I shouldn't complain. Our son dropped us off at the smaller terminal at MSP and the place was empty. Our check in took 10 minutes from the time we walked through the door until we were sitting at the gate.
The flight left right on time and only took 40 minutes, but no beverage service since the pilot announced that he anticipated a lot of turbulence. Fortunately he was wrong.
Our long three hour layover in Milwaukee stretched even a bit longer when they announced that the flight was delayed due to strong winds in the San Francisco area. SWA doesn't assign seats, but because I checked in online for the flight at EXACTLY 24 hours prior to our flight, we were assigned the end of boarding group A. Being ahead of most of the crowd, we were able to snag exit row seats with all of the luxurious leg room.
As Amazon Prime members, I had downloaded a few movies onto my iPad. Using a headset splitter, the two of us watched "I'll See You in My Dreams" starring Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott. I enjoyed the movie...Bob hated every minute of it. He endured the movie to the end and then used the SWA app to watch one of his favorite TV shows...Naked and Afraid...and was happy.
At one point, water started dripping on Bob from above. He called the stewardess who, upon a little investigation, determined that some one's water bottle had come open in the overhead luggage compartment. The guy's backpack was totally drenched and it took quite a bit of mopping to clean up the mess.
Besides TV shows, the SWA online app also features a map showing the flight progress. So...to answer the famous question, "Are we there yet?"...there's an app for that!
The pilot was able to make up most of the time lost to the flight delay and we arrived only slightly later than scheduled.
I had investigated several transportation options to get us to our hotel near Fisherman's Wharf. A taxi was going to be fairly expensive so I narrowed our choices to a shared shuttle or Uber. Having never used Uber before I was a little apprehensive, but I had downloaded the app and decided to give it a try. The estimated cost was about the same as a shuttle so I clicked "request" and started watching the little car on the GPS map get closer and closer to the airport.
Eventually the map showed the car arrived, but where was he? After fiddling with the app, I figured out how to call the driver and discovered he was waiting one level UP from baggage claim! Joseph, the driver, was a very friendly guy and managed to cram our excessive amount of luggage into his small car and we were off in the pouring rain to our hotel. Traffic was very heavy and I think Joseph must have hit every red light. The ride seemed to take forever!
When we arrived at our hotel, the Columbus Motor Inn, Bob tried to tip but Joseph refused to take the money and just said "May God Bless!" With a first time user discount of $22 the fare was $14.76.
Our friends, Kent & Laurel, had spent time in San Francisco last summer and we booked this hotel based on their recommendation. The price was very reasonable compared to other hotels in the area and was only a couple of blocks away from Fisherman's Wharf. (Although we didn't need it, the hotel is also one of the only ones in SF that provides free parking.)
I had requested a king bed room with a view and room 314 satisfied both requests.
The tiny balcony provided us a view of Coit Tower and surrounding area. This photo was taken from the balcony a couple of days later when the weather improved.
With the long day and rainy weather we opted to eat a few snacks that we brought, get organized for the next day, shower and just go to bed. The time change was a bit confusing. We gained two hours with the time zone difference, but lost one of the hours back because of the switch to Daylight Savings Time that night. With my foggy, travel-weary brain, I crossed my fingers that I was getting the correct time set on the alarm clock.
Tomorrow...a damp (but great) tour of San Francisco.
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