My Huge California Trip Report (Disney, Universal, Knotts, Vegas) 500+ Pictures

[Teknik_DC2]

Day 6: Knott's Berry Farm Part 4

Since the night was still young after dinner we decided to head over to Downtown Disney for a little while. Downtown Disney is a pretty cool shopping area. They had many shops that we checked out. One of them being the Big Lego Store. I thought many of the things there pretty cool that they made out of legos. However thats one of the only places I took pictures for the rest of the night. But it was fun. We also caught Disneylands Fireworks again that we could see from Downtown Disney. After checking out the Disney store again and cutting thru the Disneyland Hotel we headed back to our Hotel and ended our day.

This just made me laugh:

Overall we had alot of fun at Knotts. However its diffenitly not what I remembered. All the coasters they have are great and worth going on. But it seems like its in an idenity crisus. You have all these new huge rollercoasters. and then on the flip side you have a horse drawn carage ride and an authentic steam engine train. Its like Knotts can't decide if it wants to continue to move forward with current technology or stay in the past for what there known for. And because of this the place doesn't look too great. It seemed like you could see or hear the coasters no matter what area of the park you were in. The other thing too is Knotts has no room to expand outwards. So instead they keep building on top of everything. The train and carage rides both go under the coasters (in which those are intertwinned). Knotts needs to figure itself out before it adds any more big rides. I would diffenitly go again though as theres many attractions that I we still had left to do but no time. You can always find good deals on tickets like I did. I don't know if I could pay the full price for tickets but I would diffenitly hit up discount tickets again.

And lastly heres a preview of what my last recap will include:

 

[firsttimer2007]

Thanks for the review. It has been very helpful. We are thinking of planning a trip to CA next year but I have never been. Last year we wanted to go to CA but since I did not know what to do we went to Florida. lol
So much for adventure.

 

[travelmel]

Great pics and great report!

I have a comment about Knott's. I hear alot of people saying that they need to "find themselves" or make up their mind or whatever. Here's the thing... I think if they end up "choosing a path" that the path will be to clear out the old west theme all together which would just be the saddest thing ever for me and all of us who grew up in the park. Sure, we hate to see the big coasters come in and the good old west stuff leave but if it weren't for the big coasters the whole park may have died.

I'd rather they stay together (old and new) then loose the old all together. It's not perfect but

Again, thanks for the great report!

 

[DWFan4Life]

Great TR coming here. All of the pics are awesome. It looks you really had a great time.

Have a nice day everyone.

 

[Echie]

Awesome photos! Thanks for the report!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Great pics and great report!

I have a comment about Knott's. I hear alot of people saying that they need to "find themselves" or make up their mind or whatever. Here's the thing... I think if they end up "choosing a path" that the path will be to clear out the old west theme all together which would just be the saddest thing ever for me and all of us who grew up in the park. Sure, we hate to see the big coasters come in and the good old west stuff leave but if it weren't for the big coasters the whole park may have died.

I'd rather they stay together (old and new) then loose the old all together. It's not perfect but

Again, thanks for the great report!

I know what you mean. I don't think theres anything wrong with them mixing thrills with the old park and such. I just wish there was a better way to pull it off instead of everywhere you look in the ghost town you see a part of one of the many coasters. Its really a shame that Knotts doesn't have much room to be able to grow where they could have kept the thrill rides around the perrimeter of the park and keeping them away from the ghost town area.

 

[ksuwildcats97]

Thanks for such a great review. We are heading to DL from Salt Lake in March for the first time! My 7 & 5 yr old are so excited. We haven't decided to stay in St. George or Las Vegas on the way down. Where did you stay in Vegas?

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Day 7: Hunington Beach and Vegas Part 1

Well I'm back with my last recap from our trip. You didn't think we would go to California and Not go to the beach did you? Anyways Saturday morning we were finally able to sleep in somewhat since we didn't have a park to get to before opening. So we took our time sleeping in and getting ready to leave the hotel. We decided that the beach we were going to go to was Hunington Beach cause i've heard it was pretty nice. Plus it was fairly close. So we packed up the car punched the beach into the GPS and we were on our way.

As I said before the GPS was great to have and I have no clue how I would have found our way around So Cal if we didn't have it. But there was many instances where it confused me and I still got lost for a moment. Well this happened when we were making our way to the beach. However I was kinda happy it happened because we stumbled across the Import Car store Super Autobacs. Being the fan of Import Cars that I am I had to stop in and check it out. Basically its a huge autoparts store like a Pep Boys but instead of your normal car care stuff they sell performance parts. Many of which are imported dirrectly from Japan. I had a good time looking around and wish we had a little more time (and money so I could by the 2,000 wheels I want for the Type R).

We finally got to downtown Hunington Beach so we found a parking spot and then walked down the main street there looking at all the surf shops and resturants that line the street. We got to the beach and just walked along the sand and watched the people out in the freezing cold ocean surfing and buggyboarding.

After walking the beach we walked to the end of the Hunington Beach Pier so we could ge some better views of the surfers and views of the city and beach and such. After our stop in Hunington beach we then headed to a nearby mall so we could get a Cinnabon since they don't have these back home. And once we had got that it was time to make the drive back to Vegas. Once again I got confused by the GPS and missed the turn we were suppose to take. So we ended up having about a 15 mile detour to get back in route to Vegas. But the detour took us thru where the recent fires in California had been. We were able to see some of the house that burn down from the freeway and it was just sad to see the distruction the fires caused.

We made it to Vegas in pretty good timing so we got to my aunts house and unpacked our stuff again since we would be staying with them again. Unlike the first night we stayed in Vegas we were going out to the strip. I heard some of the Hotels put up some christmas decorations so I wanted to check this out since i've never been in Vegas during the Christmas season. Since I make many trips to Vegas each year I didn't need the GPS to get around the town. We first went to the Premium Outlets to do some shopping and we also got dinner there. Then we headed to the strip. We parked at the Imperial Palace (a perfect central strip location to park) and we headed north to the Vanician and the Palazo. Both had a few suttle christmas decorations but nothing major.

We then went across the street to the Wynn to see if they had any decorations up. Sure enough they at least put some lights on there trees inside and out.

We then made our way across the street and started heading back south thru Tresure Island and past the Marage. We cut thru TI but they didn't have anything set up and we didn't make it into the Marage.

I read online the Ceasars Palace usually decorates there cortyard for christmas but we were dissapointed to find no decorations there this year. Even inside they had almost no decorations except for a few in the forum shops.

Next stop was the Bellagio. Which was diffenitly the most christmas done hotel we could find. Right when you walk into the shops from the pedestrian bridge you could tell that christmas was there cause they had a christmas tree set up. We went out in front to watch the water fountain show and then we made our way thru to the garden area inside the hotel to see what christmas decorations were there. It was done up very pretty with almost everything being made out of flowers. Even the check in desk had christmas decorations behind it.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Day 7: Hunington Beach and Vegas Part 2

After the Bellagio we were so tired of walking (and it was getting late) so we decided to start heading back to the car to head back to my aunts. The casino smoke was so bad though so we decided to take the long way out the front of the bellagio to avoid it. But by doing that I found some great locations to take some pictures of the nearby resorts.

What usually takes about a 15 minute drive to get back to my aunts took us an hour. The Las Vegas Marathon was the next morning and so they had many of the roads around the strip closed off. after about 8 detours though we finally made our way back and ended our night.

Day 8 wasn't anything real exciting. Once again we slept in late and then packed up and hit the road to head back to Salt Lake. The drive was boring as usual and once were home it felt so nice. Unfortunatly though it was way cold and snowed the night we got home so we were really wishing we could be back in California where it was in the high 70's. But oh well. We had a great trip and can't wait to do it agian. One thing we recommend is to take an extra day to just relax in California. We spent all of our days at the Theme Parks Open to Close so we had no time to relax. It would have been nice to just have one extra day to do whatever. But I guess you live and learn right?

Anyways I hope you all enjoyed our trip recap. I know I wrote a novel pretty much but Since I added these recaps to our blog we will always have our trip to look back on and know what all we did. Anyways thanks for reading.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Thanks for such a great review. We are heading to DL from Salt Lake in March for the first time! My 7 & 5 yr old are so excited. We haven't decided to stay in St. George or Las Vegas on the way down. Where did you stay in Vegas?

My Aunt lives in Vegas so we just stayed with her when we were passing thru. Vegas is a little past half way and St. George is just under half way to California. Where you have younger kids i'd probably stay in St. George. It will be cheaper for you and its just a much nicer environment to have kids in.

Thanks everyone for your replys and remarks. Keep them coming.

 

[DizNee Luver]

What a fun trip with all the different things you got to experience!! Thank you for sharing this TR & the pictures you have are exquisite!! I've always loved visuals, but you had a number of very well done photos & it really added to your report!!
This is a trip you'll remember for a very long time.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

As I look back at this trip report theres one thing I failed to really do. That is add pictures of us to the report. Theres certain things we only got pictures of that included us in the picture and so I figured now I would add some of those pictures to make the recap more personal. So anyways heres some additional pictures from Universal Studios with more to come over the next few days.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

 

[Teki]

Great trip report, I felt the same way about DCA it was a great park it just doesnt have as much disney magic, and the off the rack rides are just a little silly. Knotts is also one of my faves, but I totally agree with the identity crisis. The trick to doing knotts though is to go during knotts scarey farm everything's open and running cause of the night time events but the park is pretty vacant. However at that time the calico mine ride is complete dark and the tour guide is supposed to be saying something scary and then there is some cheap spider things, anyway it was pretty lame. Seems like you guys had fun thanks for sharing!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Well i'm back. Now with some more personal pictures from our day at Disneyland:

 

[Teknik_DC2]

 

[DizNee Luver]

Those pictures were great!! Did you find lots of people willing to take a pic of the 2 of you together? (I forget if you had others in your party without going back in the report....)

I laughed at the Buzz Lightyear pic......the way Buzz's eyes were, it almost looked like he was thinking...."oh here we go, another picture...."

Thanx for sharing!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Those pictures were great!! Did you find lots of people willing to take a pic of the 2 of you together? (I forget if you had others in your party without going back in the report....)

I laughed at the Buzz Lightyear pic......the way Buzz's eyes were, it almost looked like he was thinking...."oh here we go, another picture...."

Thanx for sharing!

haha I know. Funny how perfect that buzz picture turned out huh lol.

As for the pictures of us. Most of what we took of us were done with me just holding my arm out and snapping it. All the others were ether done by a photopass person or someone asking if we would take a picture for them so we asked for the same in return lol.

 

[DizNee Luver]

That's a great idea returning the favor & visa versa.....thanx!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Alright here are the DCA pictures I decided to add. Turns out I have more from DCA i'm adding then from any of the other parks.