SURPRISE!! We are going to Disneyland!!

[momjeeps]

Haven't read all the posts yet but had to reply when I saw you were starting off in Poway, CA! I grew up in Poway and graduated from Poway HS!!! So our family are DLR vets and had our first WDW trip last Nov. Can't wait to follow along your trip to my So CA home. I don't live there anymore and it's fun to watch others explore!

 

[momjeeps]

Ok I'm caught up. Sounds like a great itinerary. Love that you'll his SD Zoo. Best zoo, grew up with annual passes to SD zoo and wild animal park and went to zoo summer school and everything. You'll really enjoy it.

As for July weather, maybe hot. But if you've done WDW in July, this will be a breeze!!!

Now for days planning. My only input would be, I think Thursday would be best to do RD at DCA for Cars Land.

That's my only input without investigating crowd calendars.

So excited for y'all!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Oh my goodness... you've already been & returned! I was way behind & obviously missed wishing you well on your trip. I hope it was amazing & I can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Hi everyone!! We have been back almost 3 weeks now! Yikes! Sorry it has taken so long to post, our computer crashed so I finally am on our new laptop!! Yeah!!! I hope to start my trip report this week!! Here is a sneak peek picture!! We had the BEST time in California!!!!!!

 

[tlovesdis]

Cant wait to hear about your trip!!

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[Cory's Gal]

And here...we...go...!!!!

Our awesome California adventure really began the morning before we left. Out kids didn't know we were going on this trip until Thursday, July 18th. My parents came over for a waffle breakfast! We put a little "flyer" in our newspaper, the kids found it, read it, and then went CRAZY!!!!!


Our flight left MSP early in the morning on Friday, the 19th, but like any vacation, it's easy to get up!!!


Our flight went smooth and we landed about half hour early! Yeah! Got our luggage (thought we lost a bag but thankfully someone took the wrong one and returned ours within minutes...phew!!) Got our rental, a Ford Edge, a great vehicle, the kids were happy and enough luggage room!!


Our first stop was the Hollywood sign! We drove to the Griffith Observatory and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!!


Great views from up there!!


It was only about 11:30 and we already were seeing some great sights!!! What a great start to our first day in California!!!!

 

[SnowWhite09]

Really enjoying your trip report so far Cory's Gal - can't wait to hear more!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Ok I'm caught up. Sounds like a great itinerary. Love that you'll his SD Zoo. Best zoo, grew up with annual passes to SD zoo and wild animal park and went to zoo summer school and everything. You'll really enjoy it.

As for July weather, maybe hot. But if you've done WDW in July, this will be a breeze!!!

Now for days planning. My only input would be, I think Thursday would be best to do RD at DCA for Cars Land.

That's my only input without investigating crowd calendars.

So excited for y'all!

Thank you so much for the advice! We had a great trip and we Poway was beautiful!!!!!

Oh my goodness... you've already been & returned! I was way behind & obviously missed wishing you well on your trip. I hope it was amazing & I can't wait to hear all about it!

Thanks Amy! We had a blast!! I hope you and your family decide on a West Coast trip, it was magical!!

Cant wait to hear about your trip!!

Thanks for reading along, we had an awesome time!

Following along!

Awesome!! Thanks for reading, it was a really great trip!

Really enjoying your trip report so far Cory's Gal - can't wait to hear more!

Thanks for following along! It was really really fun!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

As we last left off it was about 11:30 or so and we were STARVING!! With the time change it felt like about 1:30 to us and we only had stopped for a bagel at LAX when we landed. We decided to head to Hollywood Blvd to see what we could find. We parked right on the street right in front of the Capitol Records building. What a cool place, The Beatles "stars" were right out front, along with Garth Brooks and others!

Here's my favorite Beatle, Sir Paul:


We walked down Hollywood Blvd a bit and stopped and had some lunch at a pub/restaurant. I don't remember the name but we sat right down and scarfed our lunch down! Yum! We walked past many people selling tours and people asking for money. We popped in a couple gift shops, my little Helen apparently loves the Biebs, LOL! Her brother does not


We wanted to get out of Hollywood and LA pretty quick so we could head south to our hotel (we were heading to the Poway area to start our trip in San Diego). We didn't hit too much traffic and got on the Pacific Coast Highway! For the most part it was BEAUTIFUL!!!! We drove through Laguna and other beach cities and finally stopped in San Clemente!! We had to get the kids to the ocean for their first time!!! Did these Minnesota kids like the ocean??? Until next time!!!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Great start!! I can't wait to hear more about your trip. We definitely want to go in 2015 but need to decide when it will work with our schedules. I think we have it narrowed down to February school vacation, April school vacation and late August. How was the summer heat?

 

[Cory's Gal]

Great start!! I can't wait to hear more about your trip. We definitely want to go in 2015 but need to decide when it will work with our schedules. I think we have it narrowed down to February school vacation, April school vacation and late August. How was the summer heat?

The weather wasn't bad at all. It actually was a bit humid but was told by locals that the humidity was unusual. Warm during the day, cool enough for sweatshirts at night. It was very lovely, no rain too

 

[Cory's Gal]

WoW! It's been a while since I have posted, I better get crackin'!!!!

I left off with our drive down the coast to our final destination of the evening near Poway. We saw the ocean for most of the drive South. We finally HAD TO GET OUT of the car and to that beautiful ocean!! We got to San Clemente and parked in the public lot. I believe there was a cheap fee to park. There was a nice pier there with a couple of restaurants.

The kiddos loved walking out on the pier. We watched the surfers for a long time. It was so fun!! Beautiful weather too!!

We walked to the beach and had to dip our feet in!


We all loved it!!!


We stayed about an hour and a half. It felt so great to get out of the car and play a bit
Gabe claims he wants to live here, I don't blame him


We hopped back in the car and finished our trek to Poway. We checked into our hotel which was the Double Tree Golf Resort. I think we just grabbed a quick dinner from the grocery store and free warm cookies from the front desk and crashed by about 8:30, we were wiped!!!
Our first California day was awesome, we were looking forward to exploring the next day!!!!!!

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

Loving it so far!!

 

[dedesmith32]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Hello to any new readers and hello again to the original ones!!
I really want to continue this TR because we had such a blast! I will try and update often now, we have already done a Feb WDW trip in the mean time!! Yikes!!

So as I last left off...
We woke up the next morning and we had the day to ourselves. We weren't meeting up with family yet and of course we all wanted to go to the BEACH!! It was an overcast and cooler day but that didn't stop us! We scarfed down our free Double Tree Breakfast and headed out to La Jolla! We found a nice beach, busy but not too crowded and grabbed a spot! Now, being from Minnesota, one wouldn't think that I would be cold on an almost 70 degree day at the beach, BUT I am a huge "freeze baby" so this is how I spent some of the morning...extremely happy but chilly!!

This is basically me "laying out on the beach"! LOL!

The kids had a complete ball!!


Here's one of my favorite trip pictures:


We thought the beach was really fun and stayed about 2 hours. It was cool to see some of the sand sculptures!


Gabe even buried his feet! I helped


We then packed up and headed to another part of La Jolla called Children's Pool Beach. It was cool seeing the seals!


We also climbed over the rocks a bit too! We just love being by the water!


Continuing on with our theme of eating at places we don't have back home, we thought we better try...


It was so so good!! We headed back to our hotel by about 2pm, took a nap and then the kiddos swam for a while

My sister-in-law stopped by to say hello and we made our plans for the San Diego Zoo the next day!! Another awesome CA day!

 

[luulu1999]

In and Out is one of our must trys for our July trip!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

In and Out is one of our must trys for our July trip!!

It was really good and it was really awesome to finally try an In N' Out burger!! So worth it!!!!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Our next day (Sunday, July 21st) was devoted to the beautiful San Diego Zoo! We all were so excited for our first trip there and the zoo was awesome!! My sister-in-law is a member so we got great discounts on our tickets! I think we paid $75 for all four of us. We could not have asked for a better day sunny & 70's! Here was our list of "must-dos"
1. Pandas
2. Koalas
3. Meerkats
4. Polar Bears
5. Arctic Fox
6. Every other animal you could think of!
The zoo was busy but not too crowded and the only time we felt crowded was waiting to see the Pandas.
We started off in the "bug section" and we surprisingly spent a good amount of time in that area.

There were a lot of terrariums to inspect, the kids asked a lot of questions to the staff.

We then took a ride on the skyride across the park and got to see the Polar Bears! It was hard to get a picture, they were REALLY active and fun to watch! Great experience!! The kids took time for a photo op!

I believe we were still in the arctic area and Gabe LOVES all kinds of foxes and we spotted the arctic fox!! We had one happy boy!!

We ventured around for a while, seeing zebras, elephants, and so many others! We grabbed some hot dogs for lunch I believe and then we saw the rhinos & giraffes! There were so many to see!
We finally found the meerkats!! Gabe's other favorite animal!!

They are so cute! He was really paying attention to the guide!


We still had so much more to see!! Coming up next...we see the pandas!!!

 

[Cory's Gal]

Finally it was time to see those Pandas!! We waited in line for about 20 minutes and then we were finally in a spot we could see them! It was nice while we were viewing them, a staff member was telling all about the pandas that were there. Before we went in we saw this cute little panda:

We took a few pictures but they were so neat just to watch. They try and move you through the line slowly and we were able to get some great views.

They were pretty active which made it even more fun!
Afterwards we found some monkeys:



We found the giraffes!


We also got to see the Koalas

They weren't too active but there was quite a few of them! So neat to see animals we have never seen before!!

The kids picked out a souvenir, Panda for Helen and a Meerkat for Gabe!


It was a great day at the zoo!!


I think they were worn out!!


The day wasn't over yet!!