Well, hello there… and welcome to the travel day of mine and Jo’s Californian Adventure Trip Report!

Before I just go straight into the usual “here’s what we ate on the plane, here’s what we watched” Travel Day report, how about I get you up to speed on what’s gone on during the past 3 months since I posted the PTR? (If you’ve stumbled across this report and would like a little background info on me and Jo… here’s the PTR.)

As with any trip you have booked, the time seems to drag… work days seem to double in length and your weekends fly by in a blur. This was no different for me and Jo, but thankfully we’ve had many distractions in the way of birthday parties, hen weekends, stag weekends, weddings and social gatherings… including a meet up with fellow #dibbafterdarkcrew members for beers, cocktails and shots!











That was an especially good night where one of us (who, for the sake of their integrity and good reputation, shall remain nameless) chucked their guts up in the toilet at the bar! This thankfully did not deter us from meeting up again for Round 2 last weekend… with a special guest appearance from the Wizzo family! It was yet another great night, with copious amounts of cocktails, and fantastic barbecue from Bodeans.















Then of course there’s the Pre Trip Report I wrote for the upcoming September trip to Orlando! I actually found it really difficult to write that one because my mind was fully focused on this adventure. That being said, I still managed to drag it out for 4 pages, and although there was a severe lack of photos it was still well received! (Thanks, by the way… so nice to read all the lovely comments that were left )

So, back to this trip… and as I mentioned in the PTR, we had a rough idea of what it was we wanted to do whilst we were in California… those early ideas we had have pretty much stayed in place… with one minor (ok, major) change! The wonderful couple who helped Jo book the surprise 3 day stay at the Disneyland Hotel will also be out there in Anaheim at the same time as us!

Originally, Jon and Lisa were going out there for a few days, that then that morphed into a few more… and then eventually they decided to arrive on the Sunday and stay till the Saturday (so they’d be there just a day less than us.) We didn’t spend every day with them… but as I post up each day’s report, you’ll obviously get to read about all the things we did do together.

Anyway… we also did all the other boring stuff you have to do, like getting your ESTA, purchasing some dollars at a terrible exchange rate (what ever happened to the days of getting a whopping £1.88 for $1? ) and making sure you’ve got an empty credit card that you can take away and absolutely cane, and that kinda fills in the gap from when we posted the PTR until now… the travel day…

I’d managed to get out of work a little early on the Friday and by the time I got home, Jo was already there. We then started tidying the house so that when we returned in a little over a week’s time, it wouldn’t be to a pigs sty! Although we weren’t yet packed, we had sorted out the clothes we wanted to take, and they had been dumped in one of the cases upstairs. When it did come time to properly pack it was done and dusted in a little under an hour. By 8:30pm we had two packed suitcases waiting next to the front door.

So at 9pm when I had my carry-on bag packed, all my cameras and gadgets fully charged and my travelling clothes hanging in the spare room, I thought I was ready for an early night. Wrong! Jo was still dickin’ about till gone midnight! I’ve asked her exactly what she was doing… but she can’t remember(!) so obviously it was important.

Then, at about 12:15am that she remembered that she needed paint her nails! She told me to go to bed but I knew if I did and managed to fall asleep, her getting into bed would wake me and I’d never get back to sleep… so I stayed up while she painted her nails (several times) and the damn UV Lamp beeped every bloody 30 seconds! By 1:00am she was done and it was time to turn in for what turned out to be a restless few hours’ sleep until our alarms went off at 6:15am.

It never seems to matter how terrible your pre-flight sleeps are though because when you wake up, you know you’re just hours away from being at your holiday destination. For some reason, I’d woken up with Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’ in my head, so I quickly went to Spotify on my phone and started playing it nice and loud.



Jo was still in bed so I got up and let Tarn into the garden... and it’s then that I was faced with the sight of a ripped up bin bag and rubbish spread all over the garden! Foxes are quite prevalent in our area and one had obviously decided it fancied having a nose about in the bag I’d put out the previous night. Not content with spreading the bag’s contents everywhere outside our backdoor, the fox(es) had taken it upon themselves to do a giant sloppy poop on the bin bag itself!



So for the next 5 minutes, there I was… in nothing but a pair of shorts, slippers and blue latex gloves picking up last week’s rubbish, and trying to manoeuvre a fox poop covered bin bag into a new bin bag, all the while singing along to Baker Street in my head! What a way to start your holiday!

This aside, I was still in a good mood, and when Jo’s mum and dad turned up 30minutes later I was sitting on the sofa ready to go. Jo, however, (much like last night) was dickin’ about again. Now she claims she was doing all the sensible things like turning off the boiler and the water, and unplugging things… but I'm not sure I believe that!

In the meantime, the suitcases had been loaded up, Tarn had had several goodbye head-kisses, and we’d learnt our flight was already delayed by 15minutes… but I was still in a good mood and still replaying the saxophone solo to Baker Street in my head.

By 7:15 we were on the road and heading to the airport. The car journey itself was straight forward and without a hitch. I kept myself entertained by chatting with the DADC and posting ridiculous selfies… which some members joined in with.













We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare… I had wanted to do online check in so I could add the boarding pass to my phone, but Jo said maybe we should check in at the airport because there’s always the slim possibility that you may land yourself an upgraded seat!



Check in was easy enough, although we did get stuck behind a couple who seemed to be asking an extraordinary amount of questions to the women at the check in desk! There were three lines, and clearly we’d chosen the wrong one yet again! After seeing the two lines of people clear to our right, and people behind us dive over and get to the now queueless desks, we shuffled over and was dealt with within a minute or two.



After a quick wee break for the pair of us we headed upstairs and through security.



We stuck our stuff in trays, and headed through the metal detector. Jo went first and was pulled aside by one of the security staff, where she was given a proper going over! A full pat down including a couple of fingers down the waistband (not a euphemism!) and then some sort of swabbing of her hands. I’d moved to the side and was expecting the same treatment from the guy standing there and he just turned round and said “nah, you’re all right mate... just go on.” At this point I look over at Jo and she’s now being asked to remove her sandals! How I chuckled! After being fully fingered, swabbed and touched all over, they decided she wasn’t a threat and let her go.

We had a ton of time to kill at this point, so decided to take a slow walk through the duty free shop… stopping to marvel at the cheap, cheap prices of all the booze! This lot particularly caught my eye…









But there’s only so much alcohol you can look at without actually buying or sampling, so we slowly mooch into the perfume and aftershave section… which seems to be the size of two football pitches!



After walking around for about 20minutes and testing anything that was being advertised by a famous person, we finally decide on two fragrances each and go to pay for them at the till. The woman serving us thought it was funny that I took a photo of the receipt which was displayed on a big digital screen next to the till. (She probably thought I was a proper bell… but little did she realise it was for a TR!)



Being £160 lighter before even making it into the main part of the terminal, we decide to go and spend more money on some breakfast. Having looked at the information board, we could tell it was slim pickings as to where we could eat. Of the few choices we had, we plump for a place called The Bridge Bar and Eating House.





The menu had a couple of items that caught mine and Jo’s eyes, but I eventually went with the Ham, Egg and Bubble ‘n’ Squeak Stack, and Jo chose the Scrambled Egg and Smoked Salmon. We also both got a Bridge House Punch juice, and an early morning cocktail each (a Bloody Mary for me, and Jo an English Garden… which surprised me considering it’s gin based she’s really not a fan of gin… the heathen!)



The drinks arrive, and while we’re waiting for the food I spot a woman come in and seat herself near a plug socket. I quickly snapped a pic as it reminded me of fellow DADC member Soph (Mousemess) as she loves stealing electricity when she’s on holiday!



Minutes after the drinks have arrived, so does our food. Both meals look really good. Unfortunately I’m still not fully in ‘Trip Report’ mode and somehow don’t take a picture of my food! You can just see a little bit of my egg in this photo…







… and as you can see from the picture I did remember to take, I cleared my plate. Jo’s food looks, smells and tastes lovely. Round 1 of food wars goes to her!

We have a bit of time to kill, so sit and people watch whilst we’re finishing our drinks… trying to figure out if the table of 4 adults and 8 kids are some kind of sporting group going away to complete. I felt really sorry for the two single diners who happened to be at a couple of tables near this big group, as the kids kept walking back and forth with their backpacks on and catching the chair (or table) each time they passed. I told Jo If I was either of those two people I’d have told them to politely ‘stop it and venture off somewhere else!’

Drinks finished and people watching over, we decide to do a lap around the shops in the airport to kill more time before boarding. The problem is though, Heathrow is very different from our usual Gatwick! Gatwick is an everyman kind of airport offering a variety of shops. Heathrow was clearly catering for people with a few bob in their pocket! I just don’t get why some of those shops are even in the airport… I ask you, who in their right mind is buying expensive handbags, designer clothes and diamond studded glass statues just before they’re boarding a flight?!?

The only shop that’s selling stuff in our price range is the electronic store, so we have a quick look in there for a few minutes. I get very tempted by a pair of Bose noise cancellation headphones but the £250 price tag scares me off a little bit. Don’t get me wrong… they were amazing, but the guy in the store was going for the hard sell, so I put them down and walked away.

*Side note: I haven’t stopped going on about those headphones and will no doubt own a pair before we head to Florida in September!*

Our final stop before heading to the departure gate is Pret a Manger. We both figured that seeing as we’d be on the plane for close to 11 hours, we should pick up a nice sandwich to have halfway through the flight… coz we all know those tiny little ‘two-bite’ things they give out on the plane are minging!

I was feeling adventurous and the Grilled Asparagus and Prosciutto really caught my eye! I threw caution to the wind, not caring what it would do to my guts, and decided that was the sandwich for me! And I figured if I was going freaky, I’d go full freaky and picked up a bottle of their Super Smoothie to wash it down!





God help whoever was going into the plane toilet after me… I thought there may need to be an announcement over the tannoy saying “ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to announce that Trap 1 on the left hand side of Premium Economy is now out of bounds, and the pilot recommends returning to your seat and fastening your seat belt until we land”.

Jo was a little bit more sensible and went with a ham salad roll, and a bottle of pomegranate and raspberry juice. When we got to the counter she asked if I wanted a cake or cookie. I didn’t… but said yes anyway and had the cranberry and orange chocolate chip cookie… and told her to throw in a poppy seed pretzel as well (ya know, as a late afternoon snack!) Food items purchased and squeezed into my bag, we head for the departure lounge.

Once there, it immediately becomes apparent that this isn’t a flight that’s filled with people off to enjoy a family holiday. I spot three (yes, just three) children in the whole lounge! What there does seem to be though is a lot of people in the twilight of their youth… some dressing like they’ve just finished a gap year in Goa, and some desperately trying to pass themselves off as ‘hip, trendy and down with the kids’!

We decide not to sit down as we’ve got at least 10 and a half hours of that ahead of us, and instead stand to the side, leaning against the wall people watching. I figure this is as good a time as any to get a voice memo done about what we’ve been up to so far this morning.

When I stop recording, Jo tells me about a young couple she’s been watching. The girl was on her phone chatting to someone and saying how they were flying to LA, and then onto Honolulu, and she was so excited, and couldn’t wait to get there. Her fella was sat next to her reading a paper and at one point during the phone conversation, the person on the other end must have asked if the guy was excited… because she then asked him. His response was ‘yeah, I guess’ and shrugged his shoulders! When the call was up she was snuggling up to the guy and gave him a little kiss on the back of his hand… so he just moved the paper to one side… looked at his hand, looked at the girl and then went back to reading! Ooooh, cold!

One moment had everyone in the departure lounge turning their heads and muttering to one another… and that was when a very loud, smartly dressed American guy in his early to mid-60’s walked through the lounge with a woman in tow who looked like she was no more than about 22, and was dressed as if she was going to a nightclub! I’m sure my conversation with Jo was the same as everyone else’s, and went along the lines of “Is that his bit on the side? His daughter? His granddaughter? Or could it even be his wife?” It’s funny when something happens in public and you look around and you just know that everyone else is thinking the same as you are!


As bloody usual, Jo has to get a photo of the plane!

Anyway, it was then time for boarding. As always, Upper Class, people requiring assistance and those with small children were called to board first. And it was at this point that I spotted two women and a young girl making their way to the gate so they could board. Now, I get parents with young children going up and getting seated before the stampede… but this girl was virtually a teenager! (Ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration… but she was at least 9 years old!) I know I might face some flack here because I don’t know the circumstances, and maybe I need to stop thinking that everyone is trying to ‘pull a fast one’… but it did strike me as odd. When I point out what’s going on to Jo, she shrugs and couldn’t care less.

A few minutes later and we’re called for boarding and make our way onto the plane. I’ve gotta say, our last few flights with Virgin have made me realise just how good the bubble is. I’m not a fan of the 2-3-2 seat layout, and I miss not having that giant locker next to the window. We grab our iPad, headphones and sweets from our bags, then stow them in the overhead lockers… quickly getting back in our seats and out of the aisle as those in Economy start to board and make their way past us to the back of the plane.









The journey itself wasn’t the greatest. The person in front of Jo reclined his seat the moment the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign went out, and continued to fidget and move around for most of the flight, only putting it upright when food was being brought round.



I used to stick up for plane food, always saying that it wasn’t as bad as people said, and I really didn’t think it was… but slowly over time the food has got worse and worse. For my meal I had some cheese and leek gnocchi thing, which was bland as hell. Jo had the chicken and sweet potato curry, which she said was ok… nothing special!







I then had the brandy after the meal (just like last time) and Jo took a sniff and recoiled in horror. I’ll be honest, I’m not a brandy drinker normally, so I still don’t know why I didn’t pick a glass of the nice, sweet Amarula instead!



While sitting there drinking (but not really enjoying) the post meal brandy, the ‘fasten seatbelt sign’ went on as we were experiencing a little turbulence. The plane was a little juddery, but nothing that I hadn’t experienced on every transatlantic flight. But the plane dropped suddenly, and it felt a little bit like being on Tower of Terror! It made me and Jo giggle. The plane then did it again and we noticed that if anyone had a drink in their hand, their arm was involuntarily raising in the air, in complete unison with everyone else! (Obviously we all weren’t raising our arms… it was just our way of trying not to spill our drinks every time the plane dropped.) I wish I’d grabbed my phone and recorded it happening, or at least taken a photo because from where we were sitting it looked like everyone was raising their glass to toast someone. It only happened about 5 times… but each time it did, those sitting around us were all chuckling at the sight. After a couple of minutes the excitement was over and everything returned to normal.



Thankfully on the flight there were quite a few movies on offer that I wanted to see, and after watching two of them back to back (Kingsman and Ex Machina… both very good) I had a little nap, and I think Jo did the same. After both waking up about the same time, we got up, stretched our legs and had a wee break. It was around this point that I said to Jo we should swap seats. Her screen kept blacking out and she had been trying to watch a movie so I said she could take my seat as I planned on reading for a bit. We swapped, and she carried on watching her movie.

Then the Laws of Sod got involved, and the guy who had been fidgeting around in front of Jo decided that he no longer wanted the aisle seat, and now wanted to sit by the window… once again in front of Jo. And what was the first thing he did when he swapped seats… yup… that’s right… recline the seat fully back. Jo gave me the big eyes look (you know... the big eyes look from my last TR!)… the one that says a thousand things in one simple look. The one that screams ‘I’m about to lose my S*lT!’ I ask if she wants to swap back… but she says its fine (it’s not fine!)

We’re over halfway through our flight, and aside from the bells sitting in front of us, the flight is actually going quite quickly. Feeling peckish, we dive into our Pret sandwiches. Mine is pretty good… but the asparagus can be over powering at times. Still… I soldier on and finish it. The drink really isn’t great though. I don’t know what I expected it to taste like… but take my word… it tastes like it sounds!

The remaining hours seemingly fly by, and Jo spends a lot of time looking out of the window. We’re obviously not used to seeing much land on the way to MCO, so it was strange seeing the snow, lakes, mountains and deserts of Canada and the USA.



As we were coming in to land, we notice the landscape around LAX is completely different to that of Florida… I’m used to seeing large houses with pools, vast areas of lush green foliage, and swamp land… coming in to LA it was all beaches, concrete, buildings, freeways and mountains!





Only 10minutes after we we’re scheduled to land we arrive at LAX, which isn’t bad considering we were nearly 45mins late taking off! Cue the inevitable sound of seat belts being unclipped even though we’ve been told to keep them fastened until the sign goes off and we’re completely stationary… followed by everyone jumping out of their seats to recover their stowed luggage and then spending the next 5-10 minutes stood up half in front of your seat, half in the aisle, bent at an odd right angle until they finally open the doors and 10 and a half hours of farts can escape into the LA sky!

Immigration is pretty much the same as it is in Orlando, and we’re through without any problems… and in less than 10 minutes we’re waiting at the carousel for our bags. Another 10-15 minutes pass and they both appear. It’s now time to head outside and get our first glimpse of LA!

Stepping outside and my initial thought is ‘huh… it looks just like the outside of MCO!’ All I can see is a little bit of blue sky as most of my view is being blocked by the parking lot across the street. There’s no time to just stand around and admire the non-existent view though… we’ve got a shuttle to catch. The local time is now 3:15pm… which means out body clocks are telling us it’s actually 11:15pm. Surprisingly, neither of us feel tired… in fact we’re the opposite. We’re both wide awake and not feeling anything like we’d just stepped off a 10 and a half hour flight.

Next task is to find where our SuperShuttle is picking us up from! We’d only booked this on the Thursday night before we left, as right up until then we were toying with the idea of getting a cab from the airport to the hotel. Considering a cab would’ve cost us $130 and we only paid $17pp for the shuttle, it’s quite a saving! Sure, it’s not fancy, and sure, you’re sharing a minibus with 7 other people you don’t know… but I'm a grown up… I don’t get stranger-danger… so booking this was a no brainer! So thanks to fellow Dibber, The Hulk, who answered Jo’s questions and helped us decide this was worth booking.

Anyway… we walk along the kerbside looking for a SuperShuttle representative and 15metres from where we’d exited the airport, we found one.



We gave her our names, she found our booking and then informed us we’d just missed a shuttle going to Anaheim, and that the next one would be along in 20minutes. The Law of Sod strikes again! It’s no biggie though… we grab a seat and do a bit more people watching for the next 20minutes… and see the excited girl and miserable boy stroll past at one point. And yes… he still looked like a moody little bell!


That’s me… doing an impression of the moody bell





Almost exactly 20minutes later, a shuttle pulls up, our name gets shouted and we get on the shuttle. At this point there are only two other people in the van. Being the cool kid that I am, I make my way to the back row of three seats. At this point I didn’t realise they’d be filling every seat in the mini bus... I thought this was it… just the four of us… and we’d be heading to Anaheim. But no… the shuttle drove 100 metres down the road and stopped outside another terminal and picked up two more people. Once they were seated and their luggage was in the back, we drove another 100 metres and pulled up outside another terminal and picked another two people. Ok… there are 8 of us in here now… surely we’re on our way!



Nope…
That wasn’t it!
Guess what…
Yep, we drove another 100 metres and picked up one more person… who sat up front with the driver! All in all, picking up these extra people and simply driving alongside the terminals took 15minutes! The reason it took so long is that the road outside the terminal is crazy. It’s got people dropping off and picking up as far as the eye can see. People are tooting their horns… gesturing… cutting one another up… it was mental and we’d not actually got outside the airport yet!



You’d think all of this would wind me up… but it didn’t. I was rather calm and quite happy looking out the window at the hustle and bustle of the airport. By 4pm we were free of the airport traffic, and we were now in the traffic of the LA itself!
LA Freeways look pretty much the same as Florida freeways…except with less giant billboards informing you how big the steaks are at Outback!



20minutes later we’re dropping off the first person. It’s the last guy we picked up, and he’s staying at the Grand Californian! Everyone is oohing and ahhhing it at how beautiful this hotel looks... also saying how they wished they were staying here instead!

We head out of there and are told the next stop is the Sheraton. The driver gets out, opens the doors… but no one moves.
“Sheraton” he says again…
No one moves
“This is you”… he’s pointing at me and Jo.
“No, we’re staying at the Staybridge Suites,” Jo says
“Are you sure? I was told Sheraton… you must have given us the wrong information when you booked.”
“No… it’s definitely Staybridge Suites. Here look at our booking sheet.”
Jo produces the booking sheet clearly saying the correct hotel… the guy looks… shrugs his shoulders… says ok, and closes the doors.

He drives on dropping everyone off until it’s just us and the mother and daughter from Canada. I know they were from Canada because they didn’t stop talking the whole ride… and when the lone woman, who they’d sat next to and chatted with the whole way, got off… they turned their attention to us.
“Where y’all from?”
“London” we both said.
“Oh wow… y’all must be so excited about the new princess!”
I didn’t have a clue what they were going on about… then twigged they meant the new royal baby being born. Personally I couldn’t give a toss about royal babies being born… but Americans (yes I know technically they were Canadians... but same meat, different gravy) assume us Brits luuuurve the royals! They switch their attention back to the driver and within a few minutes, they are also dropped off at their hotel (which just happens to be dead opposite the entrance to Disneyland! Squeeeee!) As I’d suspected, because of the mix up with Sheraton/Staybridge, we were the last ones to be dropped off. It’s now 5pm LA time (1am in the UK!)

We hop out of the van, and start to drag our suitcases into the hotel lobby. As we step foot inside we’re greeted by a portly, smiling gentleman who welcomes us and then immediately apologises for the missing floor tiles and explains that they are undergoing some renovation work. We acknowledge him and switch our attention to the girl at reception. We give her our name and say we’re staying for a week. She types the name in… but nothing is showing on their system! Jo’s now going to her bag and pulling out the booking confirmation while the woman behind the desk now searches for the booking under our first names! But that also comes back with nothing.

Then, from nowhere, she says “Wilson? Joanne Wilson?” Turns out the Virgin travel agent who we always book our holidays with had somehow booked the hotel under Jo’s maiden name… which is pretty strange considering she managed to book the flights in the right name!

By this time there’s another woman standing next to the girl checking us in, and she’s asking for our passports.
“Oh... wow… ok” she says.
“That just threw me. We’ve got a note on our system here saying its Brett’s 40th birthday while you’re staying here and I looked at you and thought no way is he 40!” (I bloody love this woman!)
“I would’ve said you were early 30s… and you definitely don’t look 40 either!” she says to Jo!
Jo’s eyes went big and she laughed… “I should hope not… I'm only 31!”
“Oh… I would’ve said in your twenties!” says the woman, clearly trying to get back into Jo’s good graces!

Mini crisis at the front desk averted, and we’re now heading up in the elevator (we’re in America, so it’s not a lift) to the fifth floor and room 502.

My first impression of the room is a positive one… and also one of surprise. It had a full kitchen, a 3-seater sofa… and plenty of space. I voice my surprise and it’s then that Jo points out that it’s a studio suite… hence the name ‘Staybridge SUITES’. In all honestly my feelings about hotel rooms are always the same… for me it’s just a place to grab a few hours’ sleep at the end of the day.






Could be a worse view!

Normally when we get into our room, Jo has a nose around and opens up all the doors and cupboards and I flop down on the bed. She then tends to open the cases and want to get everything out and put all her clothes away. Me, on the other hand, I'm happy living out of a suitcase. Well today is different. Jo isn’t unpacking… she’s just sitting on the sofa. I think the travelling has finally caught up with us. We’ve been up for 19hrs and had decided before we left the UK that we’d stay up as late as possible to try and avoid the dreaded jetlag (especially as people had warned us that the 8hr time difference really plays havoc with your body clock).



As you can see, my energy levels are low at this point and I know that if I don’t get out of the room soon I'm just going to pass out on the bed. But it’s ok though because within 5minutes we’ve had a quick change of clothes and are walking out of the hotel and enjoying the last of the early evening sunshine. Our plan was to take a walk up to Harbor Boulevard (which is where Disneyland is located) and basically just get our bearings and see what was within walking distance of our hotel.

What strikes us almost immediately as we leave is that this really is no International Drive. We’ve only been walking for a couple of minutes (on a rather quiet stretch of road) and Jo says that she doesn’t want to walk back on this portion of the road when it’s dark! After going past some dodgy looking shops (and some even dodgier looking people outside) we reach a set of traffic lights… and then things change for the better.





You can tell that this area has had money pumped into it. It’s a little bit like Pointe Orlando. There are shops, nice restaurants and hundreds (yes, hundreds) of people milling around outside restaurants and bars! It was the Tinkerbell Half Marathon Weekend, so we could only assume these people had competed, were competing or were there just as moral support. Whatever the reason, this area leading up to Harbor Boulevard was rammed!

At the top of the road we spot a CVS and nip inside to get a drink. We have a quick nose around and make a mental note to return here before we head back to the hotel tonight so we can stock up on water, breakfast bars and snacks. We leave CVS and it’s just a 5-10minute walk to the entrance onto Disney property.







For the benefit of those who haven’t been to Disneyland before, I’ll do my best to explain the layout/entrance to the parks and Downtown Disney. Basically, as you turn off of Harbor Boulevard you’re in an area that’s similar to the bus stop areas at the parks in WDW. You then walk a couple of hundred metres and you’re faced with a bag check area. This, as well as the layout of the parks’ entrances and DTD, is very similar to Disneyland Paris.



Once through that, you’re standing on what I can only describe as a huge concourse. On the left is your entrance to Disney California Adventure (which looks very much like the entrance to Hollywood Studios). To the right is your Disneyland entrance… and if you keep going straight ahead you exit through another bag check area into DTD… and located at the end of that is the Disneyland Hotel.

All the tiredness drains away almost immediately… and we’re finally here… where it all began! As with all Disney parks, they have speakers playing area music, so even though we’re standing somewhere we’ve never been before… we feel like we’re home! We walk towards the DL entrance, and it’s torture! All I wanted to do was buy a ticket and go inside. I turn to Jo and ask her if she’s excited and happy to finally be here… and the tears start trickling down her cheeks! I take that as a yes, and stay quiet so she can have her moment. Standing there looking at Main Street Station and seeing the giant Mickey flowerbed out front was familiar… but at the same time different. We take a few pictures around the area outside the gates… then carry on into DTD.













My initial thoughts on this area are that it’s leaner than the Orlando counterpart. By that I mean that there aren’t vast areas of space like there are in Florida... everything is more compact and the shops are right on top of one another… which make sense as they don’t have the space like Orlando does. It’s quite busy here tonight (again… I gotta assume it’s because of the Tinkerbell Half Marathon) and the queues outside the restaurants mimic those we saw up the road when we were walking here. What both DTDs do have in common is the amazing smells emanating from food shops! Churros, popcorn, pretzels… and then the BBQ smells wafting from House of Blues… oh man, I was starting to get hungry!

My first impression is that I prefer this DTD to the Orlando version. I said in my voice memo (which I did back at the hotel later in the evening) that I preferred how compact it was and that the shops were interesting. And to some extent they were. There seemed to be more variety in the type of shops. Look, don’t get me wrong, they were still only selling clothes, Disney merchandise, food etc… but it did seem a little less generic. At this point, we didn’t stop and go into any shops… we were just seeing what’s there, taking in the sights and the smells and just enjoying being back at Disney.













It takes about 10 minutes to walk completely through DTD, and as we reach the end of the shops we can see the Disneyland Hotel a little way in the distance. We take a stroll up to it… but don’t go inside! I want the first time we enter the hotel to be when we’re checking in on Tuesday. For a Disney hotel, it’s pretty quiet outside… and there doesn’t seem to be much activity inside either. After taking a couple of quick pictures of the pool (with is monorail slide) we make our way back to DTD.









There is a stage and barriers being dismantled off to the left hand side and we then remember what the Canadian woman on the SuperShuttle had said earlier. She’d been banging on about how George Clooney was in town for some event. It turns out DTD had hosted a ‘Blue Carpet’ premier of the Tomorrowland movie and now they were clearing everything away.





On our way back through DTD we point out a couple of restaurants that have caught our attention, and then decide to stop in a couple of shops. First up is D-Street, which now seems to have given up the ghost of stocking any decent Vinylmation, and instead has turned into an empty version of Hot Topic.

The other store we went into was World of Disney, and within less than a minute Jo has already spotted cups, plates and glasses that she wants to buy. My eyes are drawn towards the big wooden park signs they have! Oh… and the Haunted Mansion merchandise of course







We’re in there for 10-15 minutes and by the time we leave it’s gotten dark outside, and the first thing Jo says is “I don’t wanna walk back… especially not past that place we passed earlier”… so we decide to go with our earlier plan and head to CVS, pick up some essentials, then walk back to the cab area outside DL.

Before we even get out of Disney property, I can tell that the long day is taking its toll on Jo.
“Oh look,” she says “there’s someone dressed like a turtle!”
I look around but can’t see anyone… it’s then that Jo proclaims “oh, no… it’s not a turtle… it’s just an old lady in a blanket!”



We walk up to CVS and the area feels a little different than it did earlier in the sunlight. I'm not saying it didn’t feel safe… but I certainly found myself making sure I was aware of everyone that was around me, or walking towards me. Harbor Boulevard doesn’t feel very touristy… it certainly feels like there are a lot more locals around. There are also a high number of homeless in this area, which again makes you realise that Anaheim is a living breathing city... just like London.

After picking up some bits for the room, we walk back towards DL and jump in one of the waiting cabs. When we the guy sees our CVS bags, he asks why we didn’t just flag down a cab from outside the store. To be honest I don’t know why either! Anyway, he does the normal cabbie thing and asks where we’re from, how long we’ve been here, how long we’re staying etc etc… and when we say we’re from the UK he tells us that his brother is going to university in the UK. He did tell us where he was studying but I wasn’t really paying attention and can’t remember! I was too busy looking out the window at the big crowds that were still outside the restaurants near our hotel.

It only takes a couple of minutes to get back to the hotel, and by 9:20 we’re back in the room. Considering we’ve been up for 23 hours now, I think we’ve done really well. I do a quick voice memo to sum up the evening’s activities, and just as I finish Jo’s already in bed and falling asleep. It’s now 9:40 and I'm trying desperately to keep my eyes open till at least 10pm, as I figure I’ll sleep right through till morning and not wake up stupidly early like we normally do in Florida. Needless to say I fail. I nod off a couple of minutes later, then wake up suddenly at 10pm as the nightly news fanfare starts up! I turn off the TV and in seconds I'm back into a much needed sleep.

So that, ladies and gents, was our travel day! I know its longer than your normal travel day report, and when I was writing it I couldn’t figure out why is was so long (the DADC suggested it was just me waffling on as normal) but then I realised that with an 8 hour time difference, it’s basically like having to write a day and a half! And what with this being our first trip to LA, I'm comparing things to WDW and Orlando, which (un)fortunately for you will continue throughout the report!

Thank you as always for taking to time to read my ramblings. If you take the time to leave comments, then thank you in advance

I love you byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee xx

#dibbafterbeing awakefor23hoursandyourvoicememothatnightsoundslike youredrunk

Whoooop!

I was getting worried you'd forgotten about this ;0) your Instagram snap of your notebook was aaaagggggeeeesss ago!

Jodie. X

Here we go, here we go, here we go... so looking forward to this...even though I am not a DADC member I assume its an exclusive club... Cant wait to hear all about your trip

Same meat, different gravy, ha!

Great start as expected, love the detail and all the funny face pics. The fox poo incident was especially amusing! What a send off.

I agree that the CA DTD is a better layout than the FL one, we loved it there. Can't wait to read your take on the parks!

Fantastic start, looking forward to reading more ☺

Yay, all sounds great so far. Looking forward to the rest, it will help to take my mind off my back home now blues!

Nice one Brett.
Totally get the whole vibe is different in LA. I'd say the homeless population is bigger than London or maybe just more in your face there and you do need to be super wary of your surroundings. Having been there a few times myself it's definitely not somewhere you want to walk around, you need to get cabs everywhere so totally see where Jo was coming from. Looking forward to the rest!

Brilliant, I've been waiting for this to come up! I'm very jealous of you two... I can't wait to visit DL one day, to go back to where it all began! Can't wait for the rest

Yippee you've started! Looking forward to this one