This is very long overdue, but I see that I missed the chance to blog about our family trip to California in February, so better late than never.
The combination of Allegiant Air and Priceline can make for a really cheap vacation. We were able to find a direct flight from Fargo to Los Angeles on Allegiant for $39 on the way out and $79 on the way back, so we thought we couldn’t pass up that opportunity. We used Priceline to book the hotel and found a great deal at a Crowne Plaza in Anaheim (Garden Grove actually) about 12-14 blocks from Disneyland and it included a shuttle to the park.
Amelia had another reason to look forward to her birthday this year, as we left for California on her birthday. She and Katie both attended about 2 hours of school before we had to whisk them away to the airport. This was their second time flying and they did pretty well – they are usually pretty content for the first 2 hours or so before they start wanting to press all the buttons and jump around in their seats. We made it out to LAX by 1:45 or so, so we still had a good part of the day to do something.
LA Traffic – ah, how I love it. We got out of the airport by about 2:30, so I figured with a 25 mile drive we’d be at our hotel by 3. Guess again – there was bumper to bumper traffic on the Interstates even at 2:30. I soon realized there was a carpool lane we could take advantage of, otherwise we might still be in LA. We got to our hotel just after 4 in the pouring rain and settled it. The girls were super-pumped to find that we had bunk beds in our room. That was definitely an hour’s worth of entertainment right there, climbing up and down. We were strategically (by chance) located next to a ton of restaurants, so we decided to try out Joe’s Crab Shack for supper. It’s not something we do every day up here.
Since it was Amelia’s birthday, we asked if they do anything to celebrate birthdays. Their answer was pretty unique – they gave her bunny ears and two pots and sang Happy Birthday to her (and her assistant Katie) as they walked around the restaurant. It was different, for sure. We didn’t do much that night as we got ready for the next morning.
We headed out quite early (since we’re used to being two hours ahead) to San Diego and Sea World on Wednesday morning. We ended up getting down to San Diego by 9:00 and saw that the park didn’t open until 10am. We decided to trek down to see the ocean, since the girls had never gotten to see it. That turned out to work quite well; the girls had fun watching the surfers and the druggies on the big wharf. I was a little nervous about the druggies, but that’s the nice thing about them, if you’re smoking marijuana, you’re going to be too lazy to hurt anyone.
We made it back to Sea World just after 10. They asked if we wanted to park in the MVP parking or the regular parking (the MVP was $5 more). It’s a good thing we didn’t go for the MVP parking, since we were like the 12th family there and it would’ve saved us about 15 steps. Becky asked some question to the guy checking us in about how busy it might be today, and he said, don’t worry, it’s going to be very quiet. He turned out to be right – but he failed to mention that half of the exhibits were closed for repair, because it was too cold, or just because they didn’t feel like opening them because of the lack of attendance. There was literally nothing to do when we got there at 10. The kids play area didn’t open until 11am. There was a penguin talk at 10:30, so we headed that direction. After that we tried to get some food since the girls were hungry, but they wouldn’t serve lunch until 11am. So we walked around aimlessly until the kids play area opened. The girls enjoyed climbing on the ropes and there were three rides in that section that were fun. After a while we headed over to watch the Seals show, which was pretty good. We stopped to see the dolphins, the gigantic turtles and the aquarium and waited around for the big Shamu show at 2:30. We got to see the big show (fortunately no handlers were killed – this was about a week before that happened).
We hit the kiddie rides again quickly and then called it a day. We were overall a little disappointed in the Sea World experience – even with a coupon it was $63 and there wasn’t much open. I wouldn’t recommend going during the week in the winter if that’s how they’re going to operate it (couldn’t they at least reduce the price if they close half the rides?).
On Thursday we decided to head up to Hollywood to check that out. I immediately regretted the decision when we got on the I-5 and realized it was going to take half the day to get up there. We tried to stop to see the NBC Studio Tour, but we couldn’t find where to park for that, so we just headed over to Hollywood and Vine. I don’t think the girls really got what they were seeing at the Kodak Theatre and the mall there until after we got home and they saw some of the same images on the Disney Channel. They had some fun, but it was probably cooler for us to show it to them than for them to experience it. Katie even remarked at the lack of rides on this part of the journey.
We went back to Anaheim and went to Downtown Disney for the afternoon. It was cool to walk around to all the different shops – we just took it easy. Katie bought her first Zhu-Zhu Pet, so that was a big deal.
That night I signed us up for a Vacation Presentation in order to get $100 in Disney cash for our trip to Disneyland the next day. We showed up at 5:30 for the hard sell and I started filling out the paperwork. After waiting for about 10 minutes, one of the ladies came over and said "Sir, I’m really sorry, but we are overbooked for tonight’s session. To make up for this, we can either offer you an opportunity to reschedule and another $50 in benefits or we can just have you take your $100." Check, please! So the girls went back to the room and I cashed out and we were $100 richer.
Friday was Disneyland day – we got up early as the park opened at 8am and we wanted to be there right away. Between our vouchers for volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, the $100 and another $25 American Express Card, it actually cost Disneyland $1 to let us into the park, so that was a good way to start off the day. We rented one stroller and figured we’d share that between the two girls for the day, and that worked out quite well. We first went to Thunder Mountain Railroad as that’s Katie’s favorite ride. I even talked Amelia into coming along the first time, at least. Then we headed over to Fantasy Land and were there when the Princesses opened up at 9am to get their autographs.
We went all over the park throughout the day and did most all of the rides we wanted to do. It started to get pretty busy by the afternoon, so we had to wait in some long lines and play the FastPass game for some rides. All in all, it was a great day, as all days at Disney properties are.
Part of the reason we waited to go to Disneyland until Friday is that we had to leave from LAX at 7:30 in the morning on Saturday. We figured we’d tire them out so much that they’d go to bed early so we could get the up early. That worked pretty well, we were able to get up and out to the airport on time.
All in all, it was a lot of fun – not too stressful (other than the traffic) – and it was a ton of fun to open the girls eyes up to another area of the country and watch them have so much fun.
Eric's space 