I'm taking my son and my mom to SF for the weekend. We have some vague plans so far but we're open to suggestions too.
Ages: 7, 40, 71
Interests: Wildlife, vegan food, science, street performers, cable cars, ice skating
We can all walk well and have no trouble using mass transit. We will have a car though, as well.
We are staying at Hyatt Regency San Francisco. I understand there is a Winter ice rink located across the street. And we can take cable cars nearby our hotel. We should be walking distance to a Children's Museum and the Embarcadero as well.
My wife and I made a quick anniversary weekend trip back in September and did a few things.
1. The Embarcadero farmers market mentioned on another response is a must if you like farmers markets. Huge selection of crafts, food, etc...
2. SF has cable cars like you see on the old rice a roni commercials, vintage electric cars (equally cool in my opinion) which generally travel along the waterfront, buses, and bart (subway). You can get day passes that work on electric cars, buses, and cable cars (not bart) at Wahlgrens and some other stores. I think they call it a "Muni pass" It can save you some bucks and I think the electric busses only take exact change. The cable cars can get really long lines so plan ahead. I would actually recommend you go to the San Francisco Transit website and try to work the electric cars and cable cars into your site seeing. Parking is crazy expensive in SF.
3. We did Acatraz's tour. Tickets sell out months in advance. If you go start at the National Park Website to find ticket sales. There are tons of websites selling tickets at a markup. Cool for us but might be boring for a 7 YO. Dress warm.
4. Chinatown. The weekend we were there was a harvest festival so it was packed. One of the biggest in the US I think.
5. The waterfront has some good street performers. They work for tips so if the crowd is a little stingy it can take a long time to actually see anything.
6. We had an expensive drink at the Top of the Mark (top floor restaurant lounge in the Mark Anthony Hotel) with a crazy view of the whole town.) Across the street is the Tonga Bar and Hurricane Lounge in the basement of the Fairmont (think tiki tiki room at Disneyland, complete with fake rain and lightening). We saw some kids in there so there must be some hours its open to all ages. Get reservations if you want to eat.
7. Great food in little italy. Can't recall where we ate but saw a lot of places that looked inviting and smelled awesome.
We did not rent a car but used airport shuttles and tried Uber for the first time ever in SF. I think we did 7 or 8 uber trips. You can get just about anywhere in town for $5 to $10 while parking is always probably double that, plus the headache of finding a spot. I think the longest we waited for a car to pick us up was about 2-3 minutes. If you aren't leaving the City consider dropping the rental and getting the uber app.
Have fun.
