California

Spring Break on the West Coast

/ Amber Benson / Leave a comment

Spring is such a lovely time! When we get to spring break week, that means summer is right around the corner, but the fun is already starting! For our spring break this year, the fam and I went to California to visit Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood, and take in the touristy sites of the greater Los Angeles area. While we’ve been to Disneyland several times before, this was our first visit to Universal Studios Hollywood, and we were very excited to see Super Nintendo World in person. It didn’t disappoint! Let’s dig in to the deets…

I tell you, as I get older, flying through multiple time zones really kicks my butt! California’s not even that far behind Virginia and I just felt wiped out when we got to Anaheim. I don’t think I ever really adjusted to the time difference on this trip and coming home to the actual time change (spring forward!) surely didn’t help anything. Anyway, we flew into Santa Ana/Orange County airport, so we were very close to Disneyland. After a quick Lyft over to the Disneyland hotel, we got checked in and saw our ah-mazing room for the first time. Two-bedroom family suite in the Frontier tower and I upgraded to add access to the E-Ticket Club upon arrival. This room was killer. You walked in through the double doors, down a hallway into the room’s living room area (convertible sofa and two chairs). Behind the sofa area was a gigantic dining room with a huge table plus a wet bar with a large counter and cabinets. Down another hallway past the wet bar was bedroom number one with a king bed and its own full bathroom then a second bedroom with a king bed and its own full bathroom. There was also a half bath in the hallway between the two bedrooms. This room was quite possibly bigger than my house! We loved every minute of the stay there and did not want to leave! It even had its own doorbell… couldn’t figure out quite why until one evening the doorbell rang (housekeeping) and I realized I never would have heard them knocking from back in the second bedroom otherwise. Livin’ the life!

 

Adding access to the E-Ticket Club lounge was the best. We’ve enjoyed the lounge on prior trips and knew that the offerings there (breakfast, snacks and drinks during the day, appetizers and drinks in the evening, and the desserts late) plus the ability to see Disneyland fireworks from the lounge and the INCREDIBLE staff (thank you ROBERT!!!) make adding the access on a no-brainer for us. While the add-on isn’t always available if you didn’t book a club level room initially, the cost of $250/night plus tax can be a super deal, especially if you have a bigger family. We were just a party of four with the fam, me, and the daughter’s BF, but we definitely got our money’s worth.

The two parks, Disneyland and California Adventure, were perfect as usual. Our lines were decent, Genie+ worked well, and the weather was fine (albeit a bit chillier than I prefer). The food is always hit or miss for me and the daughter since we’re vegetarians and, for whatever reason, I feel like the food there just isn’t made to suit us. There’s not even a ton of the ‘fake meat’ products out there, which we don’t like anyway, but just so meat heavy overall. It’s a bummer for us, because we definitely like to eat! We did have quite a few rides going down during our stay and that was also a bummer, but we dealt with it and rode what we could. We were also able to go to the first Disneyland After Dark: Disney Channel nite event after hours at the Disneyland park one evening. The After Dark events aren’t new but this was the first time there was a Disney Channel themed one. We had a good time there during the event but didn’t stay super long as all of us were wiped out and I was having issues with one of my feet. I tell you though, Disneyland guests get way more into these after-hours events than the guests at Disney World do. It’s always like night and day between the two coasts and how much the guests really ‘do Disney’. I think it is the difference between the California parks being visited by more locals and the Florida parks being visited by more out-of-towners. You can tell that the CA folks are frequent visitors and really get into the spirit of the parks. Totally different vibe (and I like it!)

Before we left Anaheim to head to North Hollywood, we took a day to do a Los Angeles City Tour. We’ve done these in the past but chose to go with a different company for this tour. The group was small with the four of us and only six others. It lasted a good while, taking up the bulk of a day, but we got a lot in and had a great time. We stopped by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum which held the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics, the Staples Center (now called the Crypto.com arena) where a variety of teams including the LA Lakers play, Griffith Park and the Griffith Observatory where you can see the Hollywood sign from afar, the Beverly Hills sign, the Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, the Walk of Fame and Dolby Theater area (the Oscars were being set up to be held that weekend), the Original Farmer’s Market and The Grove, and then drove past various landmarks in LA and the surrounding area. We had lunch at the Farmer’s Market, which is always fun and offers a variety of choices to enjoy. It was handy to refresh ourselves with that area since we were coming back there the following day for another activity.

After leaving the Disneyland hotel, we took a Lyft over to North Hollywood for our next hotel, The Garland. We’ve stayed there in the past and it is a boutique-style older hotel, just over 50 years old now. It’s a cute place, funky retro, but we had some overall unpleasant staff interactions there this time, so we likely won’t return. I am not sure that we would have anyway, since we don’t normally have a need to stay in that area, but I will try another option if we do.

The reason for being over in North Hollywood was so we would be closer to Universal Studios Hollywood for our day there. We also had reservations to play the Squid Game The Trials Experience over near the Farmer’s Market at CBS Television Studios, so being in North Hollywood was closer than coming to that area from Anaheim. This experience is now closed, it ended its run a couple of days after we left, but it was incredible. Definitely a highlight of our trip overall. If you’ve ever watched the Squid Game show on Netflix, it was very much like that, without dying of course. No big piggy bank of money for the winner at the end either. We went in with a group of probably 30ish people and played a variety of games themed like the ones on the show. It was intense at times, and we all had so much fun. I came in third somehow miraculously and the daughter was the overall winner! She kicked everyone’s butt, including mine, who she trounced in the final game by knocking the egg I was holding off of my spoon. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but I have seen some pics and videos circulating online that capture some of the games. And yes, Red Light, Green Light was one of them! As the winner, she got to go into the VIP lounge at the end of the experience (normally a paid add-on) where you can watch the other players go through their games in real-time while on comfy sofas and with snacks/drinks for purchase. They also had a photo booth there for those fun strip photos you can take a touristy spots at no cost, which was great since the ones out in the main experience were $6/each. You were able to shop in a market for souvenirs from the game and also purchase Korean foods and snacks before/after you played. It was a lot of fun and I would definitely do it again should it show up somewhere else I’m visiting.

On our day at Universal Studios Hollywood, we had to get up early and Lyft over to the park for Early Entry at Super Nintendo World. This is an add-on for about $20/person and well worth it. You are given an hour in that land before it opens to everyone else. As small as SNW is and as many people as want into it, that hour really comes in handy. We were able to get in, look around and take some pictures, and ride Bowser’s Challenge with a 30-minute wait (which I think was actually probably shorter than that). I’ve been on a lot of rides in a lot of places and this one definitely ranks up at the very top. It is interactive and whimsical and, despite all the motion, none of us felt sick, which was very surprising. I could have gone on it over and over just to watch more of the ride itself since I focused so much on playing the game the first time. Ten out of ten, highly recommend. The theme overall in this land was incredible, definitely brought back so many childhood memories of hours playing Super Mario Brothers. We ate at Toadstool Cafe which was good, but had a very long wait for ordering and getting your food. This restaurant requires a reservation that can only be made the morning of the visit, but it was definitely worth trying out and seeing inside of. We also had some fun Mario themed drinks back in the regular part of the park at the Power-Up Cafe that were quite delish, and I would buy them again. Overall, I wish the land was bigger (shoot, it could be a whole park!) and had more rides but I think that’s generally how it goes when there’s something you like. You just want more, more, more!

 

The rest of the park for me was just ok. We did get a complimentary Express Pass to use for the Studio Tour included with the SNW Early Entry, so we used that before it expired at 11am. The Tour was fun, and I enjoyed the King Kong, Jaws, and Nope sections the most. It ran for about an hour and kept my interest up. Afterward, we went to the Harry Potter section of the park and walked around with a Frozen Butterbeer. I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan but it was well-done like the sections of Universal Orlando and more compact since they only have one HP section versus the two in Orlando. The Simpsons area was fun, and I wish we could have tried the ride there, but the line was pretty long and we were about out of stamina since we were at the end of our trip. I’d say the other highlight besides SNW and the tour was the Waterworld show. That one was unexpectedly very good and well worth the time spent. Stay out of those splash zones though! We skipped CityWalk this time and decided just to go back to The Garland and get in the hot tub for a bit (great choice, in fact).

After all of the fun, it was time to hop on a plane and fly back to reality. Darn reality! Now I am anxiously awaiting our next adventure, but I have about a month to go! Stay tuned!

xoxo,

Amber

SoCal and Oahu, here we come!

/ Amber Benson / Leave a comment

Hello there! Hailey here, and I’m back to write again about our most recent trip to the Happiest Place on Earth and the Aloha State. All ready for some fun in the sun, my parents and I hopped on a plane headed to California with my aunt and two cousins. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, my grandparents who were also supposed to travel with us unfortunately had to stay home, which was a huge bummer. After a quick layover in Dallas, we boarded on another plane and soon landed in Santa Ana. We then took a short ride over to the Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel, our home base for the next couple of days. After checking in and making a quick stop at our rooms, we headed out to visit Disneyland, a first time visit for both of my cousins, and first time in years for my aunt. We were all very famished from our early flight and many hours spent on the plane, but not to worry, corn dogs, grilled cheese, and tomato soup to the rescue! My dad always talks about how the Little Red Wagon in Disneyland has the best corn dogs, but since I’m vegetarian I can’t speak to this, so you will just have to take his word for it.

We then used the Genie+ service to ride all sorts of rides throughout the park, including Star Tours, Matterhorn, it’s a small world, Haunted Mansion, and Smuggler’s Run. On Smuggler’s Run we ended the mission with Hondo taking a large sum of our credits for “damages.” It turns out that the flight controls of the Millennium Falcon are quite sensitive, who knew! Shoutout to our gunners and engineers for capturing and securing the cargo, the Resistance is grateful for your efforts! My parents and I are huge Star Wars fans, and we ended up being at Disneyland while Star Wars Celebration was happening right down the road at a convention center in Anaheim. We were sadly not able to attend the event, which we were all a bit sad about, knowing that people like Ewan McGregor, Temuera Morrison, Dee Bradley Baker, Dave Filoni, and Hayden Christensen were all right there and we couldn’t meet them. We still hoped to run across some of the personalities from Celebration in the parks after the events for the day had finished but didn’t end up seeing any. If we had, I have to say I would’ve been fangirling very hard, and my parents would have been really excited too. After spending the first day in Disneyland, the next day was spent mostly in California Adventure. We had a great time riding rides like Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!, Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, The Incredicoaster, and Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. After riding Web Slingers, we all had sore arms due to very enthusiastically slinging webs at the Spider-Bots. While in Avengers Campus, we saw Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch, and we had lunch at the Pym Test Kitchen. My cousin and I are both huge Cars fans, so we also spent a good amount of time in Cars Land. Sadly, Radiator Springs Racers was closed, so we didn’t get the chance to ride it. She loved seeing Radiator Springs in real life for the first time, and we all had a great time there!

We had a great time visiting the parks on the west coast, but even though we didn’t get a chance to see and do everything, it was time to hop on the plane again. We soon landed in Honolulu, grabbed our luggage, picked up our rental car, and drove out to Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we went over to a little shopping center just across the road from the resort. We had lunch and visited several shops located there, but then went back to the resort and room was ready. Our room was a two-bedroom villa located on the fourth floor, and we had a great view of the resort and the lazy river. We decided to get some groceries for our stay, so we drove out to a store to pick up some essentials, and it ended up working out great having breakfast, snacks, and drinks in the room. We spent the next day rotating through the lazy river, the ocean, the infinity pool, and the waterslides. We all enjoyed having some relaxing pool time, especially after the past few days had been so busy. We all tried shaved ice, a popular Hawaiian treat, and we were able to choose three flavors, mine were green tea, haupia (coconut), and li hing mui, which I really enjoyed. I personally do not recommend the lychee flavor, unless you happen to really like the flavor of rose, which was very unexpected and not very pleasing.  

On the next day we went out to visit Pearl Harbor National Memorial and Waikiki. My parents and I traveled to Hawaii nearly 8 years ago, and we also visited Pearl Harbor on that trip. I enjoyed being able to see the memorial again, since I am older now and was able to understand and appreciate it more. While we were in Waikiki, we went to one of the Honolulu Cookie Company’s stores, which has excellent macadamia nut shortbread cookies in a variety of flavors. We also went to the Paradise Cove Luau, located right down the road from Aulani, which was a lot of fun! There was a wonderful show with hula dancers, fire dancers, and live vocalists. You could also make your own flower bracelet and compete in several games with other guests. The Paradise Cove Luau is also known for having a great view of the Hawaiian sunset, with both ocean waves and beautiful mountains in view. Dinner was served buffet style with several types of meat, as well as rice, vegetables, salad, and bread. For dessert, one of the choices was haupia, a traditional Hawaiian coconut pudding, which we enjoyed!

We also rented a cabana at Aulani to use during one of the days that we spent a lot of time in the pool. This was very helpful because it can sometimes be difficult to find even a single chair to leave your belongings in while you are in the pool. It had a safe, a mini fridge, a fan, two sun lounge chairs, a huge sofa, a fruit tray, a dessert tray, and a snack bowl. There were several attendants who we could contact if we wanted to have more towels or to order food and beverages. We also spent a lot of time in the pool and ocean on this day, and one of my cousins and my aunt both snorkeled, which they had a lot of fun doing. Aulani has both snorkeling and stand-up paddleboarding, which you can participate in for a fee, but they also have boogie boards which do not have a fee. You just have to sign up to take them, so they can keep track of who has taken the boards out for the day. We used the boogie boards in the ocean, and all had a great time with them. We all were really interested in trying out the acai bowls from the Ulu Café at Aulani, and they were so good! My mom and I tried the tropical one, which had mango, pineapple, papaya, and banana on it as well as granola and honey. We both really liked it, but the portion size was huge, so I think next time we would end up sharing. We had a wonderful time at Aulani, but it was soon time to head back to the mainland.

We flew on Hawaiian Airlines both to and from Hawaii, which was a nice experience. The plane was very large compared to the others we flew on with a row of four seats down the middle of the plane as well as two rows of two down either side. Before we landed they gave us little treats, such as a pineapple flavored Honolulu Cookie Company cookie, or a small pack of chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Once we landed at LAX, we took a transfer to get to our hotel for the next few nights, The Garland, which is located in North Hollywood. The hotel was a very retro and boutique property. The hotel includes a shuttle service to Universal CityWalk Hollywood, which is just a short ride down the road. During this last part of our trip, we went on the A Day in LA City Tour and saw many different sights and scenes all across the city. Once we were picked up by the bus, we had to stop at a few more hotels to pick up other guests, but the last stop was on Hollywood Boulevard, and it was very interesting to see it early in the morning with basically no one there. We came back later in the day, but it was not anywhere near as peaceful. While on the tour we saw the Beverly Hills sign, Rodeo Drive, Venice Beach, the Santa Monica Pier, The Grove, The Original Farmers Market, Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign, and Hollywood Boulevard. My parents and I have been on one of these tours before, and we did not stop at Venice Beach or Rodeo Drive, and I have to say that we preferred that experience. No one on the tour was going to be buying things on Rodeo Drive, otherwise they wouldn’t be on this tour, would they! And Venice Beach just didn’t have the greatest environment, in our opinion, but it was cool to watch all of the skateboarders there. Other than that, we all had a great time seeing all that the city had to offer.

And so, our trip came to an end. We were all ready to head back home after being out of town for so long and were looking forward to sleeping on the plane rides home. We were all very confused about what time and day it was due to going from the three hour time difference in California, then the six hour difference in Hawaii, and then back to the three hour difference in California. And then the one-hour difference in Texas for our connections each way. So yeah, we were a mess! By the time we got home, it was around 3am and we were still running on Hawaii time, but we were all glad to run inside and see the cats, who had a lot to say about us being gone for so long. They will be stuck with us at home for a while now, because our next trip planned at the moment isn’t until September for my 18th birthday! Super excited for that, but for now I think I will stick to some much needed pool time. Until next time!

Hailey