I've Bean Travelling

Following our successful trip to New York City with baby Teddy, we were excited to embark on our next family travel experience. This time, we ventured out west to San Francisco for just over a week, to visit Teddy’s uncle and do some exploring around the Bay Area.

We flew again via Porter Airlines but this time departing from Toronto Pearson International Airport. It was a mid-morning flight so we left home around 7 am and arrived with ample time to check-in. We were able to check our travel crib for free and gate checked our stroller like last time.

Again, we purchased Teddy his own seat on the plane so he sat in his car seat for the flight. I was a bit anxious about how he would tolerate the longer flight this time around, but he did amazingly and slept for the first 3 hours of the 5 hour flight. He awoke for about an hour for a bottle and diaper change, and enjoyed looking around and smiling at the other passengers. He was so well behaved that multiple people approached us to comment on how he was such a great traveller! In my opinion, having his own seat was key to our pleasant flying experience, and we plan to continue buying Teddy his own seat for all our flights moving forward.

We landed at SFO in early afternoon. Annoyingly, our gate checked stroller was not delivered to us at the gate and we had to carry Teddy in his car seat all the way to baggage claim. In retrospect, we should have taken him out and put him in the carrier but we were flustered and Mr. Chuckles ended up getting a good arm workout carrying the car seat with baby in tow.

After surviving the trek to baggage claim, we took an Uber to our hotel. We stayed at the Fairmont San Francisco, located in the Nob Hill neighbourhood. The hotel sits at the top of Mason Street which I’ve heard referred to as “Mount Mason” because it is insanely steep. The walk downhill was outright treacherous, especially while maintaining a death grip on the stroller!

Otherwise we were happy with our choice of accommodation. The Fairmont is a historic hotel and has hosted Presidents and dignitaries, so it was good enough for us. 😉 We were upgraded to a corner room in their newer tower, with incredible views overlooking the San Francisco cityscape. The room was huge and had a convenient entryway nook where we were able to place the travel crib and give Teddy a separate space for sleep.

After we made a stop at CVS and Whole Foods to stock up on supplies, we went for dinner at the Fairmont’s Tonga Room. This tiki style restaurant serves Asian-fusion cuisine and we ordered their seafood curry and shrimp fried rice. We had forgotten how huge American portion sizes are so we quickly regretted ordering two entrees and ended up having to waste half our meal, although what we did manage to eat was delicious.

By the time we finished up with dinner, Teddy was way past his usual bedtime and getting wild so we headed back to our room and put him to bed. All told, he actually did surprisingly well managing the time change and mostly slept through the night for the entire trip. We count our blessings everyday for having such an easy baby.

The next day we would start our California adventure in earnest with a day trip to Filoli Historic House and Santa Cruz. More on that coming up!