gate Park if it's nice weather.

buckminster

Oh Kerry, you were posting at the same time as me. I was worrying about crowds, especially on a July weekend. Last time we were in SF, it was the end of March and not crowded. I have a low tolerance for mob scenes...

J_Correa

The Red and White fleet does boat tours as does Hornblower. I have not been on a Hornblower cruise, but I hear that they are good. I think that is the company that does the Alcatraz runs now, but they do a bunch of other cruises as well. I have been on the Red and White fleet bay cruises several times and they are good. If memory serves, they have a prerecorded headset thing you can listen to, but I never bothered - just enjoyed the view from the boat.

Another possibility is to take a ferry either out to Angel Island or over to Sausalito.

Supercilious

Why not take the ferry over to Tiburon on Sunday morning? You can have your boat trip and a nice brunch/lunch in a bayside restaurant.

I'm sure you can find something else to do on Saturday afternoon. Aren't you driving down from Mendocino that day? You might want to do something relaxing.

janisj

Just a point - ANY Bay cruise is likely to be crowded on a summer weekend. A limited number of boats and unlimited (or so it seems) number of visitors

buckminster

Thanks for the ferry idea. That does sound appealing. I had never even heard of Tiburon before; it's not in the tourist guide books. And Sam's Anchor Cafe sounds nice in Tiburon. Of course, we'll only be in S.F. for a couple days so maybe we'll want to spend all our time there this time around.

We are flying into SFO on Saturday afternoon and leaving Monday morning to begin our drive up the coast to Mendocino. When we return, we are spending our last night near SFO because we plan to take the whole last day to drive through the Russian River Valley (not going back into the city) and we have an early morning flight out on Saturday.

ppm

Another suggestion would be to take a catamaran tour around the bay.

http://www.adventurecat.com/bay_cruise.html

I think the catamaran we were on was a 50 footer and 20 other people were on with us. It is a 90 minute tour that departs from Pier 39. Travels around the sea lions, Alcatraz, past the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. The hubby and I did this in March and we had a great time!

buckminster

The catamaran trip looks awesome--thanks for the tip! I'll let you know what we end up doing.