It's a long way to Paradise...

Day 2:

We had breakfast at Denny’s – Tone had the Grand Slam & I had the French Toast and one of his pancakes. It was a nice, cheap and quite filling breakfast which would get us through for a few hours. Next stop - California Adventure!! Now this was the first time that we had been here since 2009 so we had lots of new things to experience. To put it into perspective, last time, the lake was drained for the installation of World of Color and Carsland had just started being built. Tone was sent through the metal detector.


We picked the right line to get in the gate as there was a lovely cast member who greeted us and chatted with us for a while.
On our way down Buena Vista Street we wandered through some of the shops and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. We made our way round to A Bugs Land past ToT – neither of us would go on that one!! We snapped some photos in ABL and then went into It’s tough to be a bug theater to watch a Sneak Peak of the Jungle Book. It was really good so it might be something that I would like to see once were back home.


Next we headed to our first glimpse of Carsland (noticing on the way that all the Fastpasses had gone for RSR.) Wow – I was amazed at how close to the movie it seemed.



We took a ride on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree as it only had a 10 minute line. Ha-ha it was such fun!!!

Next we wandered over to Luigi’s Rollickin Roadsters but the line was 40 min, so we just stopped to watch for a while before moving on.




We checked out all the shops along the way and I took a photo of Tone with the Route 66 sign on the road as we were planning on possibly driving part of it next week on the way to Las Vegas.







RSR had a 60 minute line so we just passed that one by for now, but stopped and took plenty of photos on our way past it. There was a Photopass photographer there and he took some nice photos of us.

Next stop – Paradise Pier. We wandered over to California Screaming to ask about the single rider line and a lovely guy asked if we would like 2 Fast Passes as his son had decided that he didn’t want to ride. We did say that it would only be Tone riding as I was too much of a chicken but he was still happy for us to have both passes. So Tone went straight to the Fastpass entrance & I walked along the Boardwalk quickly to have a quick look in the shops and then went back to the viewing area to take photos of Tone on the ride. I timed it just right as there was only one coaster that passed me before the one with him on. I snapped some quick photos with sports mode on my camera and off he went.

It wasn’t long before he met me at the viewing area and then decided to use the other Fastpass. So off he went again and this time he was in the front row by himself. I took more photos and waited for him again.


After CS we went to line up at Toy Story Midway Mania. I think it was a 25 or 30 minute line which wasn’t too bad and it seemed to move quite quickly.



Naturally Tone beat me at the game but it was such fun. After the ride we walked along the boardwalk and through the shops and I showed Tone a shirt that I had liked on my way through there earlier. We decided to come back and buy it later on our way out of the park. Our next stop was Ariel’s Undersea Adventure which was new since our last visit. It was quite cute.

Grizzly River Run was next but we didn’t end up riding as it was a 60 minute line and Tone didn’t particularly want to get wet. We followed the path around to Soarin and joined the line there. I can’t remember what the wait was but we got chatting to the couple behind us so the time flew by.
Yay- we got front row. I am quite scared of heights so the moment that the row moved forward and up freaked me out a little but once the film started I was okay. I’m sure that my knuckles were white from holding on tight though.

Tone found a shirt that he liked in the shop opposite Soarin so we bought that and then headed back to Paradise pier to buy the one that I liked. Then we left the park for the rest of the afternoon. We had decided that we should try and get tickets to Universal Studios for tomorrow (Tuesday) as “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” was opening there on Thursday and we didn’t want to be there once that opened as we knew that it would be too busy. We dropped our bags at our hotel and checked with the front desk where we could book tours and they recommended Discount Tours further down Sth Harbour Boulevard. The girls were very helpful and we managed to get booked on a bus tour for Universal for Tuesday and also a Los Angeles & Hollywood tour for Friday.

We also enquired about hire cars for our drive to Las Vegas and we were sent to a place back toward our hotel. There was no one on the desk to help and the courtesy phone just went to message bank so we waited about 10 minutes and then gave up and left. I knew that there was an Alamo in Downtown Disney – so that was our next destination. We were too late at the Alamo as the office had already closed so we wandered through a lot of the shops instead and then decided to have dinner at Rainforest Café. Our server was fantastic. We had been put next to a loud table with a couple of screaming kids on it and he mentioned to us several times that we could be moved if we wanted. The kids quietened down when they were eating anyway. Our dinner was nice. Tone had the Pastalaya & I had the Rainforest Burger. After dinner was finished and I had bought a souvenir tote bag, we wandered back through DTD stopping in more shops for a browse. When we were in World of Disney we could hear the fireworks so we headed over close to where the tram leaves for Mickey & Friends parking and watched the fireworks. We went back in to World of Disney to continue browsing for a little while, and then headed back through bag check and out the other side back to our hotel. Day two done!

Day 3 : we were up early so that we could get breakfast before the bus picked us up for Universal Studios. We chose Denny’s again. It was close, cheap and quick. We shared a Grand Slam this time, well I had the pancakes and he ate the rest.
Our bus picked us up just near the crosswalk to Disneyland so we did a bit of people watching until that arrived. We met a nice family from Brisbane, Australia who were also going to Universal. The bus dropped us off at the depot where we transferred to another bus. The freeways were quite busy all the way to Universal and the ride seemed to be taking ages. I wasn’t feeling all that well so I did snooze for a little while. Finally we arrived and lined up at the entrance. The park didn’t actually open properly for another 40 minutes but the were letting people in and then they were all getting stopped a little further in – kind of like rope drop.


It was quite hot out already and they had us all standing in the hot sun – one girl actually fainted from the heat and was helped into the shade. Eventually we were allowed to get moving so Tone and I made our way towards the Tram Tour which was a must do for us. It was quite busy at the entrance to the tram tour so we probably had a 15 minute wait until we were on. We were on the RHS of the tram and it seemed like all of the photo opportunities were on the LHS.












It was such a cool tour though. The addition of the Fast & Furious ride at the end was AMAZING!!!

That's awesome! We're going to do Universal and HPW next year so I'll be following along closely. I'm sure a TON has changed since I was there last (1998 I think).

Canadian Harmony said:

That's awesome! We're going to do Universal and HPW next year so I'll be following along closely. I'm sure a TON has changed since I was there last (1998 I think).

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Thanks for following along! It has changed heaps since we were last there in 2009 too. It was a shame that we missed HPW, but it opened 2 days later so we knew that it would be too busy for us if we went later that week. Next time though!!

As we came back up we met Homer Simpson in Springfield.





Next we headed down to the lower lot and Tone went for a ride on the Mummy and I didn’t because I am a wuss!!





I took photos of Megatron while I waited.

We then took advantage of the 10 minute wait time on Transformers. It was great but I must admit that I did close my eyes for a little bit!!


When we came out I took photos of Optimus Prime while Tone went on JurassicPark (did I mention that I am a wuss?) and then I looked through a couple of shops.


I did get some great action shots of Tone on Jurassic Park though.

Tone took some photos on Jurassic Park!

Just joined in - great to read all about your trip. Always make great memories in LA.

We headed back to the Upper Lot and decided that we would do the Studio tour again, this time trying to grab the RHS of the tram. There was quite a long wait – probably 40 minutes. We were definitely thankful for the mist sprayers that they had going in the queue as it was quite a hot day. The Studio tour was excellent again and it was definitely a better ride on the RHS.

darrenf67 said:

Just joined in - great to read all about your trip. Always make great memories in LA.

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Thanks for joining in. it's great to know that people are actually reading. There is plenty more to come!!

After we had finished the tour we headed back up to the Upper Lot and stopped for a Duff Beer in Moe’s Tavern.



We discovered the free wifi while we were in there so I managed to send all the Facebook posts that had been waiting for some form of internet. I started getting FB messages from friends back in Oz that had thought that we had been enjoying ourselves too much to keep in touch. But it was due to the no wifi in Disneyland and no free wifi at our hotel. So I bombarded them all with posts and we moved on!








Next we managed to time it well enough to catch the Special Effects Show which was quite different from last time we had seen it. It was very entertaining. From there we raced over to catch the last show of the day – Waterworld. It was really busy so it took us a while to find a seat and it was over to one side. Everyone must have had the same idea to catch the last show of the day.

After that finished we wandered past the not yet open Harry Potter World and also looked at the set up for the VIP opening the next day.













Then we walked through a few shops on the way out and we headed towards Universal City Walk. We had less than an hour to catch our bus back to Anaheim so we had a good walk all the way to the end of UCW, stopping to take photos and browse a few shops. We didn’t find anything that we needed to buy but we did manage to have a good look in the time frame that we had.

Traffic on the way back to Anaheim was pretty crazy, but we had a good time chatting to the family from Australia that we had met on the way to Universal. It turns out that they had done the VIP package so had plenty of special treatment during the day including meals and front of line passes to everything.




We eventually arrived back in Anaheim and were dropped off at our hotel. We had a walk down to the CVS to do a bit of a stock up for beer, water, cereal, milk, Cokes and snacks. We also had to get some black tape to repair my suitcase (but that’s a whole nother story) Our haul was dumped back in our room and we decided to try the pizza place attached to our hotel – Pizza Press, for dinner. Well it had a bit of a lineup but wow - it was definitely worth the wait!!! We got one pizza between us (big mistake – we were starving) and a couple of drinks and sat outside and watched the Disneyland fireworks while we ate. Amazing pizza!!!



While we had been on the bus earlier I had noticed a McDonalds just down from our hotel so I headed there after dinner to use the free wifi and checked all the stuff that you do when you have internet!! Tone went back to the hotel to relax & watch tv. Then it was another day done!

What was your favourite at Universal? The Simpsons was amazing but Transformers was my favourite. the water world show was also amazing.

darrenf67 said:

What was your favourite at Universal? The Simpsons was amazing but Transformers was my favourite. the water world show was also amazing.

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My favourite apart from the Studio Tour was definitely Transformers. I recall riding it twice even though it's not in my notes. The Waterworld show was very entertaining and the pre-show bit was very funny with the actors getting the crowd with water.

We slept in the next morning and had cereal for breakfast that we had bought at the CVS. Then we had a leisurely stroll over to Downtown Disney to go to the Alamo rental car office. Vince - the guy in there was very helpful. Tone wanted us to have a convertible but we were concerned that the suitcases wouldn’t fit in the boot. We tentatively booked a Mustang, but there was a possibility that a Dodge Challenger would be available. Vince priced it all up for us and we left it at that. We were still a bit concerned about driving to Las Vegas so we headed over to Discount tours to enquire about a bus tour instead. We found out that there was a bus that would take us from Anaheim to Las Vegas but it had one stop and we wouldn’t see Route 66 which was the whole purpose of driving anyway. The guy in Discount Tours was helpful and highlighted on a map the freeways that we would need to take to get us out of Anaheim and headed to Route 66. His map didn’t go too much out of Anaheim so he suggested that we should purchase a map book from Target or the Chevron. We decided to do that later after we had decided which mode of transport we were going to take.

We headed into Disneyland via the Monorail. Naturally we requested the front seats but we were told that we had to wait and see if the other passengers vacated the cabin. We waited for 3 monorails and no one exited the front so we relented and hopped on with everyone else.

We exited at Tomorrowland and grabbed Fast Passes for Star Tours and rode Astroblasters a few times as the line was short.


Lunch was at the Hungry Bear again and we both had the Picnic Salad. We then headed across to Adventureland and grabbed a Fastpass for Indiana Jones and then went to the Tiki room and caught the next show.



So cool!!
We hadn’t been to Fantasyland yet so that was our next stop. It was pretty busy in there and Peter Pan was out to 40 minutes so we gave that one a miss for now. We stopped to take photos around Fantasyland and then rode Snow White’s Scary Adventures

We then headed over to It’s a Small World and rode that (has to be done at least once per trip – it takes that long to get the song out of your head).








Our Star Tours Fast passes must have been due by this time so we went over and rode that and then Astro Blasters a couple more times for good measure!!


We then used our IJ fastpasses and then decided to exit the park to have dinner.




This is a photo of our hotel from the crosswalk. We were staying at the Carousel. It was pretty close to the parks.


And this one shows the crosswalk from our balcony.


We stopped at Captain Kidd’s Buffet which was near our hotel. There was plenty of food and a good range of choices but I wouldn’t rave over it. It was busy and fairly disorganised. Tone wanted a beer and that took until nearly the end of our meal to arrive. We went back to the hotel briefly to grab sweaters and then went back into Disneyland.

We grabbed another FP for IJ and rode Pirates and HM then Splash and IJ.





We thought that we would time it right to be on BTMRR when the fireworks were on so we joined the standby line and yep it was about 8.40 when we were getting on the ride. Surely we would see them from here??? When we got off we headed over to the hub and there wasn’t much of a crowd so we checked and the fireworks had not been on that night due to high winds. Darn.
We went into Tomorrowland and rode Star tours and Astro Blasters again and then caught the second show of Paint the Night.













Paint the Night was definitely better to watch as the second show. It really wasn't busy and we had a good spot right near Tomorrowland.
That was it for the evening once it was done – back to the hotel to relax.

Paint the Night is my favourite Disney parade - loved it