“In life, it’s not where you go, it’s who you travel with.” – Charles M Schulz.

Having a good travel partner can make or break a trip. Thankfully after nearly 40 years together we are a good team, on our home court or for an away game. Our week on the Princess Majestic to celebrate our anniversary was a well blended combination of exploration and relaxation. The new Medallion program Princess has on their newer ships links you to the various screens along the ship and throughout the week when we would stand in front of a screen together we would get this fun anniversary greeting.

So much for sleeping in….. but I enjoyed a cup of coffee on the balcony while watching us sail into port. It was a chilly morning but watching the sun come up over the city reminded me how easy it is to leave your heart in San Francisco.

I could have smoked salmon with lemon and capers for breakfast every day of my life and be happy. It was a pretty morning as we walked along the waterfront, Alcatraz looks like a castle from afar. We have toured it on a previous visit to The Golden State City and it has so much more history beyond the prison system we know about from movies.

The weather was getting warmer so we decided to take the Hop On Hop Off Bus tour. While waiting to begin our ride we visited with a family sitting near us and discovered they are from a neighboring city and her sister works with my brother in law. We hope they had fun in Lego Land! We’ve had good experiences on these tours before (except in NYC) and we were lucky to have a good driver/guide on this trip too. Going across the Golden Gate Bridge was an experience from the top level of the bus – it was SOOO windy it made you laugh while your teeth were chattering! I couldn’t take a photo because it felt like not only would my phone fly out of my hand, but we may all get blown off the top of the bus.

We got a refresher course of the Haight Ashbury area. We enjoyed seeing the Jimi Hendrix Red House and could visualize Janice and Jimi creating music along with Jefferson Airplane and the other Summer of Love music phenoms.

We got off the bus in Chinatown and stopped at the Eastern Bakery – they have the best steamed pork buns. After walking to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory and picking up some flat cookies and a monster size fortune cookie stuffed with mini cookies to take home, we walked to Little Italy. I had watched a video of the 12 best Italian subs in America and Molinari’s in San Francisco was on the list, next to Lioni’s in Brooklyn. We made sure to stop and pick up lunch to take back to the ship, the Luciano was exactly how I like my sub!

Before sailing away under the Golden Gate Bridge we were sure to go back for our daily visit to the Enclave. I don’t think I will sail on a ship that does not have this feature! This is how Princess describes the area: Open the door to The Enclave, home to Princess’ largest-ever thermal suite and a dramatic hydro-therapy pool with a cascading rain shower and therapeutic air jets. Relax on heated stone beds or soothing water beds. Features include: The Hammam – a Turkish-style steam bath, and from Roman times, the Caldarium –a light steam chamber infused with herbal aromas and the Laconium – a heated, dry chamber to help with purification and detoxification of the body. Two of the lessons from this trip that I took home is we have cucumber water in the fridge and our aromatherapy diffusers now have eucalyptus scents to fill the air.

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