I am organizing a gathering of friends for June 09 and tentative plans are Thurs-Sunday in SF and Sunday to Wed in Napa/Sonoma. I have a few questions if anyone could help me to plan our schedule. We had thought to leave Napa Wed morning to go to SF airport. How much time should we allow? Is that doable or should we spend the night back in SF or at the airport? Is there a transport that could take us from SF to Napa? We may be a group of 20 and thought a mini-bus might be fun. And any recommendations on a touring company in Napa or Sonoma so we don't have to drive ourselves around a few wineries. Thanks so much!

Hi byronelaine,
My answer to you is the same as it was in April - especially since your group is larger-

Author: razzledazzle
Date: 04/06/2008, 11:19 pm
>>>"Do you know of a travel agency that helps large groups to see the wine country?"<<<<

There is a very good travel agency
north of me up in Santa Rosa, CA
(I live in Sonoma County)
www.hmstravel.com
1-800-367-5348
Part of their agency caters to
Napa & Sonoma Destination Mgt.
They can arrange it all for your
group.

If your plane is 10 AM or earlier, and due to the heavy weekday commute traffic,I would spend the night at SFO.

R5

I remember this post from before because Razzle gave such good advice.

However, I would not even bother driving from Napa unless the flight is after noon. Why have to get up pre-dawn and risk traffic problems when you can spend a nice night in any hotel in SF - or at the airport?

I remember all the advice and have used it. All hotels are booked and everyone is on their own to get there and some will have cars since they live in parts of CA. But my husband and I have an 11am flight Wed am to fly back to East Coast so your advice tells me I should cancel the hotel the last night in Napa and move on back to SF -- to the airport. Thank you.

absolutely.

Yup!

I would definitely cancel the last night in Napa and move south, but not necessarily all the way to the airport, unless you are planning to arrive at the hotel late or have a good way to get back and forth to the city. The airport hotels are not in a very interesting area ... and SF is such a great city. If yiu have an 11 a.m. flight out, it shouldn't be a problem to get a cab or shuttle to the airport from the city.

If you get a cab from the SF Union Sq area, it will probably be 15-20 mins door to door to the airport. The only glitch would be abnormally heavy traffic on 101.

If you stay at an airport hotel, it may take several minutes to wait for the shuttle, then 5 mins to the airport, then an additional 5 mins if there are many other travelers and you depart from the farthest-away terminal (United, American, etc). A cab, of course, would be quicker if you have one waiting by the lobby after you check out of the hotel - but I would not imagine a cab driver would be real happy to take you on a 5 min trip.

Stay Wed night in The City.

Stu Dudley

Since you have plenty of planning time and a reasonable group size, you should try to arrange a few private winery tours and premium tastings. We did a very nice one at Mondavi a few years ago that included a fine lunch with many wines. The cost was reasonable for what we got. Other wineries may have similar programs.

It's unclear from your posting exactly what your situation will be but if you don't have a car and want to get to the airport from Napa, Evans has a bus that leaves Napa at 8am and get into SFO at 9:45.

http://www.evanstransportation.com/s...irporter.shtml

Yes, Supercilious gives good advice. The Evans Transportation runs what is commonly known as an "airporter" between Napa and Sonoma Counties. The only way to go.

Thanks for all the good advice. The bus to SFO looks like it will work nicely. I will wait for friends to confirm and then make additional plans. Appreciate the suggestions.

Hmmm....jt, the Evans bus runs between Napa town, Vallejo and SFO or OAK, not Sonoma county.

The Sonoma airporter shuttle runs between Sonoma town (and Glen Ellen, Kenwood and Oakmont)
and SFO and OAK.

The Sonoma County Airport Express
runs to SFO and OAK with stops
along Hwy 101
it starts in Santa Rosa at the
airport and travels down to Rohnert Park & Petaluma - add San Rafael if going to OAK. We call this bus our
airporter over here

R5

You may have to catch the Sonoma County Airporter (Evans) in Petaluma. I picked my niece up there when she took it from the airport. (I was in Sonoma visiting my mother.)

We have used Platypus Tours a few times and they were great!
www.platypustours.com