{"id":21956,"date":"2014-10-02T01:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T08:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=21956"},"modified":"2014-10-02T01:00:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T08:00:28","slug":"thursday-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=21956","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco's New Cruise Terminal"},"content":{"rendered":"

As cruise ports go, San Francisco<\/a> is\u2026well, awkward. Too far north to be a launching point for cruises to the Mexican Riviera. Too far south to be the point of origin for ships heading for Alaska<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So it’s in between, a port in the heart of a major city, yet given the same type of attention as smaller ports along the West Coast \u2014 Astoria<\/a> and Victoria<\/a>, Santa Barbara<\/a> and Catalina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This month, San Francisco changed.<\/p>\n

Not geographically, of course, but esthetically. The city by the bay has a new terminal, replacing the one that was 100 years old, Pier 35. It will be (modestly) busier over the next year, with a 10 per cent increase in port calls, from 73 to 81. That translates into 50,000 more visitors for this beautiful coastal city.<\/p>\n

The terminal opened quietly, which is not normally the way things are done in San Francisco, one week and with some fanfare the next week. The Crown Princess<\/a> was the first ship, the Grand Princess<\/a> the official-opening ship. Neither is what you’d call a mega ship, by today’s standards.<\/p>\n

Even before the change, this was a fascinating port to visit. No amount of time is too much to spend around The Embarcadero, where the cruise ships are\u2026not to mention the barking \"Sea<\/a>sea lions, the delightful eateries, the busy ferries and all the aromas that come with being on the seashore.<\/p>\n

Our best visit was before boarding a ship for South America, a memorable start to a memorable cruise. While that’s not one of the options these days, there is a variety of itineraries.<\/p>\n

Princess<\/a> is by far the best customer, running round-trips to Mexico of either 7 (Ensenada<\/a>) or 10 (Puerto Vallarta<\/a>) days, with the occasional short (Vancouver<\/a>) or long (Hawaii<\/a>) cruise. Celebrity<\/a> has the odd return trip to Alaska. Holland America<\/a> and Norwegian<\/a> have Panama Canal<\/a> re-positioning cruises that start there. Cunard<\/a> has a couple of marathon cruises from San Francisco every year.<\/p>\n

Ships will now have access to shore power and amenities that will improve boarding and \"Embarcadero\"<\/a>disembarking. Passengers will have more interesting and comfortable surroundings in the terminal, which like its predecessor is in the heart of the city, below Telegraph Hill.<\/p>\n

San Francisco will never be a Los Angeles<\/a> for the south nor a Seattle<\/a> for the north, when it comes to being a place for cruises to call home, but it’s expecting to have ships in port four days a week. The hope is that one day it will be more than a place to visit between arriving and departing.<\/p>\n

If nothing else, it’s a fresh start.<\/p>\n

Today at\u00a0portsandbows.co<\/span><\/a>m:\u00a0Holland America ships with new names<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Celebrity Silhouette
\n<\/a>15 nights
\nNovember 1, 2014
\nRome<\/a>, Florence<\/a>, Toulon<\/a>, Barcelona<\/a>, Palma de Mallorca<\/a>, Tenerife<\/a>, Fort Lauderdale
\n<\/a>Inside: $843
\nCost per day: $77
\n<\/strong><\/span>www.celebritycruises.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As cruise ports go, San Francisco is\u2026well, awkward. Too far north to be a launching point for cruises to the Mexican Riviera. Too far south to be the point of origin for ships heading for Alaska. So it’s in between, a port in the heart of a major city, yet given the same type of… Continue reading San Francisco's New Cruise Terminal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,31,36,15],"tags":[138,459,648,912,72,819,51,35,703,26,27,957,256,148],"class_list":["post-21956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-ports","category-reviews","category-stories","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-celebrity-silhouette","tag-crown-princess","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruise-news","tag-cruise-ports","tag-cruises","tag-grand-princess","tag-phil-reimer","tag-ports-and-bows","tag-princess-cruises","tag-san-francisco","tag-transatlantic-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}