SF Trip - Friday Afternoon/Evening

My wife and I spent last weekend in San Francisco. We had tickets to a Giants game Friday night, so we decided to drive up, check into a hotel on Friday afternoon and go to the game. It is much nicer when you do not have to drive back to Santa Cruz after a night game. We were able to get a good deal on the internet at the SF Hilton, so we decided to extend our stay through weekend.

We left Santa Cruz about noon. It was an easy drive up to the city and we found the hotel with no problem. We checked into our room and we were very happy with the hotel and the room. The room was nice sized and clean. The Hilton had all of the amenities that you would expect in a modern hotel. The staff was always friendly and considerate. And the bed was GREAT! Both nights we slept very well. The first night I slept for NINE hours and 8.5 hours the next night. And it wasn't a tossing and turning sleep, but a zonked out 9 hours. For me that is a really good night's sleep.

We had heard that it was a large hotel, but did not realize how large until we got there. The SF Hilton is a mega-hotel taking the whole city block. It is the largest hotel on the west coast with almost 2000 room in three towers. However, the size never really bothered us. We were on the 19th floor of the second tower and there were only about 30 rooms on our floor. About once or twice a day, it would get a little noisy outside of our room, but that can occur in any size hotel. The lobby was always busy, but we did not plan to spend much time in the lobby. We had a short wait to register, but it was not bad. A few times we ate in one of the hotel restaurants, but we never had to wait to get seated and we were able to order and get our food in a timely manner. Anyway, the size of the hotel was not a problem.

We were also very happy with the location. It was close to Union Square and the shopping district around Market Street. It was also just over a mile to the ballpark. The only thing that bothered me was that the Hilton charges $45 per day for parking. I discovered that most of the downtown hotels had similar fees, but I was not happy about it. However, as we drove up we found a parking garage, just across the street from the hotel, which charged $28 per day. Better, but still it seems high to me.

So we checked into the hotel, had lunch in one of the hotel's restaurants and rested for a few hours in the room. It was nice afternoon, so we walked to the ballpark. It turned out to be a very easy and very pleasant walk. There were many Giants fans on the walk with us. Everyone seemed to be in a jovial mood, looking forward to the game.

The game was a well-played and exciting game. It certainly helped that the Giants won the game 4-1. I have always enjoyed well-played, low-scoring pitching duels. The Giants pitcher, Matt Morris, was superb. He gave up a first inning homer and then shut out the Reds for the rest of the game. The Reds pitcher was pretty good as well, just not quite as good.

After the game, we had two ways to get back to the hotel. We could walk back or take a train back. Since the game got out early (9:30) and there were a lot of people about, we decided to walk back. We were a little nervous about walking through the city at night, but we had no problems. There were plenty of people about and we walked on well-traveled roads.

Both my wife and I had a great evening; it was a great way to start our weekend in San Francisco!