July 25 - 30th Day 1

[Disneylovers]

Disneylovers California Adventure

For the past four days, I have tried unsucessfully to post my trip report here. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but it's just not working! So, instead of my witty prose, I'll just state the facts, and see if I'm able to post them at least.

We went to Anaheim for a figure skating competition (both our girls skate), which gave us a good excuse to go to DL too! We flew Southwest out of Chicago ($79 each way), into LAX, rented a car from Budget, booked a room at Candy Cane Inn.

Monday, we checked out the Hollywood Highlands Complex in Hollywood, to see the sign, as well as the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Mann's Chinese Theatre, Kodak and El Capitan Theatres. Traffic was unreal (this coming from a born and bred Chicagoan!). We ate lunch at a subway, supper at the Baker's Square a few blocks south of our hotel, and discovered DD's Starbucks Frappachinos were sold at the ABC store next door to our hotel, so she was set for the week. Bedtime was 9:00 - (we were up at 3:30, give us a break!) and were awaken by the fireworks at 9:30!

 

[savs]

What advice or tips can you give me on the Hollywood touring thing. We have 3 young boys and will be driving into Hollywood on Sunday and doing some of the sights ourselves.

So far I have all the sights you listed, but we are pretty much going to wing it from there.

Thanks,

 

[Disneylovers]

I found the directions to the Hollywood Highlands complex here on the boards a couple of months ago. If you need them, I can try to dig them up. If you want to see the Hollywood sign, go up to the fourth floor, and there's a couple of "bridges" where you can see the sign in the distance, and there are those telescopes where you pay a quarter to see up close. A good zoom lense on a camera works well too!. Be warned, Hollywood Blvd. is very crowded, and there are a lot of "street performers" which make things interesting. The "walk of fame" takes up about 4 (I think it was four) city blocks, both sides of the street, and there are a lot of names you might recognize, but the kids won't! I know as we drove around trying to find the place, we stumbled across Universal Studios, which we would have loved to go into, but it was late in the day. We didn't go to any of the other "tourist" places, like Rodeo Drive, or anything like that. If you have patience (and you have 3 boys, you MUST have patience!) you may get to see more than we did.

 

[savs]

Thanks! I think we will just drive around and see what other sites look interesting

We were also thinking of driving to Santa Monica Pier. I think it is pretty much a go with the flow kind of trip