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

[marvel]

Yeah, the dollar was a bit upsetting. The 14 day pass does make sense for that length of time. We are in Anaheim for 8nights, and also doing Lego Land during that time, so i don't think we will get there more than 5 days out of 8.

Where are you staying in LA?? Sorry if I have asked before

 

[aussietravellers]

Dollar lost 2.5c overnight !

It will come back up though.

 

[marvel]

I think you are right, but you just get used to it going up every day!

 

[aussiegirls]

marvel, we will be staying in Studio City, LA. A cute little place called Sportsmen's Lodge

xxx

 

[Czardas]

Is there any advantage buying your Disneyland passes from Expedia instead of Disneyland.com ?
Seems to me the prices are the same, so why not buy direct from Disneyland?

 

[aussietravellers]

Is there any advantage buying your Disneyland passes from Expedia instead of Disneyland.com ?
Seems to me the prices are the same, so why not buy direct from Disneyland?

You can not buy the 14 day passes from Disneyland.com. They must be purchased from Australia (or NZ) as they are not available for the US market, so through Expedia or a travel agent. The other passes (5 day, 3 day etc) there is no advantage I can see buying them through expedia if the price is the same.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Just needed to say how jealous I am of you all planning your holidays. Mine seems so very far away.

 

[Saskiwi]

Just thought I'd relate our recent experience with LAX - we got through immigration and picked up our bags in less than 20 minutes!

It was our first time in the US since 9/11 and we had heard all the horror stories of how long/unpleasant the US immigration process is these days...

So we were prepared for the worst..joined the queue for immigration and after about three minutes a woman supervisor called us over and moved our family to the front of the queue, presumably because we had young children (9 and 6) - have since heard from another family that the same thing happened to them. Suprise Number 1 - Very impressed!

Next immigration itself. As someone who has had several bad eperiences with US immigration in the past (including an officer demanding to know why I had an NZ passport and not an Australian one "because they're the same country aren't they?" !!!) I was expecting a grilling, however, the older male immigration officer we got was "almost" jovial - I nearly fell over! When he saw our US address was Hojo's, Harbor Blvd he joked with our boys "so you off to see Mickey Mouse?". OK, so the whole handprint, eyeball photo thing takes a few minutes longer, but it's not much hassle really - Suprise Number 2!

Finally , baggage claim - our bags were literally almost waiting for us on the first carousel after we got through immigration - Amazing! Suprise Number 3!

So, for all that there are probably a million horror stories about getting through LAX, I felt I had to give a thumbs-up for our experience!

Of course it was then followed up by a horror time at Budget Rentals, but that's another post...!

Flea: V Australia is owned by Virgin Blue, the Australian airline that is Pacific Blue's parent company, however, V Australia is a "full-service" airline, not a low-cost carrier like PBlue - i.e. you pay for meals, entertainment etc in your ticket price. Have you decided where you are staying yet?

Can I add I'm also very envious of those of you planning trips - we've told our boys our next trip will be 2012, when Carsland etc is open in DCA - seems a long way off though! Sigh....

 

[darren123]

Just thought I'd relate our recent experience with LAX - we got through immigration and picked up our bags in less than 20 minutes!

It was our first time in the US since 9/11 and we had heard all the horror stories of how long/unpleasant the US immigration process is these days...

So we were prepared for the worst..joined the queue for immigration and after about three minutes a woman supervisor called us over and moved our family to the front of the queue, presumably because we had young children (9 and 6) - have since heard from another family that the same thing happened to them. Suprise Number 1 - Very impressed!

We had the same experince in 2002 with our son who was 9 at the time a nice lady from immigration pointed us to the front of the line, but when we went last year it was not that long for 2 adults and had no problems.

J
Next immigration itself. As someone who has had several bad eperiences with US immigration in the past (including an officer demanding to know why I had an NZ passport and not an Australian one "because they're the same country aren't they?" !!!) I was expecting a grilling, however, the older male immigration officer we got was "almost" jovial - I nearly fell over! When he saw our US address was Hojo's, Harbor Blvd he joked with our boys "so you off to see Mickey Mouse?". OK, so the whole handprint, eyeball photo thing takes a few minutes longer, but it's not much hassle really - Suprise Number 2!

Finally , baggage claim - our bags were literally almost waiting for us on the first carousel after we got through immigration - Amazing! Suprise Number 3!

So, for all that there are probably a million horror stories about getting through LAX, I felt I had to give a thumbs-up for our experience!

Our thoughts as well when we walked out the front about 10 minutes later our shuttle bus came and were we of to Anaheim.

Has anyone flown VAustralia yet and what was it like Thanks

 

[marvel]

Customs and Immigration in the US is 100 times better than in Australia. You need to be super lucky for a quiet day. The queues are ridiculous. You can wait hours waiting to get the bags x-rayed by Quarantine. We have only ever had good experiences getting through both LA and SF.

Hey, aussiegirls, the sportsman lodge looks ok, good price. I priced if for our 4nights and it was around $600US including 2 universal tickets, free parking and breakfast. I will have to check up on tripadvisor and see what they say.
Have you stayed there before?

 

[becpee]

Has anyone flown VAustralia yet and what was it like Thanks

I don't know anybody personally that has flown V-Australia but I have read reviews here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...ax-v-australias-first-flight-review-long.html and at a few other forums, you just have to seek them out.
But then I think any review would be different from when an airline is first taking off.

 

[marvel]

can't be worse the qantas anyhow so I wouldn't worry.

 

[lovintheland]

Got back Sunday from our trip and flew V Australia. Best airline we have ever flown with. Check in was fast & friendly, aircraft was lovely & new and more spacious than our previous Qantas LA flight. Now I don't know if it is because of it being a new aircraft, but we all agreed that the take off & landing were the quiestest and smoothest (and the flight itself for that matter) than ever experienced.

The staff genuinely appear to love their jobs, and provided great service with a smile. Nothing was too much bother.

Check in staff at LA were incredably friendly & helpful

Big thumbs up from us and will fly with again!!!!

 

[lovintheland]

forgot to mention, food was great as well with V Aus

 

[darren123]

I don't know anybody personally that has flown V-Australia but I have read reviews here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...ax-v-australias-first-flight-review-long.html and at a few other forums, you just have to seek them out.
But then I think any review would be different from when an airline is first taking off.

Read them awhile ago Thank you, There seems not be any recent ones on VAustralia and just wondering what people think, Was looking at doing a 7 day trip to Magic Mountain and Disneyland in Jan/2010 and if VAustralia keep having specials for under $1000 that means for the 3 of us can go for $4500 all included very tempting, And then go on our Sept/2010 trip.

 

[marvel]

Hey, if you have the cash why not? sounds like a good idea to me. i would go twice a year if I could. But trying to maintain one trip a year is still a good option, if we are able to maintain that. But i have a hard time going there for only a week, I keep extending the lengths of our trips.

 

[aussiegirls]

marvel I have not stayed there before. I researched quite a bit on tripadvisor and other sites. It has mostly pretty good reviews, the ones that are not so great are all pre '07, since then all the reviews have been pretty great.

I called twice and the people there are lovely and super helpful. They even orgainsed limo transfers (at a really great price) to the airport for me. I booked at an advance purchase price and so it worked out to be less than $100 p/n and with free transfers to Universal and to the shopping centre I was sold.

Most of the hotels in the LA area are excruciatingly expensive and you are never sure whether the area is dodgy. As far as I am aware the area we will be in is pretty good and safe so I am hoping that I have made a good choice.

Just a funny story to tell, I found out after we booked that a lot of celebs live in that suburb (Studio City) one of which happens to be Zac Efron. DD (9yrs) was beside herself and asked if we could go door knocking to try and find him I think not!!!!

xxx

 

[aussietravellers]

Just a funny story to tell, I found out after we booked that a lot of celebs live in that suburb (Studio City) one of which happens to be Zac Efron. DD (9yrs) was beside herself and asked if we could go door knocking to try and find him I think not!!!!

xxx

That is cute ! I'd prefer to be knocking for Zac Efron though, my DS would only want to doorknock for dinosaurs, pokemon or people from Primeval tvshow! I'd prefer to wander the streets looking for Zac!

 

[becpee]

Got back Sunday from our trip and flew V Australia. Best airline we have ever flown with. Check in was fast & friendly, aircraft was lovely & new and more spacious than our previous Qantas LA flight. Now I don't know if it is because of it being a new aircraft, but we all agreed that the take off & landing were the quiestest and smoothest (and the flight itself for that matter) than ever experienced.

The staff genuinely appear to love their jobs, and provided great service with a smile. Nothing was too much bother.

Check in staff at LA were incredably friendly & helpful

Big thumbs up from us and will fly with again!!!!

V-Australia sounds very promising to me, thats who my DH wants to fly with although we have a long time to wait

 

[marvel]

thanks for the info, it does sound good. I am having trouble deciding on somewhere to stay in LA. I wanted the Renaissance but it was $380 plus they couldn't book 2 queens so that was out, the other one I am considering is Holiday Inn Hollywood which is around $220 US which is still so much more than the sportsman, so I am just not sure what to do. We have two kids 9 and 11 so it makes the decision a bit harder. If it was just us it would be fine, I would take a risk and book the sportsmans.

Hey, my DS is also big time for the pokemon, but I am sure my DD11 would support a door knock for Zac!