Circusgirl
Queen of the Moisture Festival. Allora!
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2007
- Messages
- 1,726
Welcome aboard the fastest trip report in the DIS-erness! Be sure to hang on to your hats and glasses, because we’re about to take a headlong ride along the west coast to attend the D23 special screening of “Up” at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood!
The PTR is here: The World's Fastest Tiniest PTR
On the 14th of May I received an e-mail from the D23 Disney fan club with an invitation to an event called “Up All Night”, featuring a screening of “Up” and complimentary popcorn and soda along with a pre-show hour of music on the beautiful organ in the theatre, a new stage show and surprises. It sounded super fun, but was unfortunately taking place just two weeks later and 1,132 miles from my house. I looked at the details on the D23 web site and just filed away the information with the thought that at some point a cool event would come up that I would attend.
Then time became all stretchy and squashy as if my life had become animated. It felt like all kind of days went by between getting the e-mail, thinking about going and then deciding to go, but when I checked the chronology, it went like this: I received the e-mail, but dismissed the idea of going to L.A. to see a movie. The next day I went back to the web site and realized that I was not scheduled to work on the two days that I would need off in order to attend the event. I mentioned the idea to my DBF with apparently great presentation and timing because he immediately started looking for cheap flights. He found cheap flights so we knew it was possible in that arena too. The next day I got up early and called the ticket order number and secured our event tickets. The next day I booked air, car and hotel and called the cat sitter. So it was only four days from idea to actual even though it felt like two weeks had gone by.
We were scheduled to fly to L.A. at 4:20 pm on Thursday, May 28th, arriving at 6:56 pm at the Long Beach Airport. The event start time was 10:00 pm so if all went well we would land, grab our rental car and zoom up to Hollywood. Our hotel was walking distance to the theatre (and offered free parking!!!) so we hoped to check in, drop off our stuff and get to the theatre in time to enjoy the scene and maybe even get a snack at the Soda Fountain before the start of the movie.
I started a PTR and looked into things that we might do during the day on the 29th before going to the airport at 2:30 in the afternoon.
The ticket packet arrived and Memorial Day came and went in a flurry of Seattle’s Folklife Festival, the opening of Jim Henson’s Fantastic World at the EMP/SFM and the Seattle International Film Festival. We attended a screening of “I’m No Dummy”, a hilarious, warm, sweet documentary about ventriloquists, their creative processes and the art of animating their sidekicks. The filmmaker was there along with three of the ventriloquists and their dummies and there was a rib-tickler of a Q&A after the film. One of the ventriloquists was Jay Johnson who spent the early part of his career on “Soap.” The dummies engaged in hilarious banter with each other and the actual humans. It was totally fascinating and wonderful. (I just went to the film’s web site and the icons that you click on to go to various parts of the site are depictions of dummies who move their mouths and talk when you mouse over them - excellent!)
DBF was felled by a virus on Sunday the 24th, ran a small degree fever and felt incredibly lousy. We stayed away from each other except for my making some food drops and frequent phone calls. He was really sweet about trying to keep me from getting sick while he rested like mad because he didn’t really feel up to anything else.
The night before the trip I attended a cool presentation called “Muppets 101”, a history of Jim Henson and the Muppets presented by the extremely smart and funny Craig Shemin, a former Jim Henson Company staff writer. (I thought of you, Lynn! He was just dreamy.) He showed lots and lots of great video and was extremely entertaining (no surprise there) while telling the story.
Thursday I packed, ran around and did errands and chores before picking up still sick but incredibly game DBF to head for the airport at 1:30. We found our way to our favorite off site parking, Master Park. We love them because when you return home and the shuttle drops you back at the lot, your car is waiting eagerly with the trunk open as if by magic. If they would start to wash and vacuum the cars while they’re parked, my car parking world would be complete.
We cleared security with plenty of time for a lunch at Anthony’s before heading to the boarding area. DBF had a Caesar Salad with Shrimp and I had a Tropical Salad - Grilled halibut, mango, avocado, tomato and bacon on seasonal greens tossed with citrus vinaigrette, beet curls and crumbled blue cheese. We shared a small loaf of warm sourdough bread and all was good. The shrimp caesar had a sumptuous amount of shrimp, and my salad was a delectable blend of the sweet light halibut and mango mixed with the sharpness of blue cheese and richness of avocado.
Anthony’s is sea-themed. The floors have luminescent tile in sweeping patterns suggestive of water in motion, and the light fixtures do Lady Lallie proud:
We strolled out to the gate, picking up some bottled water along the way. We had time to read and relax before the flight boarded. The loading was slow, and they reopened the door to let a late person on (at whom I wanted to glare but managed to only look slightly annoyed instead) so by the time we took off we were running fifteen minutes late. My headphones were at home, but I didn’t really feel like watching TV enough to buy a headset, so I read and napped. Although it had been flawlessly beautiful and sunny in Seattle, when we arrived Long Beach was under a blanket of clouds. As we skimmed over the city, everywhere we looked were bright purple flowering trees. It was otherworldly looking, as though we had gotten into a science fiction novel world warp and had landed in a slightly different version of our own California. Later at the rental car booth I found out they are Jacaranda Trees (but I still think they're from outer space).
Long Beach Airport is small and vacationy. There weren't jetways, so we emerged in a flourishy kind of way onto the stairs (I always feel like the Beatles, or perhaps the first family, when I do this) into the slightly muggy air to walk down the stairs to the small terminal and found ourselves out front in no time.
The airport actually looks more like an ocean liner than an airport:
More of the rental car companies were on site than had been listed by the airport guide. I hadn’t even looked at Alamo, Budget or Enterprise because they came up as off airport, but they were there in a tiny building right next to the airport as well as Hertz, Avis and National.
We decided that I would drive and James would navigate. The driving time from Google Maps was listed at 40 minutes to 1 1/2 hours depending on traffic. We pulled out of the lot at 7:30 so were hoping that it would be a fairly swift trip, which it was. We got a little lost at the end due to some winding behavior on the part of the streets, but only wasted about five minutes figuring out where the hotel actually was, during which time we saw the El Capitan several times so knew how close it was to the hotel and how to get back there.
The Hollywood Celebrity Hotel turned out to be in the shadow of the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel (where the Disney Adventure Backstage Magic Tour group stays for the first few days of the trip) on a cul-de-sac in a little cluster of older adobe buildings that were a mixture of small hotels and apartments. There were flowering plants and cactus in the gardens and it was terrifically quiet. It was a little bit shabby in a good atmospheric and not scary way. There were little peepers chirping from the planters in front of the hotel which had a little deck with tables and chairs, and a sweet slightly worn deco-ish interior with lots of movie posters, flowering plants in an atrium like central area and molding along the walls suggesting the deck of an ocean liner. The free (!!!) parking was just next door so I snagged the last place in the lot while James took the luggage up to the room.
W.C. Fields was our guiding room spirit, which was fine by me. He was a classic vaudevillian early in his career, an accomplished juggler with a fine cigar box act presented by his comic curmudgeon. I could accept his influence on my Hollywood lifestyle, although Audrey Hepburn would have been fine too.
I changed out of my travel clothes into something cuter and then we were off to the movies.
The PTR is here: The World's Fastest Tiniest PTR
On the 14th of May I received an e-mail from the D23 Disney fan club with an invitation to an event called “Up All Night”, featuring a screening of “Up” and complimentary popcorn and soda along with a pre-show hour of music on the beautiful organ in the theatre, a new stage show and surprises. It sounded super fun, but was unfortunately taking place just two weeks later and 1,132 miles from my house. I looked at the details on the D23 web site and just filed away the information with the thought that at some point a cool event would come up that I would attend.
Then time became all stretchy and squashy as if my life had become animated. It felt like all kind of days went by between getting the e-mail, thinking about going and then deciding to go, but when I checked the chronology, it went like this: I received the e-mail, but dismissed the idea of going to L.A. to see a movie. The next day I went back to the web site and realized that I was not scheduled to work on the two days that I would need off in order to attend the event. I mentioned the idea to my DBF with apparently great presentation and timing because he immediately started looking for cheap flights. He found cheap flights so we knew it was possible in that arena too. The next day I got up early and called the ticket order number and secured our event tickets. The next day I booked air, car and hotel and called the cat sitter. So it was only four days from idea to actual even though it felt like two weeks had gone by.
We were scheduled to fly to L.A. at 4:20 pm on Thursday, May 28th, arriving at 6:56 pm at the Long Beach Airport. The event start time was 10:00 pm so if all went well we would land, grab our rental car and zoom up to Hollywood. Our hotel was walking distance to the theatre (and offered free parking!!!) so we hoped to check in, drop off our stuff and get to the theatre in time to enjoy the scene and maybe even get a snack at the Soda Fountain before the start of the movie.
I started a PTR and looked into things that we might do during the day on the 29th before going to the airport at 2:30 in the afternoon.
The ticket packet arrived and Memorial Day came and went in a flurry of Seattle’s Folklife Festival, the opening of Jim Henson’s Fantastic World at the EMP/SFM and the Seattle International Film Festival. We attended a screening of “I’m No Dummy”, a hilarious, warm, sweet documentary about ventriloquists, their creative processes and the art of animating their sidekicks. The filmmaker was there along with three of the ventriloquists and their dummies and there was a rib-tickler of a Q&A after the film. One of the ventriloquists was Jay Johnson who spent the early part of his career on “Soap.” The dummies engaged in hilarious banter with each other and the actual humans. It was totally fascinating and wonderful. (I just went to the film’s web site and the icons that you click on to go to various parts of the site are depictions of dummies who move their mouths and talk when you mouse over them - excellent!)
DBF was felled by a virus on Sunday the 24th, ran a small degree fever and felt incredibly lousy. We stayed away from each other except for my making some food drops and frequent phone calls. He was really sweet about trying to keep me from getting sick while he rested like mad because he didn’t really feel up to anything else.
The night before the trip I attended a cool presentation called “Muppets 101”, a history of Jim Henson and the Muppets presented by the extremely smart and funny Craig Shemin, a former Jim Henson Company staff writer. (I thought of you, Lynn! He was just dreamy.) He showed lots and lots of great video and was extremely entertaining (no surprise there) while telling the story.
Thursday I packed, ran around and did errands and chores before picking up still sick but incredibly game DBF to head for the airport at 1:30. We found our way to our favorite off site parking, Master Park. We love them because when you return home and the shuttle drops you back at the lot, your car is waiting eagerly with the trunk open as if by magic. If they would start to wash and vacuum the cars while they’re parked, my car parking world would be complete.
We cleared security with plenty of time for a lunch at Anthony’s before heading to the boarding area. DBF had a Caesar Salad with Shrimp and I had a Tropical Salad - Grilled halibut, mango, avocado, tomato and bacon on seasonal greens tossed with citrus vinaigrette, beet curls and crumbled blue cheese. We shared a small loaf of warm sourdough bread and all was good. The shrimp caesar had a sumptuous amount of shrimp, and my salad was a delectable blend of the sweet light halibut and mango mixed with the sharpness of blue cheese and richness of avocado.
Anthony’s is sea-themed. The floors have luminescent tile in sweeping patterns suggestive of water in motion, and the light fixtures do Lady Lallie proud:
We strolled out to the gate, picking up some bottled water along the way. We had time to read and relax before the flight boarded. The loading was slow, and they reopened the door to let a late person on (at whom I wanted to glare but managed to only look slightly annoyed instead) so by the time we took off we were running fifteen minutes late. My headphones were at home, but I didn’t really feel like watching TV enough to buy a headset, so I read and napped. Although it had been flawlessly beautiful and sunny in Seattle, when we arrived Long Beach was under a blanket of clouds. As we skimmed over the city, everywhere we looked were bright purple flowering trees. It was otherworldly looking, as though we had gotten into a science fiction novel world warp and had landed in a slightly different version of our own California. Later at the rental car booth I found out they are Jacaranda Trees (but I still think they're from outer space).
Long Beach Airport is small and vacationy. There weren't jetways, so we emerged in a flourishy kind of way onto the stairs (I always feel like the Beatles, or perhaps the first family, when I do this) into the slightly muggy air to walk down the stairs to the small terminal and found ourselves out front in no time.
The airport actually looks more like an ocean liner than an airport:
More of the rental car companies were on site than had been listed by the airport guide. I hadn’t even looked at Alamo, Budget or Enterprise because they came up as off airport, but they were there in a tiny building right next to the airport as well as Hertz, Avis and National.
We decided that I would drive and James would navigate. The driving time from Google Maps was listed at 40 minutes to 1 1/2 hours depending on traffic. We pulled out of the lot at 7:30 so were hoping that it would be a fairly swift trip, which it was. We got a little lost at the end due to some winding behavior on the part of the streets, but only wasted about five minutes figuring out where the hotel actually was, during which time we saw the El Capitan several times so knew how close it was to the hotel and how to get back there.
The Hollywood Celebrity Hotel turned out to be in the shadow of the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel (where the Disney Adventure Backstage Magic Tour group stays for the first few days of the trip) on a cul-de-sac in a little cluster of older adobe buildings that were a mixture of small hotels and apartments. There were flowering plants and cactus in the gardens and it was terrifically quiet. It was a little bit shabby in a good atmospheric and not scary way. There were little peepers chirping from the planters in front of the hotel which had a little deck with tables and chairs, and a sweet slightly worn deco-ish interior with lots of movie posters, flowering plants in an atrium like central area and molding along the walls suggesting the deck of an ocean liner. The free (!!!) parking was just next door so I snagged the last place in the lot while James took the luggage up to the room.
W.C. Fields was our guiding room spirit, which was fine by me. He was a classic vaudevillian early in his career, an accomplished juggler with a fine cigar box act presented by his comic curmudgeon. I could accept his influence on my Hollywood lifestyle, although Audrey Hepburn would have been fine too.
I changed out of my travel clothes into something cuter and then we were off to the movies.
) so will have to come back tonight and read. Something to look forward to! 
Looks like things were off to a great start! Love the fishy light fixtures and your salad does look yummy. I love anything w/ avocado! Woo-hoo for parking spot mojo! Now let's go to the movies!! 
(Although if I hadn't called to see if I had one I would have missed it because I never got an e-mail about it. 
) For the 25th through the 29th I switched from the Poly to the Yacht Club standard view and then to Yacht Club water view. I made December reservations at the Beach Club and then switched to BLT. I was a little drunk on the whole pin code thing but I'm settling down now.
Your food looks delish too. 
