Fun for All - Woo Hoo (Pier 39 (San Francisco))

Member Name: katygriff

Product:	Pier 39 (San Francisco)
Date:	28/10/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: Nothing

When in San Francisco you have probably heard that the place to go is Pier 39. We spent a whole day here in this area and we were not disappointed at all. It is an amazing place and is the busiest pier in San Francisco or it appears to be anyway. This is where you will find all of the tourists and I will attempt to tell you why.

Location
Pier 39 is in San Francisco and is located on a coast. It is well sign posted on San Francisco maps and everybody will be able to tell you how to get there. Its place where it is, is called Fishermans Wharf and there are signs to it around San Francisco. The maps you can get do show you all of the walking roads and is very easy to follow. We were located in Union Square and it took us about half hour to have a leisurely walk to Pier 39.

If you don't want to walk then there are plenty of trams that take you straight there and you should be able to find a tram pick up station very close to wherever you stay. There are also tour buses that will all take you to Pier 39.


Appearance
When you first look at Pier 39 it looks like any Pier you would find here in the UK. Wooden slats to step on and little shops, a few rides and lots of people. It doesn't look on first impressions like it is anything special but it is. The Pier39 sign and crab statue welcome you and you do get an immediate homely, safe and buzzing atmosphere feeling which is lovely.
Now lets take you through what exactly is there to do.


Sea Lions
These were the main reasons I wanted to go to pier 39 as I had heard that there are a lot of sea lions there. They are fabulous. You can hear them from most places on the Pier and when you walk up to see them they are everywhere. There are lots of wooden platforms in the sea and they just all lie on them and hug and fight with each other. I was watching them for about half hour and I could have stayed longer but my husband got bored.

Alcatraz
From pier 39 you get a great view of Alcatraz Island and the Alcatraz prison. We were going on a cruise over to Alcatraz that evening so we were excited but it does look amazing. With our camera we got some really good photos and you can see all of the ships taking people over to see it.

Shops
There are so many shops at Pier 39 that I could have stayed there for ages and we returned a few times to get different things. A lot of them are quite unique little shops that I hadn't seen yet in America and some of them were ones that are everywhere. I will tell you that there is everything here so wine, chocolate, souvenirs, clothes, pictures, books and loads more. I will tell you about a few of my favourite shops now.

Chocolate Heaven had to be my absolute favourite. You walk in and it was huge. Everything in Pier 39 is nice inside and very clean with lots to buy which is dangerous for somebody who likes to spend money like me. This shop was full of chocolatey goodness which included San Francisco trams full of chocolate and chocolate rocks and all sorts. I think these are quite famous in America but the shop was ace.

Del Sol was a good shop and sold lots of colour changing merchandise so we got our nephew clear keyring that changed to blue in the sun. Another great souvenir shop was only in San Francisco which sold everything San Francisco branded that you could think of. I managed to buy T shirts, flececes, pens and magnets to take home to people so it was great.

Eating
There are plenty of places to get some lunch or tea at Pier 39. The place we ate at was like a snacky place for lunch which was Chowders. They sold clam chowder which is famous here and also Boudin bread which I had never tried before but it was quite yummy and is also a speciality here. It cost us around $12 for lunch so not that bad really.

For more dishes you can choose from Hard Rock Cafe, Bubba Gump shrimp and the wipeout bar and grill. They all look great and the menus are tempting and even when you walk past you can smell it all and it is lovely. We didn't get to eat in any of the restaurants though due to time but they all looked great and are all quite close together so you can look at the menus and take time to decide where to go.

What Else?
There is a an aquarium here which we didn't go to but it looked quite nice. We also had street dancers around everywhere which were amazing to look at and there is lots of entertainment in the form of statue people and all sorts. There is also a small fair ground with some carousels and there are some 4D rides too.

In Conclusion
Pier 39 is purely a very busy pier with lots to offer for everybody. It is basically a lot of fun and because of the sheer amount of people and what there is to see you get a lovely atmosphere to walk around with. We spent a whole day here and then spent another half day here and there was just so much to keep us entertained. I loved it and would recommend it to everybody as it is a must see sight in San Francisco. You will not be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

Summary: Great Attraction