Disneyland, Universal Studios and a few National Parks
If you have read part one to this blog you would know that we are doing a two week road trip around South-West America, in the Convertible Camero that is slightly impracticable. We had left off in Las Vegas.
Death Valley, California
Driving through here you’ll rarely see another car and will be able to see for miles. This is the hottest, driest and lowest National Park. There are some great spots to stop along here for photos and to just admire. We stopped at one of the look outs. This place has tickets booths to pay for parking. But we had the Annual Park Pass, so we had just sat the card on the dash of the car so it was visible to rangers. Had no issues at all, except it was sooo HOT!
Mammoth Lakes, California.
This place had a very Scandinavian winter village vibe. After we'd experienced the extreme heats in Death Valley arriving here with snow-capped mountains was a nice change. We just drove 4 hours and it was so much different. We stopped here for the night, unfortunately. We would have loved to spend more time here. It is just beautiful.
Yosemite National Park, California.
Who hasn’t heard of this National Park? As soon as we entered we were on the hunt for bears, unfortunately we didn’t spot any. Although, we did see some Deer and plenty of Squirrels. We did a hike up The Mist Trail to Vernal Falls. There wasn’t much water flow, but still beautiful. This hike will take about 1/1.5 hours and is a 2.6km round trip. There is a few hills and stair involved in this trail. On our way driving out of the park we had stopped at one more location, The Tunnel View Lookout. This was just beautiful!
Sequoia National Park
We had visited the famous General Grant, which is the largest giant Sequoia tree. General Sherman is also in this national park, this one is the World’s largest tree, measured by volume. They are both on different trails but both trails are reasonably easy. Of course we had visited the fallen Sequoia, which now is a log tunnel. The line of cars to drive under it and get a photo was reasonably long. We weren’t too keen on waiting. We had just pulled over to the side and waited for a gap in traffic to snap a shot of the log tunnel with no other cars around.
Los Angeles, California
We saw so much here. We'd gone to a viewing point for the Hollywood sigh, at Lake Hollywood Park. It was pretty cool top see, but was super busy and hard to get a park. We were so close to just driving past the park, but then got real lucky with someone leaving. The Hollywood Walk of fame was next for us and it was extremely over rated. It was defiantly something I had wanted to see and Michael just there because of me :). It's super busy, people were dressed up and would try get you to give them money to get a photo with them. Didn’t spent too long here, but hey, least we can say we have seen it ourselves.
Santa Monica Pier, have you really been to Santa Monic if you didn’t even visit to pier or the iconic Ferris wheel and roller-coaster at Pacific Park! It’s also the West end of the Historic Route 66. We had a great look around here. We even took a ride on the ferris wheel and roller-coaster, felt a little dodgy, but was still safe. You need to buy tokens at a ticket booth prior, to use on the rides, Kind of expensive for what it is, but we are on holiday’s so why not haha.
Theme parks are a must for us! Of course we visited Universal Studios Hollywood, Which was amazing. This was our first Universal experience. We arrived right near the parks opening time and walked straight for the ‘lower lot’. Which is our biggest recommendation. We went on two rides down there and didn’t have a wait line and also had the ride cart all to ourselves. After a few rides out the way, we ventured to the ‘upper lot’ to just look around.
We aren’t the biggest Harry Potter nerds, but not going to lie I did pay close to $90AUD for an interactive wand from Ollivander’s Wand Shop. I got shy after my first two attempts at spells so I gave up haha No regrets thought!
Bought the tastiest large donuts from Lard Lad Donuts – YUMMM!! If you don’t get one I will be disappointed. Lunch for us was at Duff Brewery Beer Garden. Of course we got a duff beer with our food. You'd be crazy not to try it.
Don’t let the line deter you for the 'Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey' ride, it was so good. Would recommend to anyone visiting. It was the longest line we waited in but like I said, totally worth it.
Disneyland and California Adventure Park
Our third Disneyland of the 6. This wasn’t our favourite one, but it was still such a magical experience. The Sleeping Beauty castle here was MUCH smaller than the others we had seen, wasn’t really expecting that. It was the first ever built, so back in 1955 so i'm sure it was a massive wow factor then. Where possible when visiting Disneyland parks we try and get a ticket to the second park, so we can bounce between the two throughout the day. Having the app for the parks really helped us dodge the massive lines and go to ones with a shorter wait time. I think the longest line we waited in all day was for the Cars ride. Such a long wait, but I’ll admit it was quite fun.
Knotts Berry Farm
OH MY GOSH!! What an incredible theme park. We visited midweek, and it was the best decision. Didn't have to wait in a single line, we went on all the rides and some of them multiple times. Not going to lie some were quite thrilling, but we love rollercoasters and this park was fantastic for rides. You NEED to visit this park. We really recommend you go on a weekday (not school holidays) and as soon as the park opens.
You wont regret it!
San Diego, California
We saw a baseball game here, which was Dodgers vs Padres. I’m not big on watching sports and this was the first live sports game I had seen, this was such a great environment to be around. We had the best time. We got matching shirts and were there from start to finish.
Children’s pool beach is a place you must visit if you love animals. This beach often has Seal visitors that just lay on the sand and take in the warm sun. They are just beautiful, and playful.
Travel Safe,
Mandy and Michael xo