 |
Aloha Airlines Flights from Honolulu (HNL) to San Francisco (SFO)
Orbitz is pleased to offer airline tickets on Aloha Airlines, which operates 3 regularly scheduled daily non-stop flights from Honolulu (HNL) to San Francisco (SFO), departing between 7:30am and 10:10pm. Usually a Boeing 777 or Boeing 767-300 is flown for this route. The average travel time from Honolulu, HI to San Francisco, CA is 4 hours and 57 minutes.
During your San Francisco vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Cable Car Museum
If you've ever wondered how cable cars work, this nifty museum explains (and demonstrates) it all. Yes, this is a museum, but the Cable Car Museum is no stuffed shirt. It's the living powerhouse, repair shop, and storage place of the cable car system and is in full operation. Built for the Ferries and Cliff House Railway in 1887, the building underwent an $18-million reconstruction to restore its original gaslight-era look, install an amazing spectators' gallery, and add a museum of San Francisco transit history.The exposed machinery, which pulls the cables under San Francisco's streets, looks like a Rube Goldberg invention. Stand in the mezzanine gallery and become mesmerized by the massive groaning and vibrating winches as they thread the cable that hauls the cars through a huge figure-eight and back into the system using slack-absorbing tension wheels. For a better view, move to the lower-level viewing room, where you can see the massive pulleys and gears operating underground.Also on display here is one of the first grip cars developed by Andrew S. Hallidie, operated for the first time on Clay Street on August 2, 1873. Other displays include an antique grip car and trailer that operated on Pacific Avenue until 1929, and dozens of exact-scale models of cars used on the various city lines. There's also a shop where you can buy a variety of cable car gifts. You can see the whole museum in about 45 minutes.
Asian Art Museum
Reopened in its Civic Center home in March 2003, the Asian Art Museum is one of the Western world's largest museums devoted to Asian art. Its collection boasts more than 15,000 art objects, such as world-class sculptures, paintings, bronzes, ceramics, and jade items, spanning 6,000 years of history and regions of south Asia, west Asia, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, China, Korea, and Japan. Previously in Golden Gate Park, the museum's new home in the city's Beaux Arts-style central library was renovated under Italian architect Gae Aulenti and includes 40,000 square feet of gallery space showcasing 2,500 objects at any given time. Add temporary exhibitions, live demonstrations, learning activities, cafe Asia, and a store, and you've got one very good reason to head to the Civic Center.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/Yerba Buena Gardens
The Yerba Buena Center, which opened in 1993, is the city's cultural facility, similar to New York's Lincoln Center but far more fun on the outside. It stands on top of the northern extension of the underground Moscone Convention Center. The center's two buildings present music, theater, dance, and visual arts. James Stewart Polshek designed the 755-seat theater, and Fumihiko Maki designed the Galleries and Arts Forum, which features three galleries and a space designed especially for dance. Cutting-edge computer art, multimedia shows, traditional exhibitions, and performances occupy the center's high-tech galleries.More commonly explored is the 5-acre Yerba Buena Gardens, a great place to relax in the grass on a sunny day and check out several artworks. The most dramatic outdoor piece is an emotional mixed-media memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. Created by sculptor Houston Conwill, poet Estella Majozo, and architect Joseph de Pace, it features 12 panels, each inscribed with quotations from King, sheltered behind a 50-foot-high waterfall. For most, this pastoral patch is a brief stopover to the surrounding attractions. New to the gardens in 2004 are seasonal free outdoor festivals held on varied dates from May through October. It's definitely worth discovering whether you can catch one of these, as performances include dance, music, poetry, and more by the San Francisco Ballet, Opera, and Symphony and others; see www.ybgf.org for details.On the periphery of Yerba Buena Gardens are a number of worthy individually operated excursions. In the Children's Center, Zeum (tel. 415/777-2800) includes a cafe, interactive cultural center, bowling lanes, ice-skating rink, fabulous 1906 carousel, and interactive play and learning garden. Sony's Metreon Entertainment Center (tel. 415/369-6000; www.metreon.com) is a 350,000-square-foot complex housing great movie theaters, an IMAX theater, a bountiful gourmet food court, interactive attractions (including one that features Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and surprisingly exciting virtual bowling), and shops. As part of the plan to develop this area as the city's cultural hub, the California Historical Society opened at 678 Mission St. in 1995 and is home to a research library and a publicly accessible California photography and fine arts collection.
Make your reservations for discount hotel rooms in the
San Francisco area, including:
The Donatello
If you're not looking for trendy lodgings or an anonymous business hotel but want old-world elegance, book a room here. The Donatello is, in a word, dignified. The lobby is classy, with Italian marble and a serious staff. The rooms, which are some of the largest in the city (an average of 425 sq. ft.!), are airy, updated classic European and even better than before, since they were completely redecorated in 2000 with contemporary French antiques, stripes, tapestries, original art, king-size mattresses, and textiles. Thankfully, the face-lift didn't include going the trendy bold-and-colorful route, which seems to be infectious among downtown hotels. Unfortunately, most of the extralarge windows lack great views, but if it's fresh air you're after, the fifth floor has seven terrace rooms.
The Andrews Hotel
For the location and price, the Andrews is a safe bet for an enjoyable stay. Two blocks west of Union Square, the Andrews was a Turkish bath before its conversion in 1981. As is typical in Euro-style hotels, the rooms are small but well maintained and comfortable, with nice touches like white lace curtains and fresh flowers. Upgrades in 2002 included new mattresses and carpets. And even though the bathrooms were painted in 2003, they will remain tiny no matter how lovely the face-lift may be. A bonus is the adjoining Fino Bar and Ristorante, which offers respectable Italian fare and free wine to hotel guests in the evening.
Hotel Palomar
The Kimpton Boutique Hotels' most luxurious downtown property occupies the top five floors of a refurbished 1907 landmark office building. As the group's most refined boutique property, the French-inspired interior designed by Cheryl Rowley features rooms with an updated twist on 1930s modern design, with artful, understated textural elements such as emerald-tone velvets, fine woods, and raffia. Tailored lines and rich textures throughout lend a sophisticated, fresh aspect to the overall air of elegance. Rooms, however, can range from very cozy (read: small) to ultracool and spacious (try for a corner room overlooking Market St.). There's not much in the way of public spaces, but the hotel makes up for it with its rooms' fab-factor, homey luxuries like CD players and 27-inch televisions, and its dining room, the Fifth Floor Restaurant, which is one of the hottest (and most expensive) restaurants in town. That said, if you want the full-blown luxury hotel experience, you're better off with one of the Nob Hill or Union Square big boys.
|
|
|
