Just back from trip to Vegas, San Francisco and LA

[Hanover]

Just back from 12 night trip to Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It was our ds11 and ds15's first trip out West. My dh and I had not been to any of the cities since 1992. In Las Vegas, we stayed at Mandalay Bay for 3 nights. The hotel room was okay (had to get them to change sheets on one bed after seeing they were dirty), pools were great but closed at 7PM, buffet was unbelievably good. While in Vegas, we saw the Blue Man group, walked the strip and stopped by lots of the hotels to take photos or see what they were known for like the Bellagio Fountains, Venetian gondolas, etc. We ate at Margarittaville which was great. If we were to do our trip again, I would have skipped walking the strip at night with our boys because we found it was so seedy with lots of minimally dressed women, lots of pot being smoked and people passing out topless cards all over (which were also all over the ground too) for "girls, girls, girls." We did not see that atmosphere during the day. Our last day in Vegas we did a bus day trip to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon with helicopter/pontoon boat/skywalk option. It was an amazing experience. We flew to San Francisco for 2 nights, where we stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott at Fisherman's Wharf. It was a perfect location. I will say that the San Francisco airport was crazy busy. We took the airport tram 5 or 6 stops to the rental car depot, which was even busier. It took about an hour and a half to get our luggage and rental car and head to the hotel. We did the hop on/hop off bus/Go Pass through entertainment books website. We were able to add Muir Woods and the Disney Family Museum with the Go Pass for our original Go Pass price. I was so glad I had not pre-purchased the Disney Family museum tickets. The Go Pass on the entertainment site did not include either Muir Woods or Disney Musuem when we first saw it. Muir Woods did charge a $7 entrance fee, but we were glad to take the hop on/hop off bus there. People who drove their own cars were parked out at least a half mile away from the park. We had a really crazy fast driver down very windy roads to Muir Woods, but our boys loved it. The 9AM bus went straight there and on the way back stopped in Sausilito, where we had a great lunch at the Spinnaker. We had a great view of the whole city of San Francisco until the fog set in. We did the Alcatraz night tour which was awesome. I had purchased tickets well in advance, which I was glad because we were told they were sold out through September. We were able to walk to Ghiradelli from our hotel and all over Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39. We drove our rental car down Lombard Street. We had packed pants, long sleeves and sweatshirts but ended up being so cold we also bought jackets. We could have spent longer than the 2.5 hours we had at the Disney Family Museum, but ran out of time. We saw the Lucas Film Studio near the Disney Family Musuem with the Yoda fontain. We flew to LA, where we stayed a week. Our first night was in Santa Monica at a Courtyard, which was great. We went to the beach that day. The next night we stayed at the Disneyland Resort. We are DVC members and could only get 3 nights in a DVC studio during that week. We stayed on reseration points at the DL resort and Grand California the last 2 nights. We loved both resorts, but preferred the DL resort. The room at the DL resort was newly refurbished and had the headboard with the castle/fireworks that lit up at night and played "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart makes" when you pushed a button. We had pre-purhcased the Southern CA pass (again through entertainment which was only $255 each) and had 3 day hoppers to Disneyland/California Adventure, a day at Universal and a day at Sea World. We really liked Disneyland, which was our first trip there after dozens and dozens of days in WDW. We compared all the rides to each park and tried to get on everything possible. We also really liked California Adventure. We were glad we were staying onsite and could get in the parks at 7AM. Had about a 25 minute wait for Radiator Springs and then did it single rider, where it only took the length of the time to walk through the line to get back on it. We did it 3 times by the time the park opened at 8. We had to evacuate due to an earthquake as we loaded on to Soarin. They did not issue FPs for those of us that had waited and just got in, sayng it was an emergency situation to those who asked for their FP back or a FP to get back without waiting. After maybe a 10 minute wait and inspections, all rides were back in action. We did Universal, but found it way too hot and crowded,so we only spent a half day there. We did Sea World a half day and drove around San Diego and Coronado, where our boys swam for an hour at the beach. Over the week, we ate at Goofy's Kitchen, Storyteller's Cafe, the Rain Forest Cafe, the Cheesecake Factory (twice) and the Hard Rock in LA. Overall we had a wonderful time. The only thing were were really upset with was an experience trying to do a Disney show taping which is in another thread that I answered earlier today about someone wanting to know how to go about seeing a taping. We toured all over LA/Hollywood to see some of the famous sites including the Disney Soda Fountain and Studio. We pre-purchased the photopass plus and tried to get lots of photos, though the photopass CMs were hard to find compared to WDW. At Goofy's we were given the hard copy photo package for "free" for having the photopass plus. If anyone has any questions, I'd be glad to help.

 

[ncc1701]

Great report. Sorry about the pool closing early in Vegas but I think that is their way to try to get you to the casino & shows.They haven't got the fact that not all of their guest are there to gamble. We noticed at our stays at the Mirage that the pool was also closed around 7:00.
Happy to hear you liked the Spinnaker. We took the ferry over to eat there on our 1st trip due to a recommend from DH 's Mom & Dad . We have gone back on our next 2 trips & will go back again
We also had the fog roll in during 2 of our lunches

 

[pixiewings71]

Nice report!! I was surprised to see the pool closed at 7 pm, when we go to Vegas one of the things our girls like most is the midnight swimming. lol

 

[ben1993]

Great trip! I'd be very unhappy with the pool closing so early! I love chilling out by the pool at midnight on vacation.