Day 12 (I think?).
We slept in a bit this morning until after 8 and OH told us he had hardly slept 🙄 oh yay.
We headed of to the uss Midway, hoping to find some breakfast on the way or nearby. OH seemed highly stressed and irritable. Yay again. We parked in the parking lot beside the Midway ($10 for 12 hours) and went in search of breakfast. We headed to dunkin donuts which was about 10 mins walk away. We tried ordering and everyone else had some sort of melt down while the queue built up. Eventually we ordered a coffee, frozen coffee and 5 mini donuts. Then I calmed everyone down and coached them through the menu with no queue pressure. I went back and got 5 more mini donuts, a bacon croissant and a bagel. We sat outside and had our breakfast and the 13 year old got over the trauma of being rushed... I did not get over the trauma of ordering the wrong coffee 😂☕ after finished I went back in for another donut! There was nothing gluten Free to eat here. Very nearby was a shopping center of some sort that had a cheesecake factory among other things which was easy walking distance from the Midway.
We got back to the Midway at 11 and left at 4pm! 😱 This was approx 4.5 hours too long for thr 10 year old and an hour too short for OH. It was about 45 mins linger than I or the 13 year old needed. We didn't look at everything in great detail but we had a good old look round. We did the bridge tour which had about a 30 min wait. Maybe it has a shorter queue earlier in the day. The flight deck and the main deck you enter on seemed to have good access and I saw wheelchair and buggy users. The bridge tour required the use of steep steps and small spaces. The lower deck claimed to have disabled access but I don't think all of it was acesssible. I would recommend fairly sensible shoes and clothing, I did wonder how the people wearing skirts felt about going up and down all the steps with people following behind 🤔
I felt it was well worth a visit and I don't have much of an interest in the military or aviation. OH thought it was great and he has a pretty good interest in both. 10 year old really wasn't interested and the 13 year old who has a good interest in tech, engineering and how things work really enjoyed it. It will definitely take up at least 2 hours. There is a shop selling snacks, sandwiches and drinks on board. It is very expensive! Over $18 for 3 bags of crisps, an ice cream, a soda and a string cheese. There are plenty of toilets and drinking fountains. There is a pay and display car park the other side of the ship but you can only stay there for 3 hours. I don't k ow how expensive it was.
By the time we left it was 4pm and we hadn't really had a proper meal all day! We stopped at a Ralph's and bought some snacks and drinks and went tnack to the hotel. OH and ds2 went in the pool and then went to the fashion Valley mall for dinner. Pf changs, which has a gf menu. We really enjoyed this food and 1 starter, 3 mains and a cocktail plus tip came to $90 something. We got a free mini dessert as the one ds1 chose wasn't available. I really enjoyed this as it's impossible to get gf free chinese where we live. Back to the hotel and we had a drink in the bar while the kids watched YouTube.
Tempers were a bit frayed today and I feel that we're ready for home 🙄 sharing hotel rooms is getting tricky now, OH really likes his space and so does ds1 really... An Airbnb would have been better but I couldn't work out the rules for San Diego when I was booking... Also the various hotel changes are hard work to an extent with packing, unpacking etc. I really like California so far and am having a good time but I'm not going to lie, we will not return home feeling refreshed, relaxed or chilled out. This is a real shame for OH who really needs to get some recovery time from his holidays. The kids are so much easier on holidays in many ways as they get older but they are also more demanding or moody in others.
I realise this sounds really negative and I dont mean it to but I guess it's not all sunshine and roses even when on a holiday of a lifetime 😉🌞
A few pics from today