California Here I Come - Part 1

[Guest]

The Cast:

Me, Catherine (42) - Chief (only) planner
DH, Stuart (46) - goes with the flow
DS, Alex (12)
DD, Hannah (7)

Day 0, Wednesday 24 May, Setting Off

The plan today was to do our normal work/school routine and set off for our drive down to London at 6pm. I managed to get all the work I needed to do and finished around 3.30pm. I picked DD up from her childminders and we were officially on holiday.

Everything bar a few last minute essentials had already been packed and I’d cooked a Bolognese the night before to have a quick tea before the off. Cases were in the car and we set off by 6pm as planned.

We had an easy drive down south arriving North London around 8.30pm. In planning this trip I had hoped to be flying from Manchester but prices were too high. Anyhow Manchester would have required a change en-route whereas we were flying direct into Los Angeles going with American Airlines from Heathrow. We did initially intended on doing the early morning start from home and driving to Heathrow but I find this incredibly stressful especially if you hit traffic (which is likely) so I decided to look for a hotel. We had already booked airport parking so did not need an inclusive deal, plus I did not want to spend too much. Unfortunately I could not get a family room anywhere close to Heathrow at short notice and two rooms were outside of our budget, so decided to drive to North London and stay at the Days London Gateway. I got this for £35, exchanging a small number of airmiles, inclusive of breakfast. The room was fairly spartan but clean and adequate for an overnight stay. Given an early start in the morning we had a drink and were straight to bed.

Day 1, Thursday 25 May, Getting There

Got up early at 6am and had a light breakfast. It was a standard buffet affair with hot and cold food but I don’t think any of us were particularly hungry. We left the hotel just after 7pm for the supposedly 40 min, 19 mile drive to Heathrow. As we used to live in this neck of the woods I knew the drive would take us double the Google estimated driving at this time of the morning. And it did. Took us 1 hr and 20 minutes to arrive at Q Park. Transfer to terminal 3 was quick and check-in was a breeze. Took about 20 minutes to get through security and we had about an hour and a half to kill in the departure lounge before boarding. Had a horrible latte in Starbucks (I think they forgot to add the coffee) and a chocolate chip cookie.

We were called for boarding on time around 11.20 am and took our pre-selected seats, Row 40 a,b,c,d. DD and me were in the two seats next to the window and DH and DS across the aisle. Spent a long time waiting for the plane to push back for no known reason and took-off around 30 minutes late. This was our first trip with AA and it was acceptable but not quite on par with either BA or Virgin in terms of quality and service. We had lunch, a snack and tea about an hour before arrival which were not particularly exciting. Soft drinks were free and available from the galley throughout the flight but alcohol had to be paid for. I spent the flight mainly listening to the music channel, Smooth, and I watched King Kong (in two parts) on the seat back TVs. Arrived in LA on time just before 3pm local time.

We were through immigration fairly quickly, got commended on my filling in of the visa waiver forms, did the photo and index finger scans. On exiting Immigration control our cases were already there and we were waved through Security without any hassle. We found our way to the car hire shuttles and waited several minutes before an Avis one arrived. Anyway from landing to arriving at the Avis hire desk took us just an hour, so not too bad really. The car hire was another Airmiles booking. I was somewhat disappointed that Airmiles seems to be using Avis for North America now as we had always had Alamo before. Anyway Avis gave us a choice of a few intermediate cars and as we had no idea what any of them where when the agent said that the Chevy HHR she was offering us was their equivalent of a Chrysler PT Cruiser we decided to take that. Apparently these are very new release and considered ‘cool’. There was plenty of room for our three suitcases and assorted carry-ons.



After asking the Avis staff to point us in the right directions we did the 7 mile drive south to Redondo Beach following the Google directions. We checked into the Crowne Plaza Redondo Beach and Marina. I was very pleased with this hotel which I had got at an excellent rate of $119 a night using my Entertainment Card. We had a large Marina view room with small balcony. Only thing I did not like about this hotel room was the bathroom which was very small and had two closet-like doors which felt like you were walking into a cupboard.

We decided to eat in the Cheesecake Factory which I knew from Google was just over the road about 5 minutes walk away. We arrived about 6pm and had to wait about 15 mins for a table. It was fairly breezy outside so we decided to eat in although we still had a good view of the harbour. We could see from food arriving at tables that portions were large so we decided on lighter bites: DH had a Chinese Salad; I had a Chicken & Avocado Club Sandwich which came with fries. I thought it odd that there was no Children’s Menu here so kids had to eat from the starters menus. DD had Macaroni & Cheese Balls and DS had chicken strips and fries which neither of them managed to eat much off and just drank their smoothes which they had ordered. We were beginning to flag by now given that we had been awake more than 20 hours so we got most of the food boxed up and took it with us. Meal came to $75 with tax and tip.

On the way back we came across this stretch Hummer so we took the kids picture next to it to pretend it was ours



Arrived back at the hotel at 8pm, took a couple of sunset photos and retired to bed (at what would have been 4am back at home).



Kitty

[Jools]

Great start. I'm looking forward to reading more.

[dcmax]

my word, very quick off the mark! Nice start.

Jackie

[Guest]

A long day, but seemed to go pretty smoothly Looking forward to the rest

Love Suexx

[Guest]

A great start looking forward to the rest.

[happytraveller]

Hi ,brilliant start.We're the computers o.k then when you arrived at LAX?When we got to immigration they were down for about 20 minutess.I had to laugh when you said you were commended for filling in your forms corrected as i was too after the lady 'told off' another passenger for doing his wrong,lol.

Those cars must have been new release as we saw them everywhere.

[Guest]

I cant believe I nearly let this one get away.

A nice start, cant wait to read more.

[Strommie]

Just started reading these. Great start and lovely photos. Off to read the next one now

[Guest]

We all did so well to stay up for so ling - I'd have been asleep in my meal!

[Dizzy]

Yay... I found some more California trippies
Great start... thanks