Thank you! StuDudley, without tax and all the extras :)

<<<I think the day time tours are easier to get into though.>>>

Easier, but still not easy. They often sell out.

Oh, if you have good weather when you are here, do take a walk from Fort Mason past the Marina Green and the Yacht Club to the Warming Hut (all of which you can see on googlemaps). it's a beautiful (and sort of San Francisco-iconic) walk -- you will not be alone. You'll be with many, walkers, bikers, dogs, kite-flyers, etc.

>>As for restaurants, we're willing to spend around $20-25 a person, at the most without drinks for a good dinner<

That's going to be tough. Most "mains" at the better restaurants with "good dinners" start around $22-25. If you visit a restaurant and just order a "main", you be in & out of the restaurant in about 45 mins. You could order 2 appetizers each, and stay under $25 per person - try Gitane www.gitanerestaurant.com . An Asian restaurant would work too - but I am less familiar with them.

The best "full dinner", IMO, is the 3 course $24 fixed price menu offered at Butterfly from Tues to Thurs before 7PM.
www.butterflysf.com
We had this menu 2 weeks ago & was very nice.

Stu Dudley

dw...they can save a whole dollar on the passport. They only cost $26 for 7 days until 6/30/11.

Be aware that the California cable car line is totally shut down for awhile. In addition, all cable cars will be out of service from June 1-5. Apparently there may be other sporadic outages before all work is complete on their upgrades.

I agree with Stu finding good restaurants with entrees for less than $20 is pretty difficult in SF, much less a meal for $20-25 per person. That doesn't mean that there are not places to get cheaper eats, but those will tend to be pizza places, neighborhood Italian American, chinese, Mexican, Thai or other ethnic or neighborhood places. It's hard to give recommendations for those as most of us have are own neighborhood choices. As a general rule I find that French bistros in the City tend to be can be more reasonable, places like Le Charm for example has a $32 fixed price 3 course dinner. You might take a look at Chowhound for the City.

Thanks LoveItaly. That IS the route I think is fun for tourists to do, and what I've done several times.

The whichever-car I was on was an historic looking one, lots of wood, vintage signage, open air, with the driver (and the brake!!) right there. Now I have no idea if it WAS a streetcar or a cablecar -lol!

If it ran on fairly flat ground to the Wharf it was a vintage streetcar on the F line (not to be confused with the new streetcars on the J,K,L,M and N lines, which go underground as well as above; if it climbed steep hills it was a cable car. To make things even more confusing we have also have regular buses and trolley buses, which are not to be confused with streetcars!!!

Suze, cable cars are the iconic ones in the Rice-a-Roni commercials. The others to which you refer are great - but much later additions to the Muni Railway inventory.

If you google "cable car" and "f line san francisco", and click on "images", you'll see the difference immediately.

Here you go, suze, this website shows all the historic streetcars.

http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/

Hello mschau, here is a list of what the SF Chronicle calls their "Bargain Bites" from their website. Not all places are in the SF and not knowing what type of food you two enjoy I have no idea if any of the SF places would appeal to you. It seems from a bit of clicking on some of the names on the list many only have food to go and many are in very small spaces so the wait to get a table can be awhile. Anyway I am posting this in case you want to review the list to see if any place(s) are of interest to you and your mother.

http://www.sfgate.com/food/bargains/

I repeat: Farallon's "Six Untill Seven" menu is an awesome meal Nyday before 7pm. THREE appetizers cost $18 and would be too much food for one person.

Thank you everyone for the suggestions.

Can't wait to try all of your suggestions!

We are leaving on Saturday and my mom and I are torn between a few things. We are taking Mr. Toad's Tour (90 minutes) Saturday afternoon, but were also debating between Muir Woods or a day trip on Mr. Toad's to Monterrey and Carmel.

Any suggestions to clear up our debate?

I don't think a first-timer can do justice to Carmel/Monterey on a "day trip". Most likely, too much time driving & too little time "being there". Save it for your next trip out here when you can spend at least 2-3 nights in the Carmel/Monterey/Pacific Grove/Big Sur/Hwy 1 area - so you can fully appreciate this wonderful section of the USA.

Only 1 "r" in Monterey.

Stu Dudley

We did so many great things in San Francisco with all of your suggestions! Thank you again. We had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves. I don't think we could have crammed anything else into those 4 days if we tried!

Saturday we did a tour with Mr. Toad's which was absolutely fantastic and a great way to see parts of the city that we maybe wouldn't have had time for. Spent majority of the day doing the touristy things. We explored Fisherman's Wharf, Ghiradelli Square, North Beach. We went to dinner at Colibri by our hotel. Shared a few appetizers and it was great!

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at Canteen and it was FABULOUS! If you haven't tried their eggs benedict, you need to! Only 4 booths and a counter. It was exactly the place that we were looking for. We explored more of North Beach, Chinatown- had lunch at Hunan Homes- which was also great. And explored Union Square. We took our time at Gump's and enjoyed that beautiful store.

Monday we took the ferry to Sausalito, but went through the ferry building first. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. I loved the market in the ferry building! We ate at Spinnaker's in Sausalito and walked around a little bit. We probably could have gone without seeing Sausalito but it was worth going once. We also heard about the murals in the Mission. My mom is an art teacher, so she wanted to see them. After Sausalito, we ventured to the Mission and saw the murals. We weren't there long though. We took the bus back to the hotel and ate at the Six until Seven at Farallon! It was fabulous!

Tuesday we had breakfast at Mama's before our flight home. We headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art Museum Store for some last minute art teacher shopping! And before we left, I wanted to see the Full House home, so we took a cab to Alamo Square Park, got out and took pictures in the park, and hopped in the cab! And it was back to Chicago!!

Thank you again! We had a great trip!