We're off again. Christmas in Banff, Canada, followed by a 3 week road trip in the USA visiting San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas & finishing up in Disneyland. 20 December 2013 till 24 January 2014.
With the Hollywood sign in the distance we did a tour of the Dolby Theatre 'Home of the Academy Awards' (until 2071). Christine practiced her pose at the bottom of the stairs that lead into the theatre and then inside the auditorium she picked what seat she'll be sitting in when she accompanies one of the Lane kids to their 1st Oscars ceremony (or she may get her own nomination, it's not too late). The 30 minute tour was very informative and gave a good insight as to what happens on Oscar night and the weeks leading up to it. We then went to the Hollywood Museum, which is housed in the original Max Factor building where we spent about 3 hours perusing thousands of photos, movie & TV memorabilia, props and costumes. Christine loved it and spent a heap of time looking at the Marilyn Monroe collection and learning the history of Max Factor and his cosmetic empire. Did you know women didn't wear makeup before the 1920's and when it became available to the average woman it was denounced by the pope and many marriages ended in divorce because of lipstick? The kids were really keen to have a meal at the Hard Rock Café so we lined up with a bunch of other people and combined a late lunch/early dinner. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some souvenir shopping. Hollywood Boulevard is full of movie/tv characters, all dressed up and trying to get paid for all the photos people take of them. Characters included; Minnie Mouse, Spiderman, Captain America, Cinderella, Captain Jack Sparrow, Freddy Kruger, Minions and a bunch of others. There are some very overweight spidermen and Captain America looks like he has slept in a garbage bin but it makes very entertaining viewing. We continued to walk the streets for a while longer and then took the tired kids back to our hotel. Later in the evening Christine and Andrew went out for some quiet time, stopped at Hooters to enjoy a beer and went for a stroll down the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
No doubt about where we are.
The home of the Oscars
The stairs leading up to the entrance of the Dolby Theatre
With so many things to do and see in LA finding the time to do this blog can be a bit of a challenge. We're also having a few issues uploading pictures. Luckily there isn't too much to write about for day 17. We were in desperate need to find a laundry as it had been several days since we used the last one in Banff. Luckily none of us smell! Before breakfast Christine and Andrew headed to the closest Laundromat (our hotel only offers it as a service and charges $1.50 for one pair of undies), a 10 minute walk away. After a bit of a search around we found it and it wasn't too bad. Christine stayed with her Kindle while Andrew hit the streets and went for a perve run around Melrose Ave and the other nice streets. After returning with clean and dry clothes we had some breaky and went for another walk onto Hollywood Boulevard for a bit more shopping. The girls went in one direction and the boys the other. We planned to meet later in the day at a designated spot. The girls had a great time and bought a few things, the boys weren't really in a shopping mood and headed back to the hotel for some R&R. In the afternoon the kids went to the movies to see Hobbit 2 and Andrew watched Anchorman 2 while Christine went back to the room for a rest 2. We decided to try something different for dinner and found a Mexican restaurant. It was very noisy and the music was very loud. Cameron was struggling a bit with the atmosphere and was not feeling very well (he's got a cold) so Andrew took him back to our hotel room (which was not far) so he could go to bed. Not having much experience with Mexican food, apart from Tacos, we got some suggestions from the waitress. We ended up with a house salad, enchiladas, burritos and fajitas. The meal was great. Hollywood has become filled with people wearing either orange and blue or burgundy over the past day or so and the restaurant tonight was no different. Tomorrow night at 'The Rose Bowl' there is a big College football game between the Auburn Tigers and the Florida Seminoles and the rivalry was very apparent. There were several outbursts during the night of the teams chants, to see who could be the loudest. It was great fun to watch. After dinner we headed back to the hotel. Cameron was safe and sound and fast asleep.
Lassie is a star
A basketballer, Hello Kitty, Bumblebee and Batman all trying to make a few bucks.
After researching "Universal Studio tips" online, Andrew had a plan worked out for our visit. We were visiting on a weekday when the US schools have returned from their holiday break so we hoped for fewer people than a few days earlier. We read that on busy days people line up for 90 minutes to go on a 3 minute ride! Gates opened at 9am and we wanted to be there then. The weather forecast was for a 25 degree day. Not too hot and not too cold.
We had a 5 min walk to the subway station, then spent 5 min buying tickets (actually a very nice local man pushed all the necessary buttons on the machine for us and then wanted $3 'to get home'. We guessed he'd be there all day helping the tourists for a couple of bucks each 'to get home'). 4 mins on the subway train to the next station, 5 minute bus/trolley ride to the front gates of Universal Studios and at 0905 we were in. Phew! After a little fight with a storage locker, that didn't accept our credit card or the stupid American paper $10 notes, we were on our way to the furthest ride from the gate. Apparently most visitors hang around the upper lot for a couple of hours lining up for ages for tours & rides and then all go down to the 3 rides in the lower lot only to line up behind each other again. We walked straight onto the 3D Transformers ride where we were in a fight with and beat the Decepticons - cool. Next ride, with no waiting, was Jurassic Park where we were lucky to get out alive after a T-Rex tried to eat us - cool (See here for real life video). Then onto the Revenge of the Mummy ride. A scary rollercoaster in the dark - cool - for most of us. For some reason Christine didn't like going backwards on a rollercoaster in the dark! Next, after a 20 minute wait, was the Simpsons 3D ride in cartoon land - cool for most of us. Christine still wasn't feeling the best so she did it with her eyes closed. We then had a break from the rides and went to see a bunch of very clever animal actors, in a show, that have been/or are being trained to be in the movies. We also went on a studio tour amongst the sound stages and movie sets around the studio grounds. Unfortunately King Kong attacked the trolley we were on, luckily we got away only to be in a subway station when there was an earthquake. God knows how we escaped from that before we were attacked by Jaws! - COOL!
The day also included a Waterworld stunt show, a Special Effects Stage Show and the House of Horrors that was full of scary actors leaping out at us - cool. Late in the afternoon the boys returned to the lower lot and went on the rides again, with no waiting, while the girls wandered around looking at the shops and sat down and people watched. We walked out the gates at 6pm after a fantastic day. We had dinner at City Walk, the shopping, dining and entertainment promenade, just outside the gates.
With no car, we wanted to get around too see other 'tourist' spots and the obvious choice is to do one of many Double Decker tours with a bus load of tourists. The only problem with that is that LA is so big that there were 6 different routes on the Double Decker bus to choose from. Each route only had 1 or 2 things that we wanted to see and we didn't want to do all 6 routes. We wanted something a bit more personal and decided to cruise through Hollywood, Belair, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, Santa Monica and along Rodeo drive in a red 1966 Cadillac convertible looking very cool. Our driver/tour guide was great and for 4 hours took us to many well known and sometimes infamous places (The Viper room, Whiskey-Go-Go, and homes of the rich and famous). We started with a closer look at the Hollywood sign and learnt more about its history. We saw more studios where lots of the LA movies and TV shows are made, we saw the huge homes and former homes of many stars including Tom Cruise, Jennifer Anniston, Brad and Angelina, David and Victoria Beckham, Douglas Fairbank and Mary Pickford, Rosemary Clooney, Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion and Elvis and Priscilla (the house is directly opposite where Michael Jackson died 40+ years later) and lots more that I've already forgotten.
We jumped out, bought a coffee and then walked along Rodeo Drive window shopping (tick that off Christine's bucket list). We also went to see Marilyn Monroe's final resting place and saw a few other famous names on the walls and headstones (another tick for Christine's bucket list). At 2pm our tour finished and we were dropped off at Venice Beach where we started to walk back up the beach to Santa Monica. After 15 mins or so the kids said they wanted to go back to Venice and take a picture of Robert Downer Jr's home that we had passed. We thought we could remember where it was but unfortunately after more than an hour of walking the streets we couldn't find it (we did see Australian actor and TV presenter Grant Bowler at a café, though!) We then had a leisurely walk up to Santa Monica via the beach and spent some time on the Pier. There is a small amusement park on the pier and Andrew and Jacob had a turn on the roller coaster and Cameron tried his hand at popping some balloons, which he did very successfully. We jumped in a taxi to take us back to the hotel and spent about half an hour in peak hour traffic. Another great day.
Our 66 Caddie
Christine turning her face from the Paparazzi
Andrew and Jake smiling for the Paparazzi
Paramount Pictures
Even the palm trees in Beverly Hills are anorexic!
Walking Rodeo Drive feeling like celebrities. Looking for cool stuff.
Christine took Cam to take some photos of his favourite stars on the Walk Of Fame. After breakfast and packing our ever growing bags Andrew walked back to the Hertz rental office to get our next car while Christine and the kids (after Chelsea's insistence) took some of our old unwanted food scraps and gave it to a homeless person out on street nearby. Don't know why the first person refused it?? The food actually consisted of a half loaf of bread that we had bought the night before and a heap of jam & butter sachets and fruit that were 'surrendered' by the hotel. The lady who received the package was very grateful.
We left Hollywood at 11am to drive south along the Highway. The driving was again a bit stressful for Andrew as the traffic was heavy in places and even then all the other cars were doing at least 75mph in the 65 zones (according to a taxi driver the previous night, there are no speed cameras in California and we figure that all the traffic feel safe speeding as long as there is someone driving faster so the California Highway Patrol will always nab them first). It was generally 4 or 5 Lanes each way but did get up to 8 lanes with cars switching lanes everywhere! We arrived in San Diego at 2pm and went straight to the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum located near the cruise ships docks. We spent 3 hours and walked all over and through the huge 64 thousand tonne, 300 meter long decommissioned US navy ship doing the self guiding audio tour. It was amazing to see the galleys, engine room, officers rooms, pilot ready rooms, flight deck, bridge, brig and lots of jets and helicopters. Jacob also found time to fly a jet in a simulator (Christine and Andrew missed out as they only just finished touring as the ship was closing at 5pm). There were many volunteer guides who were champing at the bit to talk or answer questions. It was a really good 3 hours and only cost about $19 per adult (but we don't think any of the kids want to join the Navy now!). We then drove to our new home for the next 3 nights.
The Director of Cams 1st film
One of many jets on the flight deck
The 'Island' on the USS Midway. (That's Navy talk for the Bridge area)
After a gym session by Andrew and breaky for all we drove back up the highway for 30 minutes to Legoland arriving at 10. Again, being a weekday and out of US school holidays made it a great time for us to visit. The parking attendant confirmed that it was a quiet day - yippee! The park is mainly aimed at 2 -12 year olds so there is a lot to keep little kids happy. The boys (all 3) have dreamt about visiting Legoland for a long time. Chelsea figured she was the oldest girl in the whole park but there was still plenty to see and do for teenagers and mums & dads. The parks many rides include rollercoasters, bumper boats, a thrilling mechanical arm that turns upside down round and round and some more sedate pedal bikes and boring stuff for little kids. The main attraction is the hundreds of Lego models of animals, people, buildings and whole cities. Some were life sized while others, like miniland, were scale models all built entirely of Lego. The biggest model is the life size Star Wars X-Wing fighter. It is the largest Lego model ever built with over 5 million pieces and weighs 23 tonne. There was also a 4D Lego movie, heaps of shops to buy Lego and lots of different places to eat. We left when the gates closed at 5pm and headed to an 'An American Institution' for dinner - Denny's. It was a fantastic meal and very reasonably price. One of the cheapest without compromising on quality that we have had here.
Another dream come true
Cam and Chels about to take the X-Wing Fighter for a blast
Cam getting some tips from Luke
Jake and a mini Boba Fett
Cinderella
Volvo XC90 made with 200 000+ pieces
Jake and Andrew going around upside down
The hotel we are staying in at Las Vegas - New York New York Hotel Casino.
Christine had been looking forward to today's excursion to SeaWorld for a very long time. Not because she would see Seals, or Dolphins, or Sharks, or a Polar Bear or even to have another chance to scream on a roller coaster. The real reason she got up early on Friday 10th of January 2014 was to see Killer Whales up close. And we got to see them real close. We arrived as the gates opened and Christine made a beeline for the Killer Whale exhibit (In fact we haven't seen her move so fast all holiday). Of course, visitor numbers to the park were down due to the time of year, so we initially had all the underwater viewing area to ourselves to see 5 of the 10 Killer Whales at San Diego SeaWorld. After a while we thought we'd better have a look around the rest of the park and spent the next couple of hours seeing Dolphins, Beluga whales, Flamingos, Otters, sharks, fish, a Walrus, a Polar Bear and feeding seals. We also experienced getting wet on the Rapids River ride. Lunch was very special as we had booked 'Lunch with the Killer Whales''. For an extra charge (booked a few days before) we had a full buffet lunch, pool side. 5 of the Killer Whales, with the help of their trainers, put on a private show for us and a few other tables. The whales performed 'behaviours' when directed to and were rewarded with bucket loads of fish. What made it even more special was, when they were left to swim around as they pleased they still came up real close to where we were seated. After lunch we watched the main Killer Whale show, the Dolphin show, looked at other far less interesting animals, went up the 122 m Sky tower, for some magnificent views of San Diego and Andrew and Jacob went on a roller coaster and both got wet again. With 20 mins left before closing at 5, we went back to say goodbye to the Killer Whales and bought some souvenirs as we exited the park. It was another fantastic day.
