Street parking is difficult but not impossible. If you are getting in after 6, park at a meter and make sure you note what time they begin checking the next morning. Also, carefully read the street cleaning sign on the block. In that neighborhood the street cleaning may happen in the middle of the night.

Street parking was no problem. Got a good spot less than a block away from the Holiday Inn.

I was quite unimpressed with San Francisco... no offense to the locals, but it is one of my least favorite cities I've been to.

Of all the stuff I checked out I enjoyed cable cars the most, it was so simple yet fascinating to me so I ended up doing a lot of sightseeing while hanging off the various cable cars. I got the day pass so I definitely got my money's worth after the very first trip to the Fisherman's Wharf.

Second best part was a tie between the walk on the Golden Gate Bridge and the self guided audio tour of Alcatraz.

thanks for your suggestions everyone they did help!

--Russ

Hey, I'm a native, and I agree with you about SF these days. Seems like dirt and problems just keep getting worse, while city hall argues about sanctuary for illegal alien criminals. When I was a kid, walking down Market Street was exciting, with loads of wonderful things to see - today there's a lot of empty stores and "discount retail." Parts of the city smelled like sea air - now they reek of urine from the homeless and destitute. As a civic institution, San Francisco is badly broken.

But I still love Golden Gate Park.

ok them's fighting words :)
 

I' m sorry you were unimpressed - and I agree, I have always been unimpressed with the "tourist" spots our city offers. However I love our neighborhoods - the Castro, the Mission, the Upper Fillmore, Inner Sunset, Glen Park - take a little chance outside of Market St and Union Sq and you will find a vital, wonderful city with delicious ethnic restaurants, interesting shops and generally fewer smelly people per square mile...

one of the biggest downers was taking advise of a Hyatt concierge and going to chinatown for some dim sum...

6pm on a Friday night there was me and about five local asians walking around... thats it! it was deserted...

most food places were closed, and the one I went to was pretty awful with its food selection, I took two bites and got the hell out of there.

Dim sum is a morning to lunch meal. Other than a couple of places, one should not be eating dim sum after lunchtime. (Of course, you would not know this, but the concierge should have, or warned you accordingly.)

I kind of known that but there were two reasons why I went for it anyway.

1st. I went to a different restaurant upon a recommendation from a concierge at the Holiday Inn... they were supposedly serving shark-fin soup... when I walked in the place looked deserted and the building seemed to have a plumbing problem with water gushing out from the center of the floor... great!

I walked over to the Hyatt which was nearby and after getting thru the crowd of kids taking pictures with all the santa clause's walking around and checking out the queir singing christmas songs I asked the concierge for another place that might serve this weird soup... he recommended a place that was a 30 minute ride from the hotel... I asked him for plan B.


2nd. I chose to try dim sum because I really did not like what I had tried at a local place in chinatown new york.... now after trying the dim sum in san francisco... I think I just don't like dim sum period.


the place also had buffet style dining for other chinese food, I piled up my plate, had a few bites and left... nothing was good in that place. I'm glad I didn't get sick from whatever little I did eat.

--Russ

Buffet is always a red flag.

Sorry to hear you didn't like SF. I agree with Squeakr that SF's strengths lie in the neighborhoods and not necessarily the tourist attractions (though some, like the Ferry Building, are great).

Sorry, I had to laugh at the typo. Was it a choir singing, a queer singing, or both :p

Sorry your trip wasn't what you were hoping. Next time (if there is), ask to see if anyone here is available to show you an especially bad time! You won't regret it.

Ooppps... did I do that?

its funny but there is a very strong possibility I'll be back in SF the first week of February