Yumm.
To celebrate our 1 year anniversary, I wanted to get away from our little apartment, and the complex – and go RELAX, and what better place than San Francisco. I love San Francisco – it is seriously one of my FAVORITE places to go. I never get sick of walking down the Pier, or up and down the streets, or getting lost in China-Town. I found a great deal last week on TravelZoo for the Claremont Resort in Berekely, and ran it by Chad – it sounded like a good deal to us so we went ahead and purchased it……
We have always been one to ‘save’ when it came to hotels – HECK, you SLEEP there! Why spend hundreds of dollars on a room you don’t spend any time in – so this was a big ‘leap of faith’ for us – spending $199 for a room. BUT – here’s the deal – with the $199 we got a food/drink voucher for $100 – so our room was essentially just $99. We also got free valet parking, and a free facilities pass (spa, gym, tennis courts, etc.) So we thought that either way, if we spend $100 bucks on food, $99 on a room isn’t thaaaat bad.
We dropped Dex off at DoggyDayCare (Yep, I was a little sad we decided not to bring him with!)
And we headed to San Francisco, we walked around Pier 39 and up and down some of the streets – got lunch, and admired all the flowers, Chad let me freak out about Alcatraz and Clam Chowder, and street performers.
I’ve been to San Francisco SO MANY TIMES but I seriously LOVE the place. I can’t get over it. So many people, joggers, dogs, treats, it’s clean, gorgeous..
We got super lucky and the weather was AMAZING – it was light jacket weather – which is GREAT for Frisco.
I’ve convinced Chad that we need to come to here this summer for an Alcatraz night tour. I’ve been on a day tour a couple years ago and it was so much fun, Chads never been – so I think a night tour would be PERFECT.
Especially since I’m hooked on the show Alcatraz right now.
Anyways. We only spent a couple hours in Frisco before we headed to Berkely to check into our room. This is where our Anniversary gets INCREDIBLE! First of all, the Claremont is GORGEOUS, you can see it from San Francisco, and from the rooms, you can see the Bridge, and the San Francisco Bay. Oh ya, and it looks like a castle. That’s probably the best part!
When we arrived at the Resort we were absolutely AMAZED, it was GORGEOUS! We were greeted at our car, helped inside, and shown to the Front Desk. were we checked in and chatted with the Manager John who found out we were there for our Anniversary and that we were from Lodi (he lives and commutes from Elk Grove). We took the elevator to our room and started getting cozy. The room was beautiful, we had a view of the San Francisco bay, and were so excited to start our stay.
Then the phone rang and Claudia, the girl who helped us at the Front Desk and called and said they had had a cancelation and asked us if we wanted a free room upgrade.
Uhm.
Heck to the YES!
We packed up our stuff, then there was a knock at the door with our new key. We got back on the elevator, went down a floor and found our new room.
I wish that we could have recorded our reaction. I seriously freaked out when we opened the door. The room we got upgraded to was seriously bigger than our entire apartment at home.
Chad and I both ran around like idiots taking pictures of this hotel room bigger than our ‘home…
I took a video once we settled down and I stopped freaking out. I was moving a little fast, so if you get motion sickness or dizzy easy, probably don’t watch….
The room was SERIOUSLY incredible! (We found out after we left that the room goes for $1500 a night!!) We were so thankful that John made that possible for us, and that he cared about making our Anniversary so special. It made the entire ‘mini-vacation-getaway’ so much more incredible.
Here’s some pictures of the room:
These pictures don’t even do it justice. It was BEAUTIFUL. In the bedroom there were closets and nightstands on either side of the bed, a large chair and couch. Plus a really cool Ipod radio/speaker. The bathroom was bright and even had a telephone right by the toilet!
(In case you get bored?)
We didn’t use the dining room, or the kitchen area, but we LOVED the living room. The comfy couch, and windows surrounding the entire room. It was so bright and beautiful, and we sat and enjoyed the sunset – it was magical.
The front desk made us reservations at one of their restaurants (so we could use our food voucher) so we got dressed up and headed down to dinner, after we watched the sun set (and explored the tennis courts, and spa area)
Not sure why I didn’t have a picture taken of us.
Darnit.
But, I did get a picture of our food!
After dinner we went into San Francisco and had dessert and listened to live Jazz for a couple hours before we decided to head back to our gorgeous room….
In the morning, Chad woke up super early and went to a spin-class…..Then we sat in the hot tub and drank warm Orange Spice Tea for awhile. We headed back, got ready for the day and said our goodbyes to our gorgeous room.
We had breakfast (and used the rest of of voucher) at another one of the resorts Restaurants called Meritage.
Chad got DELICIOUS Lemon souffle pancakes with rasberries, and I had a blueberry/raspberry parfait…yummm.
We officially checked out of the hotel, and headed back into San Francisco to spend the day in Chinatown……We found Chads brother Richard a really nice Tea set – and spent some time walking up and down the streets before we headed to another TravelZoo find, The San Francisco Sympony!
TravelZoo had $101 Floor Level tickets for $20 – so we used the money my parents sent us as an Anniversary gift for these
SA-WEET seats!
The symphony was great.
Like- I struggled to stay awake – great.
Then we headed back to our cozy little home, all relaxed and refreshed from our 2 glorious little days off. So thankful for the hospitality shown to us by EVERYONE at the Claremont Resort, and for a great visit to the city.
Natalie says
HOLY COW…that is freaking AWESOME!!! Happy Anniversary, guys! I can’t believe it’s already been a year! You two are ADORABLE!
HollySomm says
You struggled to stay awake like…it was so beautiful it put you to sleep? lol, I’m so jealous of your little vacation! That’ sounds so amazing! Happy Anniversary!
Tausha says
Hah, Thanks Natalie!
Holly – Ya, it was INCREDIBLE, I wasn’t the only one, there were a lot of bobbing heads!!
Andrea says
AH-MAZING! You two are so cute. And how awesome is it that you were upgraded! score! Happy Anniversary you 2 lovebirds. 🙂
P.S.- Next time, I’ll watch dex!