California Calling-Day 3- 26/7/12- Lets Do Everything!

[Bella1]

Day 3 and we wake up to another cloudy morning in Santa Monica. In fact it felt quite cool but the Weather Channel assured us that it would soon be a scorching day so we popped our shorts and T-shirts on but all grabbed another top too. We had found that the big breakfast on the previous morning had made us feel sluggish so Ally and Graham popped round to the 7eleven and grabbed us some milk and some cereal pots plus a carton of orange juice and we just had that in the room.
Our destination for the day was Universal Studios. Since it was bound to be a busy day we had bought the Express Pass to make sure that we could get everything done. The drive was once again hectic and we were very glad to arrive at the Studios in one piece.
We decided to be brave and leave our jerseys in the car as it was bound to heat up soon. It felt very like Florida as we walked through City Walk and saw the globe. We exchanged our vouchers quickly at the turnstiles and were given our passes on a lanyard.

A friend who had been before told me to do the Studio Tour before anything else so we headed to the back of the park to do this first. I really enjoyed this tour; I loved seeing the sets and especially liked the drive down Wisteria Lane.



I have always loved Jaws and since it has now disappeared from Orlando it was great to see the shark still in action here and obviously we all had to scream dramatically.



The King Kong simulator was brilliant and worth doing the tour twice to experience it again.

By the time we had got off the tour the sun was out and the temperature was in the low 90s. The park had started to fill up so we decided to head for the new Transformers ride before it got too busy.



I had heard that it was in the lower lot but I didn’t realise that you needed to go down what felt like hundreds of escalators to get there!



This area was really busy and the wait was already nearly an hour so we were thankful for our Express passes so we could hop straight to the front of the line. This ride is an exact copy of Spiderman except for a different film but all the effects were the same so it was good fun. We then did Jurassic park (not quite as good as Orlandos ride) and the Mummy which was a real let-down, I was still waiting for the good bit to start when the doors opened and we were back at the loading gate. We were so convinced that something had gone wrong with our ride that we used our FOL pass to give it another go and we were just as disappointed second time around.

We headed back up the escalators again (Ally was feeling fit so he used the steps!). The views across LA from the top are stunning and worth a photograph.



Several offerings here were the same as those in Florida; Shrek, Terminator and Simpsons so we whizzed round those and then went to the Special Effects show which was good but would have been better if I hadn’t had a baby behind me who cried through the whole thing. The highlight for me was the Waterworld show, having hated the dire Kevin Costner film I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was a corny, action-packed water based adventure and we thoroughly enjoyed it.



By 2 o’clock in the afternoon we felt we had done everything that we wanted to and it was incredibly hot and crowded and it was hard to get around so we decided it was time for us to leave. As we walked back to the car and faced another ordeal on LAs road I suggested that maybe it would be a good idea to try and do the rest of the things that we really wanted to in the city and then we would never have to set foot there again as I knew I didn’t like the place.
Since the guidebooks were in the car we decided that we would do what we could and then spend the next day enjoying Santa Monica instead.

The Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theatre were top of our list so turning to our life-line, Meredith, we programmed in the zip code and away we went again.

Only a few minutes later we were driving past Grumman’s Theatre and the place was heaving. We ended up pulling in to the first parking lot we saw and it was $10 valet parking for up to 6 hours. The street was crammed with people, you could hardly see anything and I was very conscious of keeping a hand on my bag and a close eye of my kids. We walked around and took some photos but it was difficult to get much impression of anything through the crowds. I would love to go back out of season but would never visit in July again.





We were back in our car within the hour and headed up to Griffiths Observatory.

This couldn’t have been further from the manic street that we had just left. The drive took us up through the woods on the mountainside and the smell of the trees was wonderful. We grabbed some bottles of water before we left the car as it was even hotter around the Observatory than it had been down in the city. We spent a lovely couple of hours wondering around, taking photographs of the Hollywood Sign, looking at the exhibits inside the Observatory and waiting patiently for the Pendulum to knock over the next domino.




We found this place a real breath of fresh air and had a lovely time. We even saw our first ever humming-bird in a bush just outside the Observatory.

On our way out of LA our SatNav decided to die on us again and we got a bit lost. We saw a Wal-mart and, since we knew we needed a few supplies before we started our road trip the next day, we pulled in. This was not our most sensible decision as we really hadn’t checked out the neighbourhood. We felt decidedly uncomfortable the whole time we were in the store and although we got what we needed we were pleased to be safely back in our car with the windows locked. The only redeeming feature that this store had was that trolleys had their own exclusive escalator which Ally thought was highly entertaining. Our best purchase here was a polysteyrenene coller which cost us $2.49 and was to be used constatntly during the whole trip.

We eventually made our way back to Santa Monica. This was about the only time that we missed our hotel having a pool, it would have been lovely to have had a quick, refreshing dunk but we had a quick shower instead and headed back to the car to drive down to the Promenade Area to find somewhere to eat.

The Promenade area is lovely at night; there were some brilliant street musicians and loads of restaurants. The children had decided that they wanted Pizza and when they saw a Wolfgang Puck Express they decided that was the one. We ended up sitting on a table on a balcony area on the first floor with a patio heater and a great view of the street entertainers. We had a great meal and it was a lovely relaxing place to sit and enjoy the evening after our jam-packed day safe in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be driving back on those horrendous LA roads for quite a while.

[Pussycat Doll]

Brilliant day, Pussycat

[parisdisneyfan]

Really enjoying your reports, we were there just after you in August. think we will have to add Universal in for next time as reading some really good reports of it. Like you we loved Griffiths Observatory and would like to spend more time up there, perhaps see the zoo. We did the centre of LA early on a Sunday morning which worked well, using the jet lag to our advantage!

I'll be looking out for the next installment

[Bella1]

Originally Posted by parisdisneyfan

Really enjoying your reports, we were there just after you in August. think we will have to add Universal in for next time as reading some really good reports of it. Like you we loved Griffiths Observatory and would like to spend more time up there, perhaps see the zoo. We did the centre of LA early on a Sunday morning which worked well, using the jet lag to our advantage! I'll be looking out for the next installment

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That would have been a smart move, a Thursday afternoon was not a good time!

[Glee Fan]

I would have enjoyed seeing Wisteria Lane too.

Shame it all got a bit busy and hectic and made you feel uncomfortable later in the day.

[orlandosgr8]

Shame about the crowds, but otherwise a lovely day.