Your family’s annual summer trip trip is coming up, an your parents tasted you to help plan for the upcoming trip. You live in San Diego with your family in a suburban area, one of California’s top tourism destination. You are one of two college-aged children that’s tasked to do some of the planning since you love to plan for family trips. The summer trip will be a week in San Francisco with only one hotel for the duration of the trip, with you, mom, dad, and sibling with a highly flexible budget since dad works at one of the technology companies in San Diego and mom is a homemaker. Planning the trip, mom and dad asked that they all are flying to San Francisco and you should plan the trip to visit all of the destinations via public transit or ridesharing app if transit is not nearby as parking is scarse as it can make parking anywhere in the city expensive, thus also making renting a car, not an option. Family members also live in the San Fransico Bay Area in the suburban cities of Walnut Creek and would have one of the days being spent at their house, they also want to come and pick you and your family up and drop as an option as they highly encourage to plan it that way since you do not have a car and taking a ride share is expensive. You and your family are also huge San Diego Padres baseball fans and want to see the Padres go against the San Francisco Giants, thus making when you go when the San Diego Padres are in San Francisco, which is June 11 and 12, 2019, making the week will be around then. The family situation, destination, transportation options, seeing family during the week, and going to a Padres vs Giants game is set, the first step is to pinpoint the dates for the trip and activities in mind.
Step One: When is the trip?
Planning what time of year and even the day of the week is important as traffic, hotel room rates, and airfare can fluctuate throughout the week. First, the general time frame is set during summer break, mid-May and September as San Diego State, the college that you and your sibling attends while living at home. Second, the main date factor is the San Diego Padres vs San Francisco Giants in SF, the first set of games are June 11 and 12, and the second set is August 29th to September 1st which is too late as the school at San Diego State starts, August 22nd. Therefore, vacation will be during the June 11 and 12th games.
Step Two: Airfare and Hotel
Two of the most expensive components of any trip is transportation and hotel as both can fluctuate throughout the week depending on the arrival and departure date. Airfare with Southwest is usually cheap if you book for a less popular time frame and days as Wednesday has the least filled seat fights as many business travelers are usually in the middle of their trip. The cheapest and most reasonable flight is the Want To Getaway non-refundable ticket at $65 per person, departing San Diego International Airport (SAN) at 6:05 pm on June 5th, 2019, and arriving at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) at. The best return date and time from SFO to SAN would be 1:25 pm flight as it would give everyone ample time to pack, and take a shuttle to SFO. The total per person would be $129.96 for one person round trip, for four people would be $519.84. With Southwest Airlines, they do not have any baggage fee as checked bags up two bags fly free with size and weight restrictions. Airfare is a no brainer, next is a hotel, which requires a bit more work and calculations to figure out the better deal.
Hotel Rooms
Hotel room rates are not cheap in general as it covers the room usage, cleaning from housekeeping, maintenance staff, front desk, bell staff if the hotel has the need for them, and food & beverage if it is included with the room rate, making hotels not cheap to stay at. Room rates can skyrocket depending on the location of the hotel, days of the week if there are any major events or holidays going on, and the total occupancy of the hotel rooms for the night. In San Francisco, they have a minimum wage of $15 per hour due to the high cost of living in the city, making room rate higher than average around the San Francisco Bay Area.
For arrival and departure dates, it will be the same as the airline tickets as the family will not go outside of San Francisco expect when the family will pick them up to visit them in Walnut Creek.
To get a general idea of hotels in the area and room rates, TripAdvisor is a good place to start as they eliminate all of the hotels, room rates, and even ratings from guests who stayed there as a barometer to stay there or not. Your parents ask that the hotel would be a somewhat reasonable rate at most $400 per night, dad is a computer programmer and can afford it for his family, and in general, room rates will not be cheap due to labor costs and a high level of occupancy at the hotel in San Francisco during the week by business guests, and leisure guests will be in San Francisco more during the summer as well for their urban tourism trip like you. After looking at hotels in the downtown area of Union Square, rooms rates are not cheap as they are way over the budget of $500 to over $1000 per night, then next is Fisherman’s Wharf as there more over ten hotels there and caters more for tourists since it is out of the downtown area. The best option balance for room rate, amenities, and location would be the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf with an average rate $350 per night plus $20 destination fee! Parking is still at a premium $62 per night, thankfully, your family opted out of a rental car, taking a shuttle to and from the airport and hotel, and would either take public transporation or taxi to their destination. The total of $3,021.90 plus the destination fee of $20 per night for six nights is a grand total of $3,141.90 for the hotel.
For hotel and airfare would bring a total of $3661.74
Step three: Ground Transporation
This step includes parking at San Diego International for six nights and shuttle to and from the hotel and San Francisco International.
For parking at San Diego International, there are three options, curbside valet at $280, terminal parking plaza for $136, and long term lot with a shuttle transfer between the parking lot and the terminals. The terminal parking plaza just happens to have a huge online discount as it is the lots of grand opening, and that one is chosen.
For the shuttle from San Francisco International to the Sheraton Fishermans Wharf with SuperShuttle would cost either $66.60 if was shared with other passenger to go into San Francisco, however, dad said that due to how late the flight comes in, he wants a direct ride with just the family, which would be the non-stop ride option for $73.25. The return trip would also be the same ride type as it is also $73.25 for the trip back to SFO. The total base rate for the round trip is $142.50, plus airport entry fee per way of $2 each way, and SuperSuttle automatic puts in an 18% tip for $25.66. The grand total for the SuperShuttle is $172.16
Total cost for parking and shuttle ride is $308. Brings the grand total so far $3969.74. Now with all of the most expensive parts done, it is now time to calculate the leisure actives that the family wants to do.
Step Four: Leisure Activities
Let’s Go, Padres! On Giants Turf.
First steps in planning which baseball game to go to are the day of the week the game is since the family is leaving Wednesday, June 12, the only option is the Tuesday, June 11th game. The whole family would be going as four tickets would be needed with a maximum of $50 per person. Dad asked that for the most bang for the buck to be on the first deck behind home plate, at $40 per person plus a processing fee of $8 per ticket and Taxes, in lower box section 112, seated behind the plate on the first deck is what dad requested. The total to about $192 for four people.
In conclusion, going on any type of trip for lesiure or business would be expenssive, make sure to keep that in mind when you are planning a trip. The trip total for four from San Diego to San Francisco, hotel, transportation, parking at the home airport, and tickets to a baseball game would be around $4,200 for four
AntSol Travel 