San Jose to San Francisco & Oakland

Tuesday was a travel day, but not by air.  I checked in to my hotel in Oakland, and then checked out of the my hotel in San Jose and caught the light rail a couple of stops down to San Jose Diridon station where the Caltrain station is.  It didn't take long to transfer to the big double-decker train headed towards San Francisco.  I didn't actually go all the way to San Francisco, as I really needed to get on BART to cross the bay to Oakland, and the Millbrae interchange station is right at the southern end of BART (on the peninsula, at least)  It's also the last Caltrain station before the "San Francisco" zone starts, so it's cheaper to get off there too!

The ticketing is all cross-agency, which is superbly useful.  The cash balance on my Clipper card works on the VTA Light Rail in San Jose, the Caltrain, on BART and on all MUNI vehicles in San Francisco.

Trains in the USA don't seem to travel very fast.  It took an hour and 7 minutes to get as far as Millbrae, where the transfer to BART is just passing through the fare gates to the other platform.  The BART trip took 50 minutes, and the hotel is just by the BART entrance at 12th St. station.

So in all, it took less than 2 and a half hours to get from one hotel to the other.  I'm in another of the newly refurbished rooms here - just down the hallway from where I stayed when I was here three months ago.

The eating area has been completely remodelled since I was here.  There's now a separate part for Elite Members where we can get some food and drink (free, I believe)  However, the staff is the same, and I was welcomed back by both the server and the host at breakfast.

I really ought to fill in the survey I was sent after my last stay to comment on the room.  It's really useful that there are so many USB sockets everywhere - on the desk, under the television, by the bed.  It means I don't have to charge everything from the laptop.

I was on the same floor last time I visited - I only know that because when I had to put my room number in to the web page to claim the free wi-fi, my browser prompted me with the room number that it had remembered from last time!