Hollywood June 22nd - June 28th
After flying into LAX from Miami and taking the world's longest Super Shuttle ride to Anaheim, we finally arrived at Hotel Menage, just across the road from Disneyland! The hotel was beautiful with a lovely pool and bar area and a really cheap yummy restaurant and the room we had was probably the nicest we'd had so far!
For our stay in Anaheim we had purchased a Southern California Pass which gave us 3 days at Disneyland and California Adventure Park (across from Disneyland) and we could hop between the parks all day as well as being allowed in earlier than the general public on one of the mornings which was very weird as it was so quiet at 7am! We thoroughly enjoyed being at the real Disneyland and seeing all of our childhood disney classics coming to life as well as seeing some great shows and meeting all of the characters! The fireworks each night were very magical and there was an awesome fountain and lights show too where we got drenched! We could also see the fireworks from our hotel on the nights that we weren't actually in the park which was cool! There was always something going on in Disneyland and lots of cool rides to go on. There was a lot of people there at all times, which was expected, but we didn't feel like we were always in lines for hours on end which made it even better! It really was the happiest place on earth!
On the other days in Anaheim we spent a couple relaxing by the pool and also going down to San Diego to Sea World (the ticket was included in the southern california pass too!). It took about 2 hours to get there by bus, but we saw some of the coastline along the way which was good. Sea World was fun with some really good shows and cute animals, but we both agreed that the Australian Sea World is much, much better!
We were sad to leave our lovely hotel and Disneyland, but on the 22nd we took a quick Amtrak train up to Los Angeles to check into the Hollywood Historic Hotel on Melrose Ave. It was in a pretty decent location but just a bit too far to walk. Luckily there were some cheap buses that went around to the main areas. The hotel wasn't as flashy as the Anaheim hotel, but it was good for what we needed!
We spent a lot of time on Hollywood Boulevard where we could see the Hollywood sign, Kodak theatre, Walk of Fame etc which was amazing to see in real life. We even managed to see Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks at the Larry Crowne Premiere which was sooooo cool! We spent some time down at Santa Monica beach and Venice beach too, as well as some shopping areas and of course, Rodeo Drive! We also did a Movie star homes tour and saw some famous houses which was nice, and the Beverly Hills area was really nice to drive through. One thing we noticed about the general LA area is that it was very, very dirty with rubbish and muck everywhere which wasn't very nice at all.
On one day in Hollywood, we did the Warner Bros Studio Tour and instead of having 12 people in the group it ended up just being the two of us with the guide which was so much better! He showed us a lot of famous sets and things from some of our favourite shows which was so fantastic to see in real life! We even got to visit the Central Perk set from Friends! Our tour guide was great and answered a lot of questions for us too. This was probably our favourite part of our Hollywood trip.
On our last day in Hollywood we used the last ticket of our Southern California Pass to go to Universal Studios Hollywood. It was different to Orlando in some ways as it was much smaller and you really only needed one day to see everything. There were only 3 rides, but the shows they had were really fantastic. We could also do a studio tour of the outdoor sets they had there and a really cool 3-D king king ride as well. Overall, the Park was fun to see.
The next day we again, packed up all our stuff, and headed to Monterey Park to take our shuttle/tour bus to San Francisco. And I'll save that story for the next blog!
See ya!
Hayley & Shaun
Disneyland
Pluto!
The Castle
Minnie Mouse
Kodak Theatre
At Central Perk!
Venice Beach
The Beverly Willshire - Pretty Woman!
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