PTR - New York, Santa Monica and Disneyland!

[elphaba91]

Hello everyone!

I've finally decided to write a PTR to keep my thoughts and plans in some sort of order and to ask you experts for advice and suggestions!

The story of our trip actually starts 15 years ago when, in September 1999, we spent 4 days in LA (on our way to London to visit my uncle who was paying for the trip) and saw LAX and Target and spent 3 magical days at Disneyland. As we were leaving, 8 year old me, with tears streaming down my face, promised my mum that I would bring her back someday.

Fast forward to (I think) June last year and the idea suddenly jumped into my head that I should fulfill that promise. I spoke to my sister and she said that she would chip in. We added a New York leg after seeing one of my favourite singers, Idina Menzel, perform a song from her new musical If/Then at her Melbourne concert which resulted in Mum saying how much she wished she could see it.

We surprised Mum on Christmas Day with a box of Disney and New York goodies and a poem telling her about the trip. We then started planning the trip in earnest and actually making some bookings!

Our plans look like this:

November 24: Fly United (the new Dreamliner!) Melbourne - LAX - New York. We arrive at Newark just after 6pm and then (somehow) will make our way to Manhattan. We are staying at the Hotel Edison, right near Times Square and all the Broadway theatres (which is essential, as you will see). The Richard Rodgers where If/Then is playing is across the street!

November 25: Seeing Book of Mormon

November 26: Seeing If/Then

November 27: Thanksgiving. We will be getting up early (in the cold ) to see the Macy's Parade. We will then hopefully have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner/lunch (looking for restaurant suggestions!) then we are seeing Phantom that night.

November 28: Seeing Matilda

November 29: Seeing Kinky Bots

November 30: No shows booked for tonight. But I will be collecting Audience Rewards points from the earlier shows, so we might get discounted tickets to something. Thinking Mamma Mia.

December 1: Fly from JFK to LAX, arriving before 3pm. We will be staying in Santa Monica, near the pier (in the cheap hotel that's next to all the expensive ones!).

December 6: Hire a car and drive from Santa Monica to Disneyland. My sister and I are under 25 so Mum is the lucky one who gets to drive on the wrong side of the road! Staying at the Ramada Maingate in a pool view room. We will be going into a park that afternoon, but I'm not sure which. That will likely be the night of the Candlelight Processional (which we definitely want to see, but probably not until the Sunday night), which I think puts a stop to my grand plans to have that magical walk down Main St.

December 13: Fly out at 10.30pm

The flights, accommodation and theatre tickets are all booked and paid in full. We also have all (I think) of our spending money loaded onto travel money cards, with a bit of cash.

However, I still feel like I have a million things to do, including:
- Book a hire car (I think Hertz)
- Find a house/cat sitter (and make sure the house is in something resembling a clean state for said house sitter!)
- Book the New York Pass
- Make some sort of itinerary, at least for our New York and Santa Monica/LA days
- Book airport parking (it will be cheaper to get long term parking than take taxis each way)
Plus pass my uni subjects and balance in my part-time job too!

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you all think and would definitely welcome any suggestions or advice you have to offer!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Well done to you and your DS for planning such a great trip with your DM an fulfilling that 8 year old's promise.

When you come back in another life, will you come back as my DD? (Wait!!! That looks and sounds really creepy, doesn't it?? ).



Great looking trip. Enjoy the last few details.

 

[LisaAJ]

Wow, what a great trip!! Your mum is lucky to have such thoughtful (and generous!) daughters!

I'd love to be seeing all those shows but my DH is stingy! Plus we have little ones we are bringing.

I loved Santa Monica and would definitely stay there again over over parts of LA.

Can't wait to hear more

 

[losfp]

Great looking trip, Elphie!!! I figured with a screenname like that, you'd be a 'dina fan Great show at the Sydney Opera House last year - and just a week before that, I saw Cheno at that same venue as well. Wifey was (almost literally) spewing, she was 38+ weeks pregnant and not really able to go to either show.

MAtilda is thankfully coming to Australia next year (or is it the year after that), so thankfully I won't have to wait long to see it. Book of Mormon is one of my favourites, but I don't know if we'll ever see it out here.

You're not going to see Wicked on Broadway? I have been lucky enough to see it in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Las Vegas, but I would love to see it in the Gershwin on Broadway......

I can't offer much advice on NYC as I've never been - our girls are 1 and 6.. and I will bring them when they are a bit older. Girl no. 1 loves musicals, so she would love Broadway I am sure.She's been to Wicked (twice), Mary Poppins, Annie, Lion King.. just loves them all. the Wicked OBC recording and the Frozen soundtrack are mainstays in our house.

You've got a good number of days at DLR which will be fantastic. Are you going to get the 10 day pass?

Good luck, and I look forward to hearing about your trip

 

[LivingforDisney]

We saw Wicked last year in NY, it was fantastic

 

[elphaba91]

Great looking trip, Elphie!!! I figured with a screenname like that, you'd be a 'dina fan Great show at the Sydney Opera House last year - and just a week before that, I saw Cheno at that same venue as well. Wifey was (almost literally) spewing, she was 38+ weeks pregnant and not really able to go to either show.

MAtilda is thankfully coming to Australia next year (or is it the year after that), so thankfully I won't have to wait long to see it. Book of Mormon is one of my favourites, but I don't know if we'll ever see it out here.

You're not going to see Wicked on Broadway? I have been lucky enough to see it in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Las Vegas, but I would love to see it in the Gershwin on Broadway......

I can't offer much advice on NYC as I've never been - our girls are 1 and 6.. and I will bring them when they are a bit older. Girl no. 1 loves musicals, so she would love Broadway I am sure.She's been to Wicked (twice), Mary Poppins, Annie, Lion King.. just loves them all. the Wicked OBC recording and the Frozen soundtrack are mainstays in our house.

You've got a good number of days at DLR which will be fantastic. Are you going to get the 10 day pass?

Good luck, and I look forward to hearing about your trip

Thanks! We didn't go to Cheno's concert. I can't exactly remember why...I think we already had quite a few shows on at that time (I think we saw Moonshadow, Gypsy and Idina in the space of about 2 weeks) and life in general was quite busy so we gave it a miss. I would have liked to have seen her, but I don't like her as much as Idina.

My Mum would definitely sympathise with your wife. She loves to remind me how much pain I caused her when she saw Les Mis while pregnant with me - I was sitting on her sciatica for the whole first act!

Matilda is opening in Sydney towards the end of next year (September maybe?). I figure it will be at least 2015 until it makes it down to Melbourne so I decided it was still worth seeing on Broadway. All the other shows we picked haven't come to Australia (or not for a very long time - my sister and I have never seen Phantom live) and haven't announced plans to do so.

No, we're not going to see Wicked. If we hadn't gone to the return season in Melbourne just a couple of months ago we might have, but there are just too many new shows that we wanted to see (also why we ruled out some others like Rock of Ages, Once, Les Mis and Jersey Boys). I will most definitely walk past the Gershwin though! That being said, David Harris (who you would have got to see play Fiyero) is moving over to New York soon, and if he is in a show when we're there then we will definitely go to see him!

And yes, we're getting the 10 day passes, even though we'll only get 8 days out of them. It will be nice to be able to have so much time after going non-stop last time and still not seeing everything (and there was only 1 park then!).

 

[WanderlustNZ]

Your trip sounds amazing.

While NY isn't too high on my wishlist, I would love to see it the way you are (basically as a tour of Broadway). Unfortunately no one in my family loves stage shows the way I do.

 

[zanzibar138]

I love that you surprised your mum this trip! Mother/daughter trips are so much fun

You must be a HUGE fan of musical theatre to be seeing all those shows NY has never been high on my list either, but I'll be interested to hear how it is from this perspective. What else are you planning to do in NY?

I know nothing about Santa Monica either. My experience (and interest) in LA is land at LAX, get a shuttle to DLR, stay for about a week, get a shuttle back to LAX, depart

Glad to hear you're doing the 10 day pass for DLR. With 8 days, you'll definitely get your money's worth out of it Ramada Maingate looks pretty good too.

 

[elphaba91]

I love that you surprised your mum this trip! Mother/daughter trips are so much fun

You must be a HUGE fan of musical theatre to be seeing all those shows NY has never been high on my list either, but I'll be interested to hear how it is from this perspective. What else are you planning to do in NY?

I know nothing about Santa Monica either. My experience (and interest) in LA is land at LAX, get a shuttle to DLR, stay for about a week, get a shuttle back to LAX, depart

Glad to hear you're doing the 10 day pass for DLR. With 8 days, you'll definitely get your money's worth out of it Ramada Maingate looks pretty good too.

Lol, yes we do love our musical theatre! We see a lot of shows here, although the most I've done is 3 in a fortnight, so it'll be quite an experience to see so many in one week!

We're also planning on doing a lot of the typical touristy stuff in New York. We will be getting the New York Pass so aim to do as much as we can. Things we're wanting to do include:
- At least one of Top of the Rock and the Empire State Building. I'm hoping we'll do both, going to one by day and the other by night.
- A Circle Line Cruise (the one that does a loop of the entire island). We're undecided if we will actually visit the Statue of Liberty as well or if seeing it from the boat will be sufficient.
- The 9/11 museum.
- The Rockefeller Center, including the Radio City Music Hall tour.
- Inside Broadway Tour
- Central Park (maybe renting bicycles )

As for the Santa Monica leg, we have fewer set things we want to do, so I'm definitely open to suggestions for things to do in the LA area! We want to spend a bit of time hanging around the pier, maybe ride bikes down to Venice Beach. We will definitely go and do the typical Hollywood stuff (Walk of Fame, etc.); I'm considering either doing an actual bus tour for this or maybe just a couple of days of a hop-on hop-off bus tour. Anyone had any experience doing these in LA? I'm also hoping to get tickets for Ellen and am checking the website everyday (I needed a new hobby after finally securing my If/Then tickets). And, of course, we plan on doing some shopping too!

Not much news to report on the planning front...although we did confirm that all our luggage does indeed fit into the car!

 

[losfp]

Lol, yes we do love our musical theatre! We see a lot of shows here, although the most I've done is 3 in a fortnight, so it'll be quite an experience to see so many in one week!

We did see Wicked 4 times within 48 hours one weekend in Brisbane when it was on tour. That might have been a bit excessive.

One of these trips (when the girls are a bit older), I will have to include about 2 weeks in NYC. I reckon I can fit in about 20 shows in that time (assuming I can find shows that are on when Broadway is traditionally dark on Mondays). Will need extra luggage space for all the Playbills