San Francisco

I left my heart in San Francisco...
So, one of the greatest parts of my internship is I get to do some traveling! Recently, I went to San Francisco to check on our attractions and to see how our vendors treated customers of CityPass. I also had to take pictures of all signs with our logo that are supposed to direct customers on how to bypass lines and use their prepaid tickets. Not only that, but I also went to a few tourism information stands who we provide with passes to sell and information and questioned them and looked to see if they mentioned our company. I almost felt like I was a bit of a spy, but it was a lot of fun!

Now I have been to San Francisco 8 or 9 times but this time I actually got to see a lot of the tourist attractions (for free!!!) and really experience it through the eyes of a business person rather than just a typical tourist. It was also exciting to see some of the new attractions on our pass!

With the San Francisco CityPass, travelers get to see the California Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Aquarium of the Bay, the SF Museum of Modern Art, the Exploratorium, a few fine arts museums, take a Blue and Gold Fleet Bay Cruise Adventure, and also have a 7-day passport for the Muni and Cable Cars!

On my last visit to San Francisco, I visited many of the attractions, but very briefly. This time, I convinced a friend to come along and spend some time actually touring the attractions. We also made sure to use all of the public transportations and directions provided within the booklets to make sure to get the exact same experience as CityPass buyers.

My favorite site this year was the California Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was newly reopened after they joined all of the old buildings together to form one large attraction. It has a living roof and floors of exciting exhibits including crocodiles (one is albino!!), an aquarium, a rain forest, a natural history museum. The line literally wrapped around the building, but when someone outside saw me and realized who I worked for I was able to bypass the line. However, this was not really what I wanted to happen. I will not lie though, it was great to avoid a two-hour long line! I will put up a picture of my friend and I on the living roof (the best part is you have a great view of Golden Gate Park from the roof!)... it was really interesting, and you can see it from a viewing tower across the way as well!

Also near the Cal Academy was the DeYoung Museum. This museum is very pretty, but sadly was not very well signed with our company's logo. I also do not like that so many of the special exhibits require customers to pay extra (especially because one of them was a fashion exhibit!) This is where the viewing tower near the Cal Academy is located!

Another interesting thing we did was go on the Bay Cruise. Although it was foggy, this allowed me a chance to talk to some CityPass customers and also do a little word-of-mouth marketing for the company.

I really enjoyed this little reconnaissance trip and thought traveling for work was very exciting. My boss has to make trips like this occasionally and I really think it must be an exciting lifestyle (at least while you are young and not tied-down)!