Transportation

Flights

on the airplane cost from $39 to $139 (and as high as $150) each way. Check fares on Southwest to Oakland, Air Tran, Jet Blue, Virgin America and America West. Cost of flights seems best in October or January. Who knows how the cost of fuel will affect things though.

BART

We took the BART train into San Francisco from the Oakland airport, it takes about an hour and costs from $7.30-$10 .70 each for the round trip “travel pack” (which includes the shuttle from the airport to the BART). The BART will take you to Powell and Market, a good central location, where we can buy your “FastPasses” (if you like) and catch a cable car or begin to tour the city in Union Square and Chinatown. I bought the “travel pack” tickets online to save time at the station.

Bus/Muni

riding the muni bus Buy the muni map as soon as you get off the BART at the info kiosk for $3, you’ll use it constantly to figure out which bus to catch. We got muni fast passes, Adult and kids are $18 for 3 days and include unlimited bus and cable cars. (A single cable car ride is $5 and the bus is $1.50 for adults and .50 for kids. With the fast pass you don’t have the hassle of carrying exact change for everyone (those quarters get heavy) But that was a mistake! Kid's rides are just .50 and if you ask for a transfer you can ride for several hours for that price! You will probably only have time to ride the cable cars once and your cost will be much less than $18. Part of the fun of this trip was exploring the city by public transportation. The girls got really good at reading the map and figuring out how to catch the bus, that’s probably the most useful thing they took away from the whole weekend!

Cable Car

It’s true that you can catch the cable car anywhere along the route and if you are single or a pair then it’s silly to wait in the long line at the start of the ride but with a whole troop it’s essential to wait your turn and get the whole troop on one car. Try to be in the front of the line when it comes riding the cable car time to board your cable car (even if it means letting others go ahead of you to fill the car in front of you). The first ones on the car get the coveted “standing room” where you get to “hang out” on the bars during the ride, just post an adult on each side. If you want to sit try to at least get a seat outside and in the front of the car.