Los Angeles - Disneyland for Christmas

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Sunday 22nd December 2013

We slipped into our berth next to the battleship Iowa at the LA cruise terminal on a gorgeous, sunny morning. We stayed on-board until mid-morning. As we were staying in a suite we had preferential escort service from our concierge when we were ready to disembark. Shaun and Max headed off to pick up the rental car from Budget, 6 miles away in Long Beach while Jen and Di enjoyed relaxing in the lounge until they received the notification text that the boys were on their way back. They returned about an hour later with a nice new VW Passat, whose maximum luggage carrying capacity was tested to its limit, with 4 bods on board, 5 large suitcases and 4 cabin bags, not to mention the food and drink bag. We also had a new friend along for the ride – Betty, our sultry voiced, English accented GPS – to guide us around the labyrinth that is LA. We headed north to our two bedroom apartment at the Marriott Residence Inn at Redondo Beach/Torrance for the next 5 days. The apartment was ready for us when we arrived so we dumped our bags before Max was picked up by a friend living in LA to show him around for the next few days. After Max was picked up we headed out to secure supplies from the massive supermarket at the Del Amo mall complex, just around the corner off Hawthorne Boulevard. Back at the apartment we finally had a chance to catch up on menial tasks like washing before chilling out for the night.

Monday 23^rd December

After imbibing in the inclusive buffet breakfast at the hotel we headed off on our 30 minute drive to Hollywood under the watchful guidance of Betty. Our first stop was at the walk of fame on Hollywood Blvd, where we hunted out our favourite stars and photographed the Hollywood sign from the top floor of the arch at the Hollywood and Highland Centre, on the corner of Hollywood and N Highland Ave. After a bit of a drive around the area Betty got us back on track to head for Universal Studios on Universal City Plaza. Parking onsite was $16 and we think we scored a park (accidentally) in the employee area as it was very close to the entry. Entry into the park is now US$84 each, so we were going to make the most of it, with the park closing at 10.00pm. Our first stop was to do the Universal studio tour, which takes about 45 minutes and travels around the back lots of the studios. There was a 70 minute wait sign on display as we entered the line but fortunately Shaun spotted a guide asking for singles or doubles to ride and whisked Jen and Dianne into the short line; so we were on the ride within 10 minutes! This is a great behind-the-scenes tour of the enormous studio buildings, a construction set of 13 city blocks over 4 acres, King Kong 360’ experience by Peter Jackson, an actual 747 plane wreck out of ‘War of the Worlds’ and plenty more surprises. After finishing the tour we used our cunning and guile and always hit the singles line where offered on the other rides - to cut down on wait time. Most of the time we still got on the same car anyway. We managed to fit in Revenge of the Mummy, Jurassic Park, The Blues Brothers show, Special Effects show, The Simpsons Ride, Shrek 4D and Water World. Unfortunately the wait for The Transformers 3D ride fluctuated between 80 minutes to 3 hours so we flagged that as we don’t do queues well! On our way out we caught a Christmas Carol show with the Grinch at the central Plaza, which had an awesome 60 foot Christmas tree with thousands of coloured lights and a snow machine sprinkling the soft cool stuff all over the crowd. That was a great way to finish our long day at Universal studios. We had a bit of a hunger on after our day of traipsing about and had been told by some Californian friends of a burger joint that we had to check out when in LA. So we hunted out Tommy’s World Famous Original Burger joint; which has been operating on the corner of Beverly Blvd and N Rampart Blvd since 1946. Their burgers and hot dogs are topped with their special recipe chili and you can’t go past their chili fries! This was a joint where you ate your food standing up, or in your car so we had a unique, fun experience eating at the shack.

Tuesday 24^th December - Christmas Eve

This morning we made our way over to Orange County to spend the morning at the Outlets at Orange shopping mall, known as ‘The Block’. This was a great meeting point to meet up with Max and Jen’s parents - Pam and Arthur. After a short stint of retail therapy we picked up Pam and Arthur at their hotel around the corner and went for a drive to visit the largest glass building in the world – the Crystal Cathedral - original home of The Hour of Power. Unfortunately it recently closed for renovation and a change in ownership to Roman Catholicism due to bankruptcy; so we couldn’t look inside - but the architecture of this building is amazing and definitely worth a walk around the lush, tranquil grounds. Being Christmas Eve Pam and Arthur had organised for us to all attend a Christmas service/celebration at Shepherds Grove officiated by Pastor Bobby Schuller. It was an amazing and entertaining service, with the awesome Hour of Power choir and orchestra, organist and soloist Dana Baker belting out the Christmas hymns! After the service we all headed back to Pam and Arthurs hotel to enjoy a family Christmas Eve dinner together.

Wednesday 25^th December - Christmas Day

Awoke to a beautiful, clear Christmas morning in Redondo. After breakfast we engaged Betty to get us to Anaheim – home of Disneyland! Friends of ours were staying at a hotel just down from the entrance so we were able to park the car there for the day. Thanks guys! After paying the US$92 each to get in the main doors, we made a beeline for Adventureland to do the Indiana Jones adventure and Splash Mountain, New Orleans Square to do the Haunted Mansion and took the Disney railroad to get an elevated view of the whole park. Next stop was all aboard the Riverboat going around the Rivers of America in Frontierland before meeting up with family and friends for a big slap-up Christmas lunch at the Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue. We rolled out of there well and truly satiated and hit the park to work off some of lunch. We spent the afternoon checking out Tomorrowland and riding Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. The Space Mountain roller-coaster in the dark had enormous queues and even the "fast Pass" service was giving out return ticket for 11.30pm! We spent the rest of the day checking out the Fantasyland castle, riding the Ji(u)ngle Cruise in Frontierland and watching the light show at “It’s a Small World” Holiday. We headed over to the Rivers of America to watch the Mickey Fantasmic show involving fire, water projections, lasers, and fireworks. For an unknown reason the 9.30pm fireworks show over the castle was cancelled, so we joined the salmon run mass exodus out of the park - squeezing through the main gates and relying on Betty to get us home.

Thursday 26^th December

It was another beautiful winter’s day in LA with clear blue skies and no wind, so the plan was to check out some of the beaches along the LA coastline. First stop was down to the end of Torrance Blvd to Redondo Beach’s Fisherman’s Wharf for Shaun to dip his toes in. It was a bit nippier than we had gotten used to, as we were now on the North Pacific Ocean! We leapfrogged north - stopping at Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach pier to dip our toes before parking up and checking out the characters at Venice Beach. Santa Monica beach pier was our next stop and we parked down the road from the pier and walked along the beachfront to enjoy the sunshine. The pier is currently undergoing repair work replacing piles so parts of the pier are fenced off, but there is still walking access to its full length which is the very start/end of Route 66. We stopped at Bubba Gump’s on the pier for a late lunch before cruising back to our accommodation to start the sad process of packing.

Friday 27^th December

Dianne and Max were flying out earlier than us from LAX to Hawaii so we headed off for the 25 minute trip to the airport around 7am under the guidance of Betty. After checking in Max at Hawaiian Airlines and Dianne at American Airlines we went for a drive to Marina Del Ray to spend a relaxing morning at ‘The Terrace’ café. All too soon it was time to head to the airport, drop off the Budget rental car and catch their shuttle to the United Airlines counter. We departed around 1.30pm, bound for Honolulu and the start of the end of this amazing traveling adventure.

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Comments

[Annmaree]

Wow, what a holiday !
Welcome home honeys !!! And happy new year !! What an amazing time away you've had, fantastic !! I am back to work today and feel like another fortnight off ;-) Hopefully see you soon either in Wellie or Akd to hear all about the trip. AM xx