Day 16 - Tuesday October 17th 2006

Toni and I were able to catch up on some very badly needed sleep this morning and it was closer to lunch time then breakfast before we put in an appearance. Before we left Oz we both had international roaming turned on for our phones so that we would be able to contact each other if we got separated (and of course so that we could send and receive SMS’s from the lovely folk at home). Last night we lent Toni’s phone to the old girl in case either of us awoke early and ventured out and about for a look, the other people would be able to contact them.
The only way we were able to contact the other phone was to ring internationally back to Australia which would then route the call back to America, and thus had a success rate of probably about 5%. Calling people in Oz always worked but we had huge problems trying to contact each other and this morning was no different. Mum was already long gone by the time we arose and after ½ hour of fruitless efforts in trying to call the phone, we figured we would venture out and try again later. We came down the lifts and there she was, sitting at the closest poker machine to the lifts. ‘Figured you would have to walk down here at some stage’, she said.
We signed up for the ‘Players Card’, basically a card that tracks how much you gamble and if you gamble enough they give you stuff, where you got a very nice MGM key ring for joining and then we hit the MGM Grand Buffet for a late breakfast before venturing out onto the strip for some sightseeing. Heading north we went to Aladdin, which we found out when entering has been bought by Planet Hollywood and is in the process of being remodelled and heavily re-constructed from its current ‘Arabian Nights’ theme to a generic Planet Hollywood theme. We were shown models of the new casino and I must say it looked very impressive but we were able to shake off the offers to go to a time-share presentation where they promised we would get a week’s free stay and show tickets if we went. Parts of the casino are already closed and being re-done and new hotel towers are being built. We had to wait for about 5 mins at one stage as we were walking through the casino floor as they lowered decorative metal awnings that they had just cut down.
I managed to get my $5 chip and played a Star Wars poker machine, which although looked impressive was like every other poker machine on the planet in the fact that it just took my money. The girls had a good time playing the Deal or No Deal pokies, with Toni coming out a fraction ahead. We also tried our luck at their free-spin machine. Basically you can have 1 go a day on this machine which has a major prize of $2 million and ranges down to free Aladdin shirts. Between the 3 of us we won diddily squat.
We continued north to Le Paris, which is a beautiful casino with a replica of the Eiffel tower and Arc de Triomphe which although granted I have never been to Paris to see the real things, looked very impressive to me. Inside the place was stunning though its poker machines seemed exceptionally hungry and ate more of my money.
We extracted ourselves from there and headed across the road to the Bellagio. We didn’t go inside but our timing was spot on that we only had to wait about 30 secs for the dancing fountain display. All of the great things I had heard about this understated just how impressive it is. It is a fountain show set to music that goes for a fraction under 5 minutes, but the choreography and just how high the water goes is indescribable. We didn’t manage to get any decent photos of it either.
We ignored the casino and walked past Caesars Palace to get to the Forum shops. Attached and owned by Caesars Palace, this was the first of the mega-ornate high end shopping centres built on the strip. To lure in people, it is fitted out with ornate statues and sculptures, some of which can move and give performances (Every ½ hour). Since then other casinos have tried to one-up Caesars with bigger and more impressive attractions in side, but from all reports and with continuous improvements, the Forum shops are still the best. We started at one end which was far too high end for us, saw a statue performance which was pretty cool and then settled in for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.
I’ve had some criticism of this blog (and in most cases rightfully so) that I have gone into far too much detail about the food we ate, but the food from this place was mind-blowing. We started proceedings by with a yard glass of frozen Margarita and I ordered a chicken burrito, Toni got a fajita salad and the old girl ordered the appetiser pack which gave you a little bit of everything. My burrito would have been in the top 5 things I have ever eaten and everything else bar the Buffallo Wings, which after trying a couple of times I have decided I don’t really care for, was superb.
We took our half finished margarita with us and I found a golf store where I picked up a new set of golf shoes for $50 and Toni found a kids store where I saw a really cute little outfit which I didn’t think was so cute after I saw the $350 price tag. I quickly escorted the girls out of there and had a bit more of a look around before leaving and having a quick look through the casino part of Caesars, which was very classy looking.
By this stage it was late in the afternoon and we headed back to our hotel for a rest. It was pretty cold today, about 16 degrees but the wind was very icy. We stopped in at some souvenir stores where Mum bought a Vegas suitcase that was so hideous that it was cool and we picked up plenty of decks of used casino cards to take home with us.
After a couple of hours rest in the hotel, we headed out once again. We walked across the bridge to New York New York, which looked very impressive from the outside but no where near as impressive (or big) inside. I made a decent donation to the place playing craps and the girls left the poker machine area a little bit lighter.
We meandered across the road to Excalibur, which is themed like a medieval castle and looks surprisingly cool. All the other casinos we had been to today where very up-market, but this was more down to earth with croupiers who seemed much happier and friendly and table limits that were a lot lower. They were aiming at the lower end of the market and encouraged new comers to have a go, what the odds were and what the smarter bets would be, which didn’t apply to me but there were a lot of people playing who were having a good time that hadn’t ever played before. The fact that people weren’t playing for sheep stations also helped the general atmosphere of the place. I had a great time playing craps (though generally winning=great time, no matter how nice the casino looks or the croupiers are). Toni wasn’t so lucky on the slots.
Toni was starving but being still full from our Mexican extravaganza from earlier we just went to a McDonald’s in the casino. They also had a Krispy Crème donut store which Toni decided she better get some dessert from. It was while she was in line there that I realised I didn’t have my wedding ring on. Arrrr Crap.
I am paranoid about losing it as it can be a fraction to big, especially when I am dehydrated from drinking all day and well into the night. I was 90% sure I had left it on the bench after I showered before coming out tonight but lets just say I was in a panic. I informed the others I was heading back to the hotel to check and that they could meet me there. Even though Excalibur is just diagonally across the street from the MGM, it was a solid 20 minute trip by the time I navigated the 2 casinos and reached my room, even with me going at a speed closer to trotting then walking.
Thankfully the ring was still sitting in the bathroom and the crisis was over. Now the interesting bit would be seeing how long it would take the other 2 to reach me.
There sense of direction is appalling at best and seen as both of them need high heels to be able to see over a 5 foot high bench, with their little legs when they walk they make sloths look like the Roadrunner. It took them 30 minutes to reach me, but they were proud to say they only got lost once!!!
After all of the excitement we decided it was time to turn in. Its off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

Day 15 - Monday 16th October 2006

Hi everyone. Thanks to everyone who has been reading. I hope you have enjoyed my inane comments, usually done at about 2 in the morning and when I have been at least 1/2 cut. Thanks to everyone who has left comments in the comments section at the end of each days posting. They are read and are greatly appreciated. For those who haven't been leaving us comments.... Stop being so slack!!!!!!!

Today we left the big apple behind us and headed off to the bright lights of Las Vegas.
I awoke feeling more then a little seedy and with muc sadness we left our great apartment at around 9:30am. New York is serviced by 3 major airports, 2 of which or in New York itself and the 3rd is Newark Airport which is in New Jersey. New Jersey is just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, just like Brooklyn and Queens are, so it isn't far at all. Our shuttle bus took one of the tunnels under the river and within minutes we were out of NY and headed to the airport. The trip was only about 1/2 hour but after that our troubles began.
This was without a doubt the worst airport experience of the trip. We arrived to find a mega long queue to get our tickets. This wasn't too bad as you tend to expect that from airports and the line was moving steadily, though on the slow side. It took us almost an hour to get to the front where we were directed to a check in person. We carted all our gear over to where we had been told only to find there was no one there. About 5 mins past before a women came over who was very rude and made out that we were stupid because we hadn't entered all our flight information into a computer (that we hadn't seen and that there were no signs for) to get our boarding passes. GRRRRR
This took quite a while to actually get thru, nothing like the nice easy systems that Qantas and Virgin have recently introduced. After we got our boarding passes, we then had to lift all of our 6 suitcases up to get weighed. They didn't then put them on a conveyer belt like they do in Australia, where they go out the back and you don't see them again until you get to your destination. We had to take them back off the scales cause you have to cart your own bags across half the airport to drop them off at xray screeing yourself. To make things worse, we also got hit for excess baggage as the free baggage limit was 50 pounds per bag (23kg) and 2 of ours were over this, so that was another $50us. Double GRRRRRRR
From the ticketing area there was a roped off path to get to the screening area, which we followed. When we got to the screening area, it was bedlem as some people were self ticketing in and then walking straight there to get their bags processed as well as other people coming from the opposite direction who had been directed to this screening station due to another one in the airport breakind down.
We eventually got rid of our bags and then headed off to get thru security. We were directed into the disabled line as there weren't many people in that line. Getting thru security for me was always a real pain. You have to take off your shoes and jacket and everyday we flew I seemed to have a jacket on as it was cold. I also had to take off my belt. Added to this I had the laptop which is surprisingly heavy and which had to be taken out of its case, both of which I would have to hold. I was also carrying a back pack full of stuff as we had no where left in our suitcases to put it. Lastly I would also have to take out my wallet and phone, all the while holding onto my passport and boarding pass (as well as everyting else listed above) which they check for about the 70th time as your walk through the metal detector. The way they were inadvertily set up, you had to do all of this before you got to a bench where you can get those big trays to put everything in.
Here I am, trying my best to hold all of this stuff and I can't get to the bench to put it into the trays as there is a little old disabled lady in front of me who has a walker that holds her bag. She is trying to lift her bag up onto the bench without much success, so I go to help her but a security guard yells at me that I am not to touch anyone elses stuff. The 4 guards there refuse to help her, even though there isn't a thing that they can do at the moment as the line has come to a complete halt due to this poor lady not being able to get her bag up, and when she finally did, she had a lot of trouble breaking her walker down to put through the machine as well.
It was a good 5 mins before she was able to do all of this and I was able to finally put my stuff down and into containers to put through xray. I walked through the metal detector with no problems and the security guy looks at my ticket, pulls out a hi-lighter, hi-lights some random letters on there and goes, 'Oh look, you have been randomly selected to undergo the more thorough security exam.' Triple GRRRRRRRRR
I am told to not touch anything and am led over to another section while the guard carrys all of my stuff with him. He gives me a full and very complete pat down. I am then told to sit on a chair while he takes some swipes off my clothes to run through a machine to test for explosives. When that comes up clean, he tests my shoes and belt for the same thing and then allows me to take those so that I can put them back on. He then pulled everything out of my bags. Anything that had pockets in it he would search thru. Finally he was satisified and he put everything back in and gave me the all clear. Mum and Toni also were 'randomly' selected. Mum had no problems as she didn't have much with her so the whole process was quite quick. They never told Toni what they were doing, so she went to grab her bags and that made the security guards very upset. So Toni started arguing with them which didn't help matters nor did it make them give her an explanation of what they were doing. As you could imagine, she wasn't very impressed with the situation. And the poor old lady was also 'randomly' selected and she was very unhappy about this. Apparently she had already been through security once at the airport this morning, where she had been randomly selected. Then she had some sort of problem with her ticket and she had to go all the way back to the ticketing area and then through security again.
All-in-all, it was not a good experience. I'm all for airport safety and even though things were a little time consuming in other airports, it was really done as painlessly as possible. Continental Airlines at this airport seemed to go out of their way to make things as hard as possible (and thats not including the extra security we had to go through which I had no issues with other then them not telling Toni what was going on).
This whole process from getting to the airport to getting thru security took 2.5 hours, exactly what you don't need when your hung over. Once thru, Newark airport goes from being a hole that looks like they are in the middle of upgrading to one of the nicest airports I have seen. It has a beautiful view back towards Manhattan, it looks new and bright and has plenty of shops and well priced places to eat. The whole thing is managed by Westfield's, and they have big signs up all over the place saying if you see things in stores there more expensive then they would be at a local mall to give them a call and they will get the situation addressed imediatly.
As it took us so long to get thru the airport, we only had 1/2 hour to our plane boarded and we were starving. We chugged some coffee and then I got a root beer float (root beer + icecream) and a really bad chicken burger. The root beer was fantastic!
Toni and I then finally had something good happen to us, we got seats in the front row of economy. This was good as the plane had a business class section, then a wall, then economy, but from our seats in the front row, I could only just touch the wall in front of me if I stretched my legs as far as they could go. Unfortunatly Mum's day didn't get any better, she was sitting in the row behind us, and thus not only did she only have the normal amount of leg room, she also had a large person sitting next to her who thought she was entitled to 1 and 1/2 seats.
The plane ride is a fraction over 5 hours (the same time to get from LA to NY even though Vegas is further inland) and was uneventful. They served pizza as the meal which I had never seen on a plane before. The other guy in our row asked me to shut the blind so that he could watch the movie which he couldn't see due to the glare, which I did. After a couple of hours I lifted the blind to have a look out and we were over farmland. 30 mins later I did the same again and we were over snow capped mountains. 30 mins later and we were over desert. I have never flown over desert before, but to me it looked just like I would imagine the Sahara Desert to look like. Flat (well flat from 30000ft), orange, all sand and nothing else.
30 mins later I looked again and we were flying over the edge of the Grand Canyon, which even at that height looked damn impressive. I left the blind up from that point as the movie was over, and from there to Vegas it is just rock, with a little bit of yellow/white sand.
We landed and walked up the air bridge and I kid you not, from the end of the airbridge off the plane to the first poker machine would have been about 20m!!!!!
Welcome to Vegas baby!!!!!!!!
We started heading towards baggage collection and mum turned to me and said, 'Do you smell that, it smells like smoke'. We walked a bit further and lo and behold, there was a glass fish bowl looking thing which was a smokers lounge, right in the middle of the walkway. It was crammed full of people (and of course poker machines) and it was almost completly full of smoke. Where else in the world can you smoke in airports these days. Wish I had taken a photo of it.
We had to catch a light train from our terminal to the main terminal to get our bags, which was fine and our bags came out relatively quickly.
I was a little worried about catching the shuttle bus service in Vegas. Everywhere else it had been good, but you were always about an hour away from the airport so it made sense to do it that way rather then Taxi it. The airport in vegas is right next to the strip. You could see our hotel from there, it was only about 600m away (not that you could walk there due to it being an airport and having no footpaths). Everywhere I had read online said just catch a taxi but by that stage the transfers were already booked. We found where we needed to go and waited in line. It took 45 mins for the shuttle to arrive, which is very frustrating when you can see your hotel!!!!! It then took another 10 mins to get everyone and their bags on. At every other airport we never waited longer then about 10 mins and it never took more then 5 mins from the time the shuttle arrived before we were on our way. Not here. Once the bags were on, it was another 15 mins before we actually left as the driver piss farted around with things, collecting tickets, going off his nana because there were 17 people on the bus and he only 15 tickets (5 mins later he figured out it was his f#@kup.) When we finally left the whole bus cheered and applauded. If you ever go to vegas trust me, catch a taxi!!!!
The 3 of us all felt really sick as we had spent the last hour and a bit on a walkway with no ventialtion that was full of petrol fumes. We were tired, cranky and 2 of us had been recovering from hangovers (I was feeling fine when I got off the plane). To add to our problems, due to taking so long to leave the airport, it was now 5:15 and peak our traffic. It took us 25 mins to get from the airport to our hotel, which was the first drop off point.
Getting our rooms was mostly painless and we had 2 rooms on the 24th floor. Our room had a nice view of the southern end of the strip, looking out at Excalibar and New York New York casinos, but it didn't have a fridge!!!!!!!!! Mum's room had a great view of the airport which coupled with no fridge and her general unhappiness of the days events so far, left her less the impressed.
The rooms themselves although big and clean and with nice bathrooms, weren't that impressive. The rest of the casino was beautiful and looked very classy and expensive but that feeling wasn't carried through to these rooms. The casino does have 8 different classes of rooms and we were in the cheapest so I'm sure there were some impressive rooms in the place somewhere.
All we wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep, but we had tickets to the Cirqie Du Soleil Beatles show, Love, which was at the Mirage Hotel. Our plane landed at 3:30 and with the close proximity of the airport we figured we would be checked in by 4:40, 5 at worse. It was now 6:15 and we had to pick up our tickets by 7 for the 7:30 show. We seriously considered skipping the show, but the tickets weren't cheap and being tightasses we decided we better front.
Due to how late it was and the fact we had no energy, we caught a cab to the venue instead of walking the mile or so it would have taken. Getting the tickets wasn't a problem and left us with about 30 mins to get something to eat. We decided to try a world famous Vegas buffet.
It cost us about $20 each and it was awesome. They had the whole thing broken down into different regional types, with each regional type having a different station.
So there was a Mexican station, and a chinese station, a sushi station, a southern (usa) station, an Italian station, a seafood station etc. All up there were about 17 stations (including dessert) and it served a massive array of different fresh and yummy foods and was well worth the money, even if we didn't eat all that much.
We then headed to the show. None of us had ever seen a Cirque show so we didn't quite know what to expect, but it was awesome. From the moment you walked in, the ushers were dressed either like the guards from Buckingham Towers (guys) or like traditonal english police from the 60's (girls) and it looked striking. The theatre only held a few hundred people and it was in a circle. We had 2nd row tickets but there isn't a bad seat in the place. As soon as it was started we were awake again and full of energy. The costuming and acrobotics were amazing. The show was heavilly developed by George Harrison before his death and had the blessing and input of the surviving beatles as well as Yuko. They play about 20 beatles songs and with each one they sort of tell a story either about the beatles or of the 60-70s britian. It's a hard show to explain in words (Without it going on forever and as you would have noticed from reading this blog, I tend to ramble at the best of times anyway) but the storyline hangs together well and there are no pauses during the show. The whole stage can lift up and down, so between segments only a part of the stage may be up while the rest is down having the next scence put on it, which will then rise. Theres all sorts of trapeze and other areo-batics (is that a word, it should be. In my defense its 4am at the moment and I can't sleep) happening above you. The only (very small) problem with the show is that there is too much happening, and you can only look at one thing at a time which means you are missing out on all this other amazing stuff happening around you. The show is also cut with projections of the 4 members of the beatles being projected onto curtains with them acting to audio of out-takes from studio sessions from the 60's. These were really cool to listen to, with them being themselves and goofing around and you get a sense of how close and how good friends they all were.
It was a great show and we would have kicked ourselves if we had missed it. We left the show feeling better and more awake, so we decided to walk from there back to our hotel. We walked past Ceasors Palace and then through the Bellagio. We stopped to watch the famous Dancing Fountains show out the front of Bellagio which happens every 1/2 hour but it wasn't on tonight due to high winds. D'oh.
We walked passed Le Paris which has a replica of the Effiel Tower and other famous French landmarks and it looked stunning. We made it back to our hotel and after a quick look at the casino area itself we headed to bed after what was a very long and tiring day. It was about midnight at this stage, which considering it was 3am in New York due to the difference in time-zone, was a mighty effort on our part.

Day 14 - Sunday 15th October 2006

Yet another sleep-in. How can 3 people who sleep in just about everyday be so continuously tired? Toni is a massive Beatles fan so a trip to John Lennon’s memorial ‘Strawberry Fields’ in Central Park was always going to be an important part of our NY Itinerary. Our unit was about 4 blocks from the park but it is towards the south of bottom end of the park, so we walked from about 75^th Street to 82^nd Street so that we could get a better look. The park itself is amazing. The city planners did a wonderful job leaving such a large space of land in a jam packed city that could be enjoyed by everyone. It has plenty of sports fields as well as dedicated quiet areas were people can relax. It has areas for wildlife, plenty of lakes and cycling paths and is a serene beautiful place. We spent a couple of hours meandering around the bottom half of the park, looking at statues and fountains, the castle, the pond where you can hire remote control sail boats and around beautiful areas of native fauna and flora. And there was heaps of squirrels, as the girls know full well seen as I took a photo of each and everyone!!! I love squirrels

Central Park was fantastic. I’m not a big park person but this was not a park in the sense that you get them in Australia. I would love to see it in winter when it was covered in snow and the ponds frozen over with people skating on them and I could imagine sitting there on a hot summer’s day reading a book or playing my guitar. I would have easily spent another few hours just wandering but the girls had had enough and it was time to move on.

We headed into Time Square and booked a harbour cruise for that night so we could have a good look at the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan Skyline at night. We then headed to Bloomingdales which is over on the East side of the island, which is the part of the island that we didn’t spend much time exploring. What a waste of time. Although not as big as Macy’s, it was still a massive 9 story high department store, but it really only caters for the top end of the market. The store was beautiful but we only spent ½ hour in there as there was no way we would buy anything from there. The well to do were walking around in there in their designer dresses with their dog’s on a leash following behind. I guess if you have the money to shop there, you have the right to take your pets in with you as well!!!

We grabbed a beer from a local pub and watched a bit of the footy. It seems to be a real thing over here not to have coasters for your drink. We were under instructions from a few people to pick up as many coasters as we could to bring home, but everywhere we have been you just get a napkin to put your drink on. There’s going to be a few disappointed people when I come home with soppy torn napkins instead of American drink coasters.

We ate at a Italian diner where I tried a Stromboli, which was only just a half a step above ordinary and the pizza wasn’t any chop either. We then headed cross town back to Macy’s as Toni decided there were some suits there that she really wanted. She walked out with a Calvin Klien suit heavily discounted and I walked out with a Calvin Klien jacked which was no where near as heavily discounted. And Macy gives an 11% discount on top of all other discounts/savings for international visitors. Bonus!!!

It was then a mad dash to try and get a taxi to the pier for our cruise. It was right in the middle of the taxi driver change over and even though there was thousands of taxis about it took us a long time to get one that would stop to take us. We made it to the pier with a few minutes to spare and then embarked on our 90 min cruise.

We started half way up the west side of the island in the Hudson River about 30 mins before sunset and made our way down around the bottom of the island (and the statue of liberty at a distance) and then up the East River up to the United Nations which is about ½ way up the island. We then turned around and headed back with a close pass by the Lady Liberty. This cruise was excellent and the commentary was really insightful. We learnt really interesting things like the whole area around the world trade centre used to be underwater. To build the WTC, they had to dig so deep that the soil and rock that they dug up was enough to create the landfill used to create the rest of the whole area at that end of the island. We got to go under the Brooklyn Bridge a couple of times and got to see Manhattan at night which was spectacular. The Statue of Liberty herself was a sight to behold.

We finished the cruise and walked to Times Square to find somewhere classy for dinner. We walked across Times Square and then a few blocks to the east and north without running into anything interesting. Actually just about everything was closed. So much for the city that never sleeps, not much is open at 9pm on a Sunday. We ended up back at the Rockerfeller Centre and had a great dinner at a restaurant there that is located next to the ice rink. The service was excellent and we worked our way through the entire list of cocktails, so it wasn't exactly the cheapest dinner in NY. MMMMM Margaritas MMMMMM. Almost as good as beer.

We then went out to the ice skating rink and Toni and I hired a set of skates each and had a good 1/2 hour skate which was all we could get in before they closed for the night.


Toni and Mum then called it a night and caught a horse and carriage ride back to the hotel

I headed back to Times Square to watch some blues at the BB King place, but got there to be told they were only open for another 8 mins and they would still charge me full price to go in. Um no thanks. Instead I headed to the ESPN Zone to drink some beer and watch the last 5 innings of the NY Mets playoff match. I worked my way through the beers they had on tap there, drinking out of steins and had a good time. They shut up at 1 but let me stay up there and keep drinking while the bar maids were cleaning up which was great. And the greatest idea ever, they have LCD tv's above the urinals so that you don't miss a second of the action. This should be compulsory for all bars and sporting venues world wide. Anyway they then recommended me another bar but it was a bit of a dive and so about 2:30 and with a cross-country flight ahead of me (that and I was pretty seriously smashed), I thought I better call it a night

Day 13 - Saturday October 14th 2006

Today was the designated NY shopping day and the girls were chomping at the bit to get out the door. We quickly walked down to Tower Records which is a nation wide CD/DVD store that is going out of business and was apparently having a big closing down sale. Well let me tell you, dvd’s here are a lot more expensive. Stuff you would get at home for $20aus would be $25-30US. We have been on the look out for the full series of Sex and the City for Sandra and the cheapest we have found it is almost $300, which is at least $150 more expensive then home.
Anyway we piled ourselves into a taxi and headed straight for the New York institution, Macy’s. This store is billed as the biggest department store in the world and it sure felt like it. It takes up 2 full city blocks and is 11 stories high and has everything you could think of bar golf clubs and guitars. It has wooden escalators and just goes on forever. It has a floor dedicated to xmas decorations, they sell grand pianos and organs and have about 4 floors of women clothing. Pets are well catered floor with a big chunk of floor space dedicated to dog and cat costumes and accessories, so that you can dress your pet in things that would get you locked up if you tried to put your kids into them. And talking about kids, the ‘kids’ floor has a large selection of kids suits, just what the inspiring pimp needs with a price tag to match. It has its own McDonalds (naturally located on the kids floor), Starbucks and about 7 other eateries/restaurants. Toni picked up a baby Halloween outfit and mum bought some shoes after which we had an awesome lunch from the Macy deli. The place was far too big to really have a good look at in a small amount of time, but they did cater too everyone, from high end expensive fashion down to nice stuff that people with normal wages could afford.
It took me a couple of hours to extract the girls from the store and then we proceeded up and down Fashion Avenue where Toni found some shoes that she absolutely had to have and found other assorted clothes from some other stores. Going in and out of all these places started becoming a bit of a blur to me so sorry if I’m a little scratchy on the details.
We then headed up the famous 5th Avenue, home to some of the worlds most elite and expensive stores, most of which we didn’t bother going into. We did go into Tiffanys but weren’t game enough to go to floor 2-5 seeing how expensive the ground floor was.
We tried earlier in the day to go to the top of the Empire State Building, but it was a 75 minute wait to get to the top and on our tight schedule, that was never going to happen. Instead, we went to ‘Top of the Rock’ at the Rockerfeller Centre. It has a great observation deck 69 floors up that overlooks Central Park and has a great view of the Empire State Building. And best of all, there was no wait!!!!


We headed up to FAO Schwarz, which is the big toy store featured from Home Alone 2 and has the big ‘zebra crossing’ piano that was in Big with Tom Hanks back in the 80’s. The place was packed and they had a couple of professionals working the zebra crossing which was very impressive. They had a maternity ward with new dolls in cribs and the area was done up like a hospital, down to the staff in the section being dressed in nurses uniforms. I’m still amazed I got Toni out of there without one.
The game Monopoly must be huge over here. We counted in FAO Schwarz and they had 27 different versions of the game, From the Yankees Edition to Family Guy, From Orange County Choppers to Star Trek, it was covered. No Aussie Editions though.
NYC’s street corners are covered by guys selling knock off Luis Vutton and Gucchi bags and Toni then made us cover half of Manhattan to find the exact knock-off she was after.
Surprisingly the girls didn’t actually buy that much but night eventually fell and we were utterly exhausted and completely shopped out, so we piled into a taxi and headed home for the rest of the night were the girls watched some Law and Order and I logged in to do some work

Day 12 - Friday October 13th 2006

It was cold today. They had record snow falls for this time of year in New York state and in the city itself it only just managed to crawl to 10c in the afternoon. So whats the ideal thing to do when its freezing cold and blowing a gale..... ride an open top double decker bus around the city.

It was one of those hop-on, hop-off things and it was pretty good. The commentary was excellent and got to learn a lot about the city. We made our way on the bus from Mid-Town where we were staying down to Downtown which is where the major financial district is. We got off at Battery Park which is on the southern tip of Manhatten and pretty much faces the Statue of Liberty. It was going to be about a 3 hour wait to go to the actual island itself, so we will wait to later in the week to do a harbour cruise and get closer to it then. For now hows a picture take from Battery Park

We then walked up to the World Trade Center Site. Its hard to imagine just how high those buildings where, with them being about twice as high as everything around them and the buildings in that section of the city aren't exactly dwarfs. Not surprisingly there is a lot of construction going on there at the moment and a very heavy police presence.

The WTC site didn't have just the Twin Towers on it, but a series of compartively smaller office buildings as well, one of which has already been completly re-buily. They have also set up a small muesuem next to the WTC site. This made the whole experince much more personal as it delved into what happened to specific people on the day. It was very sad and emotional in there but very well done.
We then headed to a discount department store called Century 21, which is across the street from the WTC. Never have I seen so many people in one shop at one time. You could barley move. The prices where very good, I picked up a couple of Calvin Klien business shirts for about $20 ea and Toni got her first pair of shoes for the trip.
Another thing about New York is that they heat each and every building at about 30c inside. He come in from the street where your rugged up because it is freezing cold and then you are sweltering in the heat. Its even worse when you just duck into a store for 30 secs to see what sort of stuff they sell. With the heat and humanity in Century 21 we were glad to make our escape, even though there were plenty of other bargains to be had.
We walked up to Wall St and had a bit of a look through there and then back on the bus to complete the tour around back to Mid-Town. From there we hailed a taxi (which is incredibly easy to do and we did this a lot in our 4 days there) headed back to the apartment quickly to drop our crap off before heading back into Time Square to see the Lion King stage show.
I had been looking forward to this for a long time, having wanted to watch it when it came to Australia a few years ago, but must admit to being a little disapointed. The costuming and staging were fantastic but it really felt like they had enough material to do a really good 90 min show which they padded out to 2.5 hours with meaningless ballet and twaddle. A great example is the scence where Simba decides to become a man and go back and fight scar for the kingdom. The lead up and this scence was done magnificantly well and then how does he celebrate his manhood.... he dances around like a fairy for 5 mins. GRRRRR
Anyway the girls absoultly loved it (it was Toni's first theatre experience of any kind), the rest of the audience seemed very happy and it has been running now for years, so I guess its just me.
We caught a taxi back to the apartment and then walked up to the Manhatten Diner again for some of their world famous cheesecake which didn't disapoint.
Another big day and only 2 more to go, we are barely even going to scratch the surface of New York

Day 11 - Thursday 12th October 2006

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but when you only have 4 days in NY, it wasn't my highest priority.
We didn't surface until about 10am, this seemed to be a common practise in NY, not sure if it was because we were tired or how high up we were, but I know I would start waking up about 7am and would almost instantly be back asleep again. Even at 10 I could have rolled over and pumped out the ZZZZZZ's for another couple of hours.
We got ourselves a map and decided we should walk down to Time Square. This was probably no more then a couple of miles in total and took us about 3 hours with having to go into what felt like every store on the way. By the time we reached Time Square we already had 2 backpacks full of mostly trashy sourveins to take home with us. Time Square was great. The whole thing extends for about 6 blocks and it doesn't matter what time of day or night you are there, the place is always packed. The size and complexity of some of the ads there is amazing. For instance, one of the Ads features a brand new fully working 4WD attached to the side of a building.
We had a look through some of the stores here, espeically Toys-R-Us. The Time Square Toys-R-Us store is the largest toy store in the world, it even has a 5 storey high ferris wheel in the middle of it. Just for a change Toni went Ga-ga over all of the stuffed animals. I kid you not, we currently have a suitcase which is mostly filled with the ones she has picked up while we have been over here. Thankfully a lot of them are for other people, but more then enough will be taking residency in our place.
We picked up a couple of xmas presents for people from Toys-R-Us and then it was time to head to a Television studio as we had reservations to see a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (which is really big over here, it is basically a news saitre and my second favourite tv show behind Top Gear). The way the trip worked out, everyone got to do one thing that no one else was that keen to do. Mums was the day in LA, Toni's was San Diego Seaworld and mine was the Daily Show taping. It was about a 20 min walk from Time Square to where we needed to be. Even though we had reservations for the tickets, we were informed that they give out more reservations then the amount of people they can get in the studio, to ensure that they are always full. We had to be there by 4:30 but were advised to get there earlier. We got there just after 3:30 and there were already about 160 people in the line!!! So we waited, and waited and waited.... and then we did some waiting. At about 4:45 the came out and you got a ticket with the number you are in line (thus how i know there were 160 people in front of me) and the studio only holds about 220 so there were some very disapointed people turned away who had been waiting a fair amount of time.
Our confirmation letter indicated that things would start happening around 5 and that the taping would finish around 7:15-7:30. Well it was 5:45 before we were let in (so a total of 2hrs 15 standing in line outside). We did luck into 1st row seats which was nice and A warm up guy came out and did about 15mins and he was pretty good. Then Jon came out for a 5-10 min Question and Answer session and then the taping began.
I've been to a few tapings in my time, most notibly for the old ABC comedy Good News Week (Paul McDermott, Mikey Robbins) and they would film about 2 hours worth of stuff to make a 22 min TV show and most of the best stuff was what never made it to television, usually either because the subject had drifted so far away from where it started or because it was dripping in profanity.
This wasn't the case here. They filmed it like it was live, including just having loud music play in the studio for the several minutes where the ads would be. There was only a tiny part that had to be re-shot and about 6:50 we were up and out of the studio.
It was a funny show and everyone got a good laugh but the 2.5 hours of waiting certainly wasn't worth it, especially as we saw pretty much only exactly what went to air (We did watch the show that night at 11pm). He also only had some obscure political author as the guest for the night. The night before The Colbert Report (which is its sister show) had George Lucus on. He was very funny and even made fun of Episode 1 and Jar Jar. I would have happily waited in line for that!!!
We kicked around Mid Town Manhatten for a bit then we got some dinner and took some beers back to the apartment and called it a night

Day 10 - Wednesday 11th October 2006

Today we head off to the Big Apple.
Up at 6am so we can do our last little bit of packing before our shuttle arrived at 7am. Check out was a breeze and our shuttle was exactly on time. In even better news, we were the last group to be picked up by this shuttle so we didn't have to meander through Anaheim for 45 mins like we did when we arrived.
The trip to the airport was almost an hour and then it was another hour to check in and get through security, but other then being time consuming was pretty painless. Thankfully unlike in Aus, once you are through security the first time thats it, you can even buy liquids/gels past the security point and take them on the plane. We headed off to the Qantas club to kill 90 mins in peace and to have a bite of breaky.
11am arrived and we took our seats in the very back row of the plane. We sat on the runway for 25min apparently due planes being diverted due to bad weather on our flight path. Eventually we were off.
Our flight was 5 hours long but uneventful other then a family with 8 children sitting directly in front of us. I cranked my Ipod up as high it could go with Guns & Roses playing and played Sudoku on my PSP, though the girls plans of sleeping were shattered.
It was raining in New York as we landed and with the thick cloud we couldn't see diddly. So much for a great view of NY nightime skyline. We landed at just before 8pm NY time (losing 3 hours in Time Zone difference.) and then it was another 90 mins before we arrived in our hotel.
Just before we arrived at the hotel the driver pointed a scence where a street was blocked off with Fire Engines and Police everywhere. Apparently a Yankee baseball player was flying a plane that crashed into this building today. First we had heard of it, maybe thats why we were delayed heading out of LA.
Anyway to anyone who was concerned, I can confirm we are safe and well. You can actually see the building that was hit from our hotel window. Its only 2 or 3 blocks away. Glad we weren't here when it happened.
Our hotel is great. Its a 1 bedroom apartment on the 18th floor and has a kitchenette which is great especially due to us not even having a fridge in LA. We went to a 'Diner' for dinner. It was pouring with rain outside, while we were in this diner that looked like it came straight out of a movie. And let me tell you, the food was fantastic, though as with everywhere else here, far too much of it. I had the best Chicken Parmigana I had ever eaten and the girls were happy as they were able to take desert home to put in the fridge to eat later.
We only have 4 full days in New York so there won't be much time for sleeping in the coming few days. Bring on tomorrow!!!!

Day 9 - Tueday 10th October 2006

Last day at Disneyland :(
We were up pretty early this morning with plans to be at the park by the 10am opening. We pretty much did all the shows yesterday and Toni only needs 2 more autographs to fill up her 2nd book so today is serious rides day. Luggage space is becoming seriously limited already so we decided to head around the corner to the local post office to send some stuff home. This was probably a mistake....
The place was packed being a day after a public holiday. We had to wait in line for about 1/2 hour to get our customs forms etc so that we could go and put our boxes together so that we could wait in line for 1/2 an hour again to send them. Thankfully it only cost us about $15US a box to send so that wasn't too bad, but we only sent really light unbreakable things home.
So we were late getting down to the park and once again it was pretty busy. We didn't realise how good we had it Tuesday/Wednesday last week were the parks were all but deserted. Toni was able to get Cruella De Ville and then we had some mickey pancakes for breakfast and then riding began.
!!!!!
Using fastpasses we were able to pretty much walk onto all of the major rides in Disneyland one last time. During the course of the day we finally saw Donald Duck who was the only major character we hadn't seen all week and Toni got his autograph to round out her 2nd book.
!!!!
The girls also got to ride the dumbo ride that they had been hanging out all week to do and we spent 45 mins in line to ride the 90sec kid ride Peter Pan (which is Fast Passed Enabled) but it made Toni very happy.
We finally had a corn dog which we had been planning on doing the whole time we had been here but had never been hungry enough due to the enormous serving sizes here. It is basically a dagwood dog but with corn start between the sausage and the batter. Still it was very nice.
It got to about 5:30pm and with heavy hearts we said our good buys to disneyland, after emptying our wallets one final time in the gift shop.
Tomorrow... New York New York

Day 8 - Monday October 9th 2006

Woke up this morning after a good night sleep feeling much better then yesterday. I think I was even caught skipping as we entered Disneyland today, which is a marked improvement over yesterday. The plan today is to try and get as many autographs for Toni as possible and see as many of the shows across the 2 parks as we could. We got down the park a little before 10 and headed across the park to an event that had only been going for a couple of days, The Princess Fare. Basically this is a theatre that they have converted into a permanent area to interact with some of the Disney Princess. The event was suppose to start at 10am but they were running late and they didn't let us in for another 20 mins or so. The girls then got to stand in line for about 45mins to wait to meet and have photos with the princess while I left them to pick up some items, grab some fastpasses and bring back water and coffee.
They have 3 princesses out at a time and they rotate them with different ones every 30 mins. While waiting in line there the princesses out were (excuse spelling here) Cinderrella, Jasmane and Belle. By the time the girls got to the front they had been replaced by Snow White, Mulan and some other bird Toni didn't know the name of. The girls were able to get autographs and photos with them in a very nice setting and then they were off to the royal court to learn how to dance and other such princess like endeavours.
First they learnt how to courtesy and then the royal dance. They were then joined by Cinderrella, Jasmine and Belle and they all danced together. Toni had absoutly no idea but they both had a great time.
One of the biggest selling lines at Disneyland is full costumes of the princess for little girls to wear. It is amazing to see how many kids get around disneyland fully kitted out in gloves, shoes etc. It actually adds a lot to the character of the park and seeing all these dressed up girls (and Kaylee and Toni) in all the royal splendid was pretty cool. Not as cool as the Jedi Acadamy though...
After spending almost 2 hours here we ventured off to Woody's Halloween Roundup where the girls did the chicken dance and got to meet Woody and Jesse from Toy Story. We went to Minnie's again for lunch and once again ate far too much and then went and saw the 3-D show, Honey I Shrunk the Audience. We were then able to finally get the old girl onto Space Mountain which she absoutly loved and then had another run through Buzz Lightyear.
It was pretty busy in Disneyland today with the public holiday, probably not quite as busy as Saturday and certainly not the horror show that was yesterday. It also helped that we all had a good rest and were all feeling a lot better.
We headed over to DCA and watched a show over there which is pretty ordinary. At 4:30 we promptly arrived at Ariel's Grotto to have a character dinner with the princesses (can you tell that today is Toni's day?). Unfortuntley the only time we could get at late notice was 4:30 and after our big lunch we really weren't hungry, so we tried to delay ordering food for as long as possible. Finally we had to order and the idea was you paid $20 and you got to pick from a menu an entree, main and dessert. Just what we needed, yet another big feed.
At about 5pm the princesses starting coming out and making their way around the room to meet and greet every table. Firstly Ariel arrived in her human form.

She was followed by Cinderella, Mulan, Snow White and Belle

The girls had a great time and it was very well done. For $20 a head for all that including free drinks we felt it was great value and we were there for a bit over an hour and Toni was able to get 3 more autographs that she didn't have.
We then watched the DCA parade which was very short and a little underwhelming and then we headed back to Downtown Disney so the girls could build their bears.

We were back at the hotel by about 8pm after a great day. Its sad to think we are only here for one more day and that its off to NY.

Day 7 - Sunday October 8th 2006

Its a bit sad when the highlight of a day at Disneyland is a deep fried toasted sandwhich!!!
The day didn't start well. I have been coming down with a cold for a couple of days and it hit hard this morning. I didn't wake up until almost 11 and if I rolled over Im sure I would have slept a few more hours. We didn't make it to the park until almost 11:30 and it was scenes reminisinit from Monday. The lines were enormous. We got inside Disneyland in surprisingly good time and headed to New Orleans area to try something I had heard about from the Disney community sites online, the Monte Christo Sandwhich. Even after reading about it I still wasn't sure what it was but everyone I had ever talked to about it had recommended trying it so try it we would.
We got to the place that sells them just as they were opening and were promptly escorted to a table were we ordered 2 of them and a ceasor salad. When it arrived 10mins later I must admit to being a little disapointed, it was certainly the smallest serving of food we had seen in our time here so far, and I was starving. It is basically 1 Turkey, ham and Cheese Sandwhich, cut into 4's and lightly battered and deepfried covered with a light dusting of icing sugar, put on a massive plate with a bunch of grapes and a couple of strawberries. Didn't seem like much but it was amazing. Who would have thought to deep fry a sandwhich? The other surprising thing other then the taste, was how filling it was. I was starving, hadn't eaten since lunch time the day before and I could barley finish it I was so full.
On a slightly off-topic note, one of the other things that I love over here is root beer. I had always wanted to try it but had no idea how it would taste. I thought it would taste somewhat akin to Ginger Beer but it actually tastes pretty close to Sarsparilla and it is devine. I have been drinking far too much of it the last couple of days, I even passed up a real beer the other day for one. I was feeling sick though.
The amount of people in Disneyland was amazing. Rides were having 2 hour plus standby waiting times. Toni was finally able to get Winnie the Pooh's photo and autograph and scored even bigger by being in the right place at the right time to get Jack Sparrows (the guy playing him really does look like Johnny Depp. In another slightly offtopic rant, the 2 women in front of Toni in line were funny. One would have been about Toni's age and the other was probably her mother. They had makeup bags and mirrors out trying to pretty themselves up. When they go to meet 'Jack' they were like a couple of schoolgirls. They got there photos taken and then were trying to hit on him, giving him their phone numbers and not letting go of him. You could see he was getting creeped out by them, it was pretty funny. He was relieved to finally get to someone more normal in Toni (Never thought I would say that))
We rode the winnie the pooh ride which was cute and then road the riverboat around the Rivers of America. This was really disapointing, I thought this would be great but it was just a 20 min trip around the island with just a couple of animatronics set up to look like indians. Even Dreamworld does a better job then this. We used a fastpass I collected earlier in the day to ride the Haunted Mansion again. We rode this on Tuesday and loved and it was even better the 2nd time around. There was so much we missed the first time and some of the effects I have no idea how they would do it. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Will deffinatly ride this again before we leave LA.
We wanted to spend the rest of the day over at DCA where we planned on seeing all of their shows, watch their parade at 5:15, then take some pictures of the Pier area at night and ride the rollercoaster over their at night which I have never done before.
Well it didn't really pan out that way. We got over there and you basically couldn't move because of the people. I went to go to one show, we arrived 30 mins before hand to find that the show was already full from people who had missed the show that started 90 mins before it. We then went to see the aladdin show to find that it had been cancelled for the day. We couldn't get a fast pass for anything, couldn't get around the park easily and there was no where to sit and rest. I was feeling crook from my cold and the old girls legs were playing up. We weren't having fun. We commented that it was sad that we would have preffered to be back at the hotel watching the SVU marathon then being in the parks today.
We decided to leave the parks and do something that I had promised Toni before we arrived, and that was to Make Your Own Teddy Bear. There is a shop in the Downtown Disney Shopping Area to do this. This got the girls excited again until we got there and the line was out the door and 1/2 way around the block. GRRRRRR, we will have to try and do this tomorrow.
We decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel, even though it was only about 3:45pm. We thought we should finally pick up all those Disney things that we wanted to buy seen as we were heading back and we wouldn't have to cart them around the parks all day and so we could pack our suitcases to see how much room we had left. We went to the big disney store and it took us about 25mins to find everything we wanted and about the same amount of time again to get served. We made it back to the hotel finally about 5pm were we ordered pizza, I drunk a Bug Light which came in a 915ml can (but only had 96 calories, which it proudly tells you on the can but doesn't mention anywhere what the alcohol content is) and watched SVU until 10pm. Never did get around to packing up those suit cases either.
I did get online and I found out that today was what one website was calling a 'Perfect Storm' situation for bringing unexpected levels of people to the park. On top of it being a Sunday (the busiest day of the week), it was also the second day of the 'Gay Days' weekend + it was the 2nd weekend of the Halloween Celebration where a lot of events and decorations have been put up in the parks. This is the first time they have done this and it has been heavily advertised in the southern california area so I lot of people have come in to see it. Lastly there was a 4 mile charity walk for the local childrens hosptials where the walkers got free entry into Disneyland afterwoods. So a lot of these people and their families would have been there that otherwise would not have normally been.
Tomorrow is the Columbus Day Public Holiday here. This holiday seems strange as everyone I have talked to has said that it is only a public holiday on the west coast for public servants and bank workers, but everyone else will be at work and just about all schools will be running as normal, so fingers cross it won't be anywhere near as bad as today.

Day 6 - Saturday 7th October 2006 - Part 2

We stayed at the hotel watching a Law and Order: SVU marathon until about 7:30 and then made our way back down to the park. There was no point in leaving earlier then this as the parade wouldn't finish long before 8 and we wouldn't be able to get in the front entrance. We were back in the park by 8pm and the place was packed. We expected it to be busy today, being a Saturday and all and we also knew that this weekend was the annual 'Gay Days' weekend which brings about an additional 6000 people into the park, all wearing red teeshirts. We skipped out of Disneyland this morning before 10am while things were realtively normal and over at DCA the crowds never got that bad. We fast passed onto everything and never had to wait more then 10 minutes for a ride, but for people not using fast pass the wait times for the major rides were consistently over an hour. Generally walking around though it didn't feel particualry crowed in DCA and other then the Student holiday Monday were the crowds were insane, the crowds the rest of the week had been very light and we hadn't used fast pass many times as there was no wait anyway.
Well I don't know what the crowds were like during the day here but they were insane tonight. Our plan was to watch Fantasmic at 9 and then stay in the same spot for the fireworks that start about 2 mins later. Fatasmic is done on the big river that they have there which is over one side of the park and the fireworks all revolve around the big castle in the centre of the park so its impossible to be in a good spot for both, but we figured we would see the fireworks proper on Sunday night.
We we made our way to the Rivers of America and the sea of humanity was overwhelming. People must have staked out spots for hours as there was really no where to stand to see the show and this was 45mins before show time. As there was going to be a later showing of Fantasmic at 10:30 and the fireworks were only going to be shown once, we decided we would get a good spot for the fireworks and come back later for Fantasmic after every other man, woman and child had seen it at the earlier session.
We used our fast passes that we got first thing this morning to ride Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear again. I racked up an impressive 196k points compared to the girls measly 50k each. You would think that with the amount of times we have been on this ride that they would be getting better but they seem to get around the same score each time they ride.
By this time it was almost 9 so we moved to the central hub and found a spot where we could see the castle to watch the show. I'm not a big fan of fireworks generally but this show was amazing. It was set to a story about the history of Disneyland and many of the fireworks effects I had certainly not seen before. They were able to shoot fireworks that looked like shooting starts, with trailing fire behind them, and fireworks that exploded to look like hearts and other fireworks that would explode and then the bits from the explosion would zig-zag around randomly. There was also an effect where they let off giant fireballs. We were at least 150m away from them and we could feel the heat from where we were. Tinkerbell also flew around the castle which made the girls giddy with joy. The whole performance was so good I would watch it again.
We then made our way back to the Rivers of America for the second showing of Fantasmic. We took the long way around so we wouldn't run into the thriving masses hopefully exiting the area and heading for the gate to go home. We arrived back at the Rivers of America to find the same scene as from a couple of hours earlier, it looked like not a person had moved from the first performance! D'oh.
We were determined to see the show as during the off season they only show it Friday-Sunday nights and we didn't want to have to be in the park as late again tomorrow night. We finally found a spot where we could see everything and waited 30 mins for the show to start.
We certainly weren't disapointed. Its a really hard show to try and explain but it is basically a big special effects show loosely based around Mickey's Fantasia cartoon where Sorcerer Mickey's imagination goes nuts and his minions that he creates to clean for him almost kill him. In this version, all of the disney witches have a hand in casting a spell to take control of Mickey's imagination to destroy him. This plays out both through live action scences on an island in the middle of the 'lake' and also through cartoons that are projected onto a mist of water. There is lots of sound, music and special effects and in the finale Mickey battles a massive dragon. During the show there is a battle scence on a massive sailing ship between Captain hook and his pirates and Peter Pan, and another time a riverboat goes past carrying all the Disney Princesses and their partners. At the very end of the show riverboat floats past full of disney characters.
Even with so many people it was a wonderful show. By the time we escaped the thongs of people and made it back to our hotel it was almost midnight and we had spent over 12 hours today in the parks and there is still so much we haven't seen, let alone the stuff we want to see and do again.
At a pinch and if it wasn't overly busy and you weren't interested in getting pictures with characters you could deffinatly do DCA in a day, as long as you were smart with your Fastpasses. You would be absoultly dreaming if you thought you could do Disneyland itself though in under 3 days, even with the same conditions as above.
DCA is a good park and there are plenty of great things to do over there, but its just not the same as Disneyland (though certainly better the San Diego Seaworld). It is missing a lot of the subtlity of Disneyland, which even after being in for at least 4 days now, we still find little things hidden away or even right in front of us that we hadn't noticed before. Maybe its not fair to compare this 5 year old park with its 50 year old neighbour, but when its the same price to get into either (though you are better off with a park-hopper ticket like ours where you can go to both parks during the day) the comparisson has to be made and unless you had been to Disneyland plenty of time before (or for the previous few days), you would take disneyland everytime. Also comparing the sizes of the parks, DCA has only 3 'lands' compared to Disneyland's 7. If you are coming to Disneyland certainly factor in a day, preferably 2 for DCA but whatever time you budget for DCA you need to double to see Disneyland itself

Day 6 - Saturday 7th October 2006 - Part 1

Up at 7am this morning as we have reservations at the Minnie and Friends Plaza for a 'Character Breakfast' at 8:20am. This is going to be a massive day for us. Disneyland is open from 8am until midnight and not only do we want to be there for the park opening so we can make our breakfast reservations, tonight we also plan on seeing the fireworks display and the big production in the park, Fantasmic! On top of this we plan on spending the bulk of the day in the other Disneyland park, Disney's California Adventure (DCA). Our plan is stying out until about 5ish and then heading back to the hotel for a couple of hours and then coming back down after that.
We arrived at the park at 7:55am 5 mins before opening and by about 8:03 we were in the park. I quickly ran up to Space Mountain to get a fast pass to use later tonight. We were quickly seated for our breakfast and were delighted to find that we were being joined for breakfast by Minnie, The Mad Hatter, Alice, Eyeore, Tigger, Captain Hook and Chip & Dale. While we had helped ourselves to a great selection of hot and cold breakfast, drinks and pastries, the characters moved from table to table, interacting with guests and each other and posing for autographs and photos.



After we left breakfast I quickly grabbed a fast pass for Buzz and then we went across the plaza for our first experience of the other Disneyland park, DCA. We got there right on opening at 10am (this park runs shorter hours then Disneyland) and headed straight to Soarin' Over California. This is a simulator ride but so exceptionally well done. You are strapped into a 'hang-glider' and you take a gentle ride over various highlights of California. Doesn't sound very interesting but the way you soar with up-draughts and feel the wind and the smells of the areas you are flying over is truly breathtaking.
We then rode the Monsters Inc ride and then it was over to Tower of Terror. The old girl sooked out of this one but with some trepidation Toni joined me. The ride is set in a 1930's era Hollywood Hotel that has fallen into the Twilight Zone. The theming is amazing and the rides attendants look fantastic in their 30's era Bellhop uniforms.
Unlike the Giant Drop at dreamworld where you go up slowly, stay at the top for a bit and then drop, this ride is set up to make you believe you are in a Service Elevator. And its not a gentle ride up, you fly up a series of floors and the door opens and you see a scene. Then you drop a couple of floors and see another scene. Then you fly all the way to the top where the door opens and you see out over the park. Then its madness as you go up and down randomly until you finally end up back on the ground. It drops faster then gravity so you are off the seat and only held in by the harness. We both loved it.
Toni was then able to get some more character autographs and I was able to meet my favourite Disney Character.... Sourcer Mickey. I was like a kid let loose in a candy store, I was so excited.

We then went to a class where we were taught how to grow Goofey. Needless to say none of us suddenly discovered any hidden artistic skills, though our efforts were good enough that you could recognise that we had drawn something that at least had a passing likeness to the Disney Character.
We then explored the younger kids section of the park where Toni got to experience Dodgem Cars for the first time. Unfortunatly these were the tamest dodgem cars in the history of the universe. Seriously even Hugo would have struggled to get a decent bump out of them. Toni loved them though but we all know how suspect her taste is.
We eventually found our way down to Paridise Peer. This area is themed around a manmade bay in the style of a bayside fair from the 50s or 60s. It is very well done but other then having a pretty good rollercoaster and a giant ferris wheel, there isn't a lot to do there. There are a heap of sideshow games you can play but you have to pay for them, and after paying so much to get into the place to start with, it is a bit rich to ask people to pay more to be entertained, especially as the prizes that you win are non-disney basic stuffed toys.
The Rollercoaster California Screamin' is pretty cool though. You leave the station and go around a bend to a straight piece of track where you come to a complete stop. At this point you are just above the water level of the bay and there is a lookout above you for people to watch. A 5 sec countdown is initiated and you are launched from 0-100km/hr in 2 secs and hurled up the major hill. From this point it is a pretty standard rollercoaster with one full loop but its pretty fun non the less. Toni loved it but mum wimped on it again.
Toni and I then went and rode the Grizly Rapid Ride. This is a similiar concept to the Rapids rides both at Dreamworld and San Diego Seaworld. After the diabcle at Sea World the other day I wore board shorts so if I did get wet I would dry quickly. This ride was very well themed and longer and with bigger drops then its counterparts at other parks. I absorbed most of the water on this ride protecting Toni but by the time I had exited the ride I was mostly dry.
We went for one last ride of Soarin' and then with a big night ahead of us, it was time to go back to the hotel for a couple of hours rest

Day 5 - Friday October 6th 2006

After a quick breakfast in the hotel, we set off on our great voyage into the greater LA area.
After looking at some of the tours being offered by the bus companies, we got talking to the reception staff here and they suggested hiring a town car and driver/guide for the day. At $45 an hour and split between the 3 of us, we thought this was a great deal and meant we could see what we wanted to see and go when we wanted to go.
At 9am on the dot a black shiny Lincoln Town Car arrived with our driver Hugo and off we went. We first drove into the centre of LA past the Staples centre where the LA Lakers basketball team play and then up through the court district. Even though we had only been going for 50mins and she went seconds before we left, my mother declared she was desperate for a bathroom stop. Hugo stopped at little mexico, where after the facilities were located and used, we had a look around. Kaylee bought a little guitar which was customised with her name (the guy wrote it on there with a pen) and I brought a mini accordion.
We left little mexico and then drove through china town which looked basically like every other china town I have ever seen. The plan was to drive up into the Hollywood Hills to see the sign when we sort of hit another car. We were at a stop sign and hugo obviously didn't see this last car and went to enter the intersection and we T Boned it. We weren't going fast (having been at a complete stop) but the other car must have been doing at least 60km/hr. Well Hugo basically took off (with us still in the car) and went and hid in the hills for a bit and to check out the damage. Considering how hard we hit, there was basically no damage (yet). Just a bit of a scratch and his front number plate had fallen off. We went back to the scene to try and find the number plate, which we found sitting on the side walk next to the car that he hit. He hi-tailed it out of there and took us down to the Chinese Theatre and the Celebrity Walk of fame.
WHAT-A-DIVE. 2 doors down from the chinese theatre (Which is where they have a lot of the big movie premiers at) is the Kodak Theatre where they have the oscars. It looks nothing like on TV. We wandered around there for about an hour, taking some photos of the 'stars' squares and the old girl went nuts on tacky merchandise. The only highlight of this part of the trip was we did go into a hooters store. Toni was happy as none of the girls in there had much bigger 'hooters' then her and she reckons she could get a gig there. We picked up some stuff for people at home and then we met Hugo to have another go at seeing the Hollywood sign.
This time we didn't run into anything and got some nice shots of the sign from a lookout. We then headed into Beverely Hills where the houses were far too big but at least we felt sort of in place in our big black shiny towncar unlike the transit buses zooming around. We did see Danny Devito's house, sadly he wasn't out the front to greet us with milk and cookies and also some other mansion where the person had 5 ferrari's and 4 porches, alternating red and yellow sitting in his driveway. Its not fair.
We then went down to Rodeo Drive. The girls had a look through the Luis Vuitton store but weren't game enough to ask the prices. The area is very nice and Toni did plenty of window shopping at jewelery stores but really there is nothing there for tourists to do. We did eat at a place called the Cheesecake Factory. This place was magic. I ordered a 'Double the Fun' burger, which is basically a massive double cheeseburger. You know you have come to a happy place when they ask you how you would like the meat on your burger cooked. Toni had a chicken burger and mum had a chicken pizza. The menu at this place was extensive so don't think its just a burger and pizza joint. I also ordered a 'Flat Tire' beer. The waiter warned me that this beer was 20oz (about the size of a tallie) which was just fine by me. It was nice and had a great bottle that I am bringing home with me.
Anyway, the food came out and it was one of those rare occasions where everyone at the table wanted what everyone else had ordered. It was all sooooo good. I was determined to get my burger down and it was hard work but I did it. I didn't eat again all day.
We left there for Venice Beach. If we knew it was going to take over 90mins we wouldnt have bothered. Even though LA has this great free way system, it almost always seems to be either in grid lock or very close to it. Its amazing seeing 14 lane freeways bareley moving.
We finally arrived at Venice Beach. The beach itself looks nice but again its too cold to go anywhere near it today. We watched a couple of guys play basketball so badly I could have gone out there and sucked just as much. Only one guy was using the gym, but this guy was big, black and wearing barely more then a G-String so it certainly was an experience. The rest of the beach area is basically one big wacky market, filled with a mix of very odd people. Even sore one lady who was covered in Tats, changing the nappy of her child who had a big tatto on its back. Sad.
By this stage it was 5pm and time to head back to the hotel. We got about half way there when one of the tyres started making a noise tyres shouldn't make. Hugo pulled over and had a look and said they weren't flat. Anyway about 15miles down the road the tyre let go on the middle of the Interstate 5 freeway. So here we are, on the shouldar of one of the busiest roads in the world, helping Hugo change a tyre. Im note sure if this is related to the earlier accident, its on the opposite side of the car to which was hit. There is also a lot of debry on the shouldars of the freeways here so we could have certainly collected something that had been kicked onto the road.
After this drama we were back at our hotel about 15 mins later. I had a shower and then Toni and I decided to catch another town car to the closest mall while Mum stayed here and did some washing and chat to her husband online. It cost us $12 in the towncar to get to the mall. It wasn't particulary big but we did find a store that had everything in there for $6.98. I bought a pair of chino pants, a pair of denim shorts and a football jersey. Toni got a new top and denim shorts. At another store we got Amy and Zoey each new doogy jackets that were very cute.
It took us 1/2 hour to catch a taxi home and sitting in the back of an old dodgy cab with 2 big african americans in the front with hip-hop blarring was an experience. And it was $3 more expensive then the town car was!!!!!! I think I know how we will be getting around in the future. A man could get use to this type of decadance...
LA is a funny sort of place. The smog is everywhere. Not thick enough that you notice it when you breathe but if you look anywhere in the distance it is always hazy. Everything is made of concrete but with a real spanish inspired archeciture which is really cool. The freeways look awesome but the city is so spread out (but built out as well, there are no open spaces) that it takes forever to get anywhere. I certainly wouldn't want to live here and even though I enjoyed the experience, I would be in no rush to go and see the sights of LA or Hollywood anytime soon. Even though it was an eventful day with the accident and flat tire, I highly recommend getting a town car and driver. We were able to see heaps more then we would have seen on a bus, able to come and go as we please and not have to wait for other people to meander back. Hugo was excellent and its something we will look back on favourably in the future.... as soon as my neck stops hurting

Day 4 - Thursday 5th October 2006

Up early today for our trip to Sea World. Tried the hotel cafe for breakfast and it was impressive and then onto a bus for the 1hr45min trip to San Diego. As usual it was a short trip for Toni as she fell asleep almost imediatly and the old girl wasn't far behind her. I stayed up to look at the sights as they drove past, like the golf course Ronald Ragan was a member of while he was president and past a nuclear power plant that didn't look anything like the one in the simpsons.
Finally made to Sea World and without too much fuss made it inside. We started walking around the park and it was basically deserted, not a soul to be seen. Then the shows finished and there were people everywhere. We learned very quickly that other then the shows (2 of which weren't on today) there isn't much else there. We went and watched the Sea Lions show which was ok, but to go and watch a show, seen as everyone else wanted to do the same thing, you had to be there at least 25mins early else you were in the bleaches.
We were more then a little disponded when we lined up for the Shamu (the killer whale) show 30 mins before it was to start. By the time the show started at 1, we had been in the park for 2.5 hours and seen about 30 mins of entertainment. We decided to sit in the 'Splash' zone, where the whales are directed to hurl massive amounts of water with great force at the patrons. I was more then a little sceptical about this seen as it wasn't a particularly warm day but went onlong with it.
The Shamu show was AWESOME!! Makes those pansy dolphin shows you see at SeaWorld on the gold coast look tame. They had 3 whales in the show and seeing them do flips and deliberatly throw as much water as they can into the crowd is a sight to behold. The show goes for about 30 mins and is very very well done.
We then went to the main reason we came down to Sea World for the day, the Dine with Shamu Experience. We were ushed to our table, which was table number 1 (in the absoulte prime position) and then got to eat from the most amazing buffet while watching the trainers conduct a training session with the whales no more then about 6 feet away from us. We got to ask plenty of questions and we took heaps of photos. And the food was so yummy, fresh and plentiful. Toni even had some of it before she hit the extensive desert buffet. I think we have all been feeling like Jabba the Hutt now for a few days with the enormous quanities of food you get over here. Thankfully we have been doing plenty of walking to try and work off at least a part of it.
Sadly the dining experience had to end and we were effectivly trapped in the park for another 3 hours without much to do. Exculding Shamu, Seaworld San Diego is a pale imitation of the one on the Gold Coast. They only have 2 rides, one is a rapids type ride that is pretty much the same as the one at Dreamworld (Except we got completly soaked, denim + coldish day + soaked is not fun) and a rollercoaster type ride that splashes into water which was ok but farrrrr too short. The only other interesting things they had were a set of Beluga Whales, which are completly white and very cute and some black and white dolphins that sort of looked like mini killer whales.
Finally 6pm arrived and we boarded the bus and took the 2 hour ride back to the hotel. We stepped next door and got served by the rudest people we have met so far in America at Subway, grabbed some beers and went back. I tried a Red Steel beer which was 8.1% and it was crap.
Anyway tomorrow is our big LA/Hollywood trip so stay tuned......