Aussie Disneyland Planners come on in and lets plan together :)

[mareeld86]

Hey Guys

GUESS WHAT?

Today my partner and i decided to go back to disneyland next year and save our trip to walt disneyworld until our honeymoon in 2012 WOOOHOOO!

Im so excited, I cant wait we went in january this year and are looking to go january next year if i can get the time off.

Just wanted to let you all know!'

PS I live in Tasmania Australia.

 

[gogo65]

Hey Guys

GUESS WHAT?

Today my partner and i decided to go back to disneyland next year and save our trip to walt disneyworld until our honeymoon in 2012 WOOOHOOO!

Im so excited, I cant wait we went in january this year and are looking to go january next year if i can get the time off.

Just wanted to let you all know!'

PS I live in Tasmania Australia.

How exciting.
Time to start planning

 

[keptwoman]

Very exciting mareeld!

 

[darren123]

thanks for the info Darren, I think it sounds good. Love you trip planning up to 2013, great idea.

Thank you next year trip we are taking our Son and Grandaughter, 2013 is our 30th Wedding Anniversary. And maybe another trip to Hong Kong Disneyland in between hopefully.

 

[marvel]

Hi everyone. I just rang around for travel insurance and took up travel insurance direct. Do not get AAMI travel insurance, they already consider the swine flu an epidemic and will not cover anything at all to do with swine flu. The others will not cover cancellations, however if you already are covered and the government does make the call to ban all travel, it is possible that they will cover it.

The rules are different if you took up insurance prior to April 27th. The official situation must have changed on that day. Hope this helps people that haven't got insurance yet.

 

[hannah75]

Thanks for your reply!

Do you have any photos of the zoo or seaworld from your trip? Did you do a dine with Shamu while you were there? Which hotel did you stay in?

We aren't going with kids so we can pack a bit more into our day. Would you recommend doing universal on one day and then a LA tour on another day? Which day did you go to Universal studios? Was it busy when you were there? Did you need a front of the line pass?

Yep, we are going to New York also. We're staying at the Westin hotel in times square. Where did you stay? We have 7 full days there. Is there anything you recommend us seeing?

I do have pics of both parks u mentioned but i don't know how to post them. Sorry.
i'll try and figure it out on the weekend.
We didn't do dine with shamu this trip but did it when we went to orlando in 2007 and enjoyed it there but not enough to want to do it again. We loved the shamu show though and went to see it twice on the same day.

We went to universal on a wednesday and the park was practically empty - did not need a front of the line pass. the only thing the front of the line pass would have come in handy for was the studios tour which had a long wait but otherwise everything else was a walk on. make sure u don't miss the simpsons ride, it's awesome.
If u have the time i would recommended universal and LA tour on seperate days.

Sorry guys i know it's a disney/california site but,
about New York: we rented an apartment in lower manhattan and the apartment was gorgeous but i wouldn't stay in that area again. We loved times square, would def stay in that area next time. I would recommend u not miss central park (that's a given), museum of natural history - i enjoyed it despite not being a museum going person, but i warn u, you need alot of time to cover it. Also make sure u don't miss macys - shoppers paradise!! if u do go to macys you can stop in at customer service and pick up a visitors card which entitles u to % off savings similar to those exclusive to macys store card holders.
also if u decide to visit the statue of liberty, buy the tickets online b4 u get there as they had a MUCH shorter queue for the ferry (we waited in line an hour and a half to get on the ferry). visit: StatueofLibertyTickets.com
Hope this helps.

 

[keptwoman]

And on the subject of New York apparantly they are opening up limited tickets to go up to the crown. Opens in July and will be balloted. I'm waiting to see how the ballot is drawn and if we can get into it to decide on our definite plans for seeing the statue.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

And on the subject of New York apparantly they are opening up limited tickets to go up to the crown. Opens in July and will be balloted. I'm waiting to see how the ballot is drawn and if we can get into it to decide on our definite plans for seeing the statue.

I've heard that the statue isn't all that great and it's best to just ride a ferry past it and take some pics. Not sure if that is true or not.

 

[keptwoman]

I've heard that the statue isn't all that great and it's best to just ride a ferry past it and take some pics. Not sure if that is true or not.

I've heard the same. And given our tight time schedule I suspect that that is the option we would take. I certainly won't be landing on the island unless we were able to go right up the statue.

 

[kel77]

80.13

 

[keptwoman]

80.13

Oh my happy days. May it continue in the same way!! My budget is looking healthier and healthier!!

 

[~ButterflyKisses~]

80.13

Woohoo!!

I just googled and came across this article. It says that they expect the Australian dollar to reach 84 cents by the end of the year and expects it to trade over 90 cents next year. Yay!!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/27/2581879.htm

Hannah, thanks for yor reply. We are thinking now that we'll do the LA/Hollywood tour and universal studios on separate days. Otherwise if we do both togther it will be 13 hours and that is a very long day!

Has anyone here done a LA tour and what did you think? We get a choice of visiting either Venice beach or Santa Monica. Which do yo think is better?

Thanks for the tips on NY also. We have 7 full days there so plan to do lots of sightseeing!

 

[marvel]

Great news on the dollar. If it gets to 90c i think i might invest in some more for future trips!!

We did the free staten island ferry which takes you past the statue and thought it was fine. The queue to get onto the actual island was unbelievable, it snaked across the whole park area. It would have been hours long and that was for people that already had purchased tickets to get onto the island. I didn't really want to spend half a day waiting for that. The ferry was great, and easy subway ride to get there and you go across and straight back.

I am not a fan of any organised tours. We did one long ago in LA and thought it was rushed, and alot of it you just watch outside the windows of the bus. But that is just us, we prefer to pick out what we want to see ourselves and either use public transport or cabs. I think the hop on hop off system in LA would be better than a tour as you can control how long you spend. Where are you guys staying in LA?

 

[keptwoman]

If you hired a car you could do both beaches in a day plus a few other places besides. (have to admit that like Marvel I'm not a fan of tours.. I rather like doing things at my own pace and not being herded like sheep LOL)
We stayed at Santa Monica. It's a lovely feeling shopping centre with a short walk to a beautiful beach and pier with big amusement arcade.
However if I were to choose between the two I'd say go to Venice Beach. It's a huge promenade with lots of people walking. There are street performers and lots of sports facilites for people to use like basketball courts and big climbing ropes things for adults. There is the Muscle Beach gym which is just as cliched as you'd expect. It's just alive with people out and about. Although admittedly we went on a weekend. The beach itself is lovely with those big lifeguard huts like you see on TV. We had a really lovely time there and the kids had a swim while we sat and watched the world go by.

marvel.... the Staten Island ferry was what we were thinking about too. Both because of the lines to get to the Liberty Island ferry and also because standing at the base seems a bit pointless. How long would you allow to do the Staten Island ferry return?

 

[marvel]

For the ferry we just went there as early as we wanted one morning via subway and the ferry leaves I think every 15 mins or so. Probably still a couple of hours as we wanted to walk around the area a bit and then caught the subway again, I think we may have then gone on to do the bridge walk and Grimaldi's pizza after this.

 

[keptwoman]

Ok. Thanks I allowed a couple of hours so that's good.
And Grimaldis and the bridge walk? I allowed 3-4 hours for that in the evening. Do you think that's enough?

 

[~ButterflyKisses~]

We're not staying in LA. We have 7 nights in Anaheim at the Disneyland hotel but plan on making some day trips to LA to see the sights and also visit Universal Studios.

We decided against renting a car because we're not familiar with driving in the US and I have heard LA traffic is attrocious! A tour just sounds easier.

Still undecided about whether to do the LA tour as a night thing after we do Universal or do both tours on seperate days??? I keep swinging from one to the other.

 

[keptwoman]

We drove in LA and honestly... it was no worse than Sydney or Melbourne. It's the same size too.

 

[kylieh]

Has anyone here done a LA tour and what did you think? We get a choice of visiting either Venice beach or Santa Monica. Which do yo think is better?

We did the tour... here are my thoughts from an earlier post....

We did the Grayline LA Day Tour. We drove up to LA, up to the Star Walk (can't rememer it's proper name,) and the Chinese Theatre. Walked around there for about an hour. Next stop was The Grove/Farmer's Market. I really liked that, about an hour and half, then more driving and a choice of Santa Monica or Venice Beach. We choose Santa Monica because we had DD, but I think I would of liked Venice Beach. We only drove down Rodeo Drive, didn't get to get off, saw lots of famous in movie buildings, and drove past the Hollywood sign. Didn't really get a photo opp for that.

I think someone else, earlier on in the thread went mentioned this tour, and if my memory serves me correct, I think it was BecBennett that put this in her trip report from last year.

There is a lot of driving, in total maybe 6 hours for the day, so if you have younger kids be prepared to take something to keep them entertained, Miss 6 got bored, even with her DS.

PS - On the day we went there were only Aussie and Kiwi's on the bus!!!!​

Something that was really cool was being able to go to the American Girl shop in the Grove centre. http://www.americangirl.com/ If you have a girl between, say 6 - 10 years who is into dolls, they will love it. DD got a "Just Like Me Doll" which she choose from around 25+ different dolls, same colouring as her, eg hair, eyes, skin tone, hair length etc. It was around US$110, full size doll. Not cheap, but really good. I think that part was the highlight of the day.

Would I do it again, perhaps, perhaps not. Not with Miss 6, she was too bored with all the driving.

 

[marvel]

We found it very easy to drive in LA and that was before they had invented GPS ! The traffic in Melbourne is much worse.

With the bridge walk and Grimaldis 3-4hrs should be fine, just make sure you don't get there late for dinner. We went mid week during lunch and still had to wait maybe 45mins outside to get in. I imagine that dinner might be a much longer wait so that may add some time. It was a fun experience. My DS8 says that New York is his favorite city even after being to WDW and DL.