One of the downside sometimes of getting free flights is that they tend to happen at odd times.  In this case, our flight to Seattle for our Alaska cruise was scheduled to leave Dulles at 7:00 am.  The night before our flight, I got an alert from United that our flight would be delayed by 30 minutes.  The message said that we should still show up on time, so that is what we planned on. 

Our taxi arrived at 4:30 am and we were soon at the airport by 4:50 am.  There were no delays when checking in, so we had our luggage dropped off and we were through security quickly using TSA Precheck.  We decided to get a quick breakfast and head to the gate, since we didn’t know how the flight situation would unfold.  Fortunately, there is a Dunkin Donuts immediately after security.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t very fast.  When we eventually got our food, we headed to our departure gate.

Despite the message we received the night before, the outbound flight was not delayed very much at all.  I believe the flight only took off a few minutes late, not 30 minutes as the message indicated.  The flight boarded quickly and we were soon on our way.  I sat with the girls and Nancy sat in the window seat in the aisle in front of us.

The flight was non-eventful and about five hours later, announcements were made that we would soon be landing in San Francisco. 

We landed in San Francisco at 9:50 am.  After leaving the plane, we pulled up the Uber App to see how to get to the Walt Disney Family Museum.  The Uber App directed us to the parking deck, where our Uber was soon on its way.  We got in the car and headed towards the Presidio.  It took us about 40 minutes from start to finish.

I had visited the Walt Disney Family Museum during a previous visit to the San Francisco area for work.  Nancy and the girls hadn’t had a chance to visit though. 

We went through bag check and headed inside.  We decided to stop at the small restaurant in the museum for  quick snack.  Having people hungry while touring a museum wouldn’t end well and our last meal was before our flight from Dulles.  We purchased our tickets and started to tour the museum.  The girls weren’t quite as interested in the early life of Walt, but really did enjoy his early career stories once they saw his drawings.

The museum does a good job explaining how Walt made his various characters and brought them to life on the screen. 

After looking at the various galleries (and getting a side glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge), we entered the Disneyland area of the museum.  This was a big hit with everyone.  The other part they enjoyed was the World’s Fair exhibit where the initial designs for a lot of future attractions were demonstrated (it’s a small world, Carousel of Progress, etc).

After touring the museum, we stopped in the gift shop to look around.  It is a nice gift shop with a selection of things such as magnets, Disney-themed books and games, and decorative items.  Nobody saw anything that they were interested in purchasing, so we set out to our next stop. While walking, the girls finally got to see the Golden Gate Bridge.  The view from the museum doesn’t show it in its entirety. 

Located less than a mile from the Walt Disney Family Museum is Lucas Arts, Industrial Light and Magic, and Lucas Film.  Nancy found out about this while while researching our trip. 

We didn’t plan on doing a tour (I don’t even know if there is one).  We mainly just wanted to get a picture of the Yoda fountain!

The fountain is located outside (but most likely on their property).  It doesn’t seem like they care if people visit though, since there was a coffee cart outside next the statue.  We took our picture and then Nancy ducked inside the lobby for a few more pictures.

After getting all our pictures, we got another Uber and headed towards an In-N-Out near the airport.  I don’t consider a west coast trip complete without a Double Double.  After a quick lunch, we headed back to the airport.  We made it in plenty of time, getting back through security with about two hours or so before our flight to Seattle.

The flight to Seattle was short.  We landed and collected our baggage.  We took a taxi from the airport to our downtown hotel, the Hyatt Place Seattle/Downtown  The ride took about 45 minutes, but it wasn’t horrible. 

The room was clean and comfortable, but unfortunately faced the busy road next to the hotel.  There was a white noise machine in the room, which definitely helped with the traffic noise  One of the girls took the sofa bed and the other one took the spare bed.  It gives them more room and there is less complaining. 

After we dropped our bags off, we headed out for dinner.  We had noticed a few places on the taxi ride that we wanted to check out.  We first headed to the Five Points Cafe, but the no one came to take our order.  After a few minutes, we left the Cafe and went across the street to Zeek’s Pizza.  We were seated immediately and ordered dinner.  The pizza and service were fantastic!  After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for bed.  We had been up a very long time and we all exhausted.

Tomorrow, we head off to explore part of Seattle!

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