Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Big Passes
Several outfits in town will try to sell you a card that grants you discounts
at a variety of attractions and restaurants. They really do grant what
they promise, but there's a secondary problem with most of these cards:
They usually include stuff you'd normally never want to see or have time
to cram in. Visiting extra attractions in an effort to make a discount-card
purchase pay off is a classic way to derail your vacation out of a sense of
obligation. Never buy a discount card without first mapping out the
plans you have for your visit's days, because you'll likely discover you'd
spend more money obtaining the card that you'd make back in touring.
Never buy a discount card, here or in any other city, on the spur of the
moment.
There is an exception: If I were on my first trip to San Francisco, and
I wanted to take in as much of the town as possible, I would spring for
the
CityPass
(
%
888/330-5008; www.citypass.com)
for two reasons: It's
got 9 days of validity, giving you plenty of time to make it pay off, (most
other passes have much shorter validity periods), and it actually covers
things you'd want to see and not the silly tourist traps you don't. Wait,
three reasons: It comes with a 7-day unlimited Muni pass, which includes
unlimited free rides on the normally $5-each-way cable cars; just flash the
CityPass at the driver, and you're off. It's a real treat to be able to use the
cable cars as a daily transit option. The pass ($64 adults, $44 kids)
includes admission to the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the
Aquarium of the Bay, the California Academy of Natural Sciences,
a 1-
hour cruise around the Bay on
Blue & Gold Fleet,
and either a trip to the
Exploratorium
or to the
De Young Museum
and the
Legion of Honor.
There's a little-publicized perk if you buy your CityPass through Alcatraz
Cruises; that will entitle you to an Alcatraz Island ferry ride and tour
instead of a Blue & Gold scenic boat ride that's normally part of the pack-
age. Because the Alcatraz shuttle is worth a few more bucks, it's the bet-
ter option. You can purchase CityPass ahead of time online, or at the box
offices of any of the above attractions.
interesting to see because they employ turntables; cars at the end of their runs are
whirled around 180 degrees by workers and rolled back onto the track for their
return journeys. This absorbing aspect of the cars' operation, though, comes with
a price: The turntable locations are the busiest, and in summer, you can expect a
wait of an hour or more to board. On the California line, cars are double-headed
and can roll in either direction without having to be turned around, which means
you can usually get right on without much of a wait.
Cable-car conductors pride themselves on their bell-ringing abilities. Each
July, there's a competition held in Union Square to determine who can clang the
