Back home - highs, ok bits, lows and thanks

[jocat]

We arrived back from our first West Coast road trip yesterday, so thought I'd post my highs and lows.

Highs

Flights - we'd booked as part of the BA Flydrive deal that was available last September. We flew out with American Airlines and back with BA. I couldn't fault either of them. I'd been worried about coping with the direct flight for that length of time, as we normally fly indirect to Florida - 7 hours on a plane is normally my limit, but it was absolutely fine. Lots of drink runs, pleasant cabin crew, big choice of in-flight entertainment and the seats were comfortable too. Much better than my previous experience with BA.

Room size and view at Hilton Anaheim. We had a huge corner room and could see the Disney fireworks from our bed, which was great on our travel day. I even managed to stay awake for them!

Griffith Observatory - loved our time here.

Spending a few days there with friends from the UK who were great company.

Disney's California Adventure - I really liked this park. It was very quiet in the morning, so we felt we got a lot done. Really liked Radiator Springs, California Screamin' and what can I say about World of Color - just wow!

Disney's Maxpass - found this worked great, being able to book FP's on the go from the app, and it included PhotoPass photos too.

Cambria - although it was our first experience of how cool the coast can get, (brrrr) I loved our time here. The hotel was lovely, and the meals we had on both evenings were fabulous. I thought it was such a quaint little town.

PCH - although the middle section is obviously closed, we still really enjoyed the doubling back we did, both going up the coast from Cambria, and down from Monterey. The coastal scenery is lovely. I even thought the fog was fascinating, how it just appeared in strips.

Yosemite - our favourite part of the trip. We spent 3 nights here and we absolutely loved every moment of it (well, with the exception of the very steep hills as we walked up them, but that was soon forgotten ) It's quite surprising, as I'm not normally an outdoors person at all, but this inspired me to get out and explore. The views are just so beautiful and I could have stayed there for far longer.

Dylan's Tour - San Francisco. A great day. We saw so much and learnt a lot of information about the city. I also loved seeing the redwoods in Muir Woods.

Argonaut Hotel - so happy we splashed out and stayed here. Loved the room and loved the location. It was a fantastic hotel to end our holiday. In fact all of our hotels were great, so the research definitely paid off.

Uber - I used Uber for the first time this holiday and it worked so well. I used it to get to restaurants, between attractions and even back to the airport on our last day.

Using packing cubes - for a road trip, when you have some short stays, these are really worth splashing out on. I'm a convert for all future holidays! Unpacking was so quick and easy - put each one in a drawer and unzip, and I didn't have to iron anything on holiday as I'd rolled everything to fit in the cube. I was surprised at how much I fitted in them by doing this.

OK bits

Hilton Anaheim when a convention is on - the last 24 hours was busy, busy, busy. Long waits for lifts and the noise levels in the communal areas was high. Not sure how you can check if there's a convention when you book though, as without the hustle and bustle for the last 24 hours, it was a fab place.

This may be a bit controversial but I was slightly disappointed with the Warner Brothers Tour and I think it was down to our guide just not being very good. She was very quietly spoken, so we struggled to hear her. At the beginning of the tour, she asked the group which shows they liked, and when nobody responded to a couple of them she mentioned, she'd got nothing else to talk to us about. Think she'd got a set spiel off pat and couldn't venture away from it. Lots of people had cheered for Big Bang Theory, but she barely acknowledged it, even as we were going by the sound stage. She lost her trail of thought so many times, and whe she asked us for any questions, she couldn't really answer them. I'd really been looking forward to this, but left a little bit gutted that it wasn't the amazing experience that I'd read about in so many other trip reports. I still enjoyed it, but think it could have been so much better if she'd tailored it slightly to the group she had.

Hollywood Boulevard - been there, done it, don't need to return now. Can't really add anything to what everyone else says about it really. The only plus was that we weren't really bothered by people as we walked along, other than the occasional question about going on a famous homes tour.

Wifi in Disneyland is very patchy, and that could affect the Maxpass use, if you aren't using your data from home for a reasonable price.

Avis - we'd signed up for Avis Preferred and knew as it was the first time, we'd have to go to the desk so they could swipe our credit card etc. However, we had to wait a while for them to bring a car round, as they'd run out of the Ford Escapes - we were at the desk then waiting for a good 40 minutes in total. Not what you want after a long journey. Once we got it though, the car was great and there as no hard sell of anything. In fact, we even had to ask to prepay for a tank of fuel.

Queues at Universal - try to avoid going on a Saturday! We knew it would be busy but starting early meant we still got to do most of it thankfully.

Lows

LA Traffic - getting back from Santa Monica took forever on a Friday evening, partly due to there also being an event at the Hollywood Bowl. Being hungry and thirsty whilst stuck in the car didn't help either - I always kept some emergency Pringles in the car after that!

Cycling tourists in San Francisco who thought rules didn't apply to them. :angry: Generally they were all on the pavements, and rode together in large groups. They'd come up behind pedestrians, ringing their bells for you to get out of the way, meaning we often ended up in the road. They seemed to even ride in places where there were signs telling them to walk with their bikes. On the rare occasions they were riding on the the road, they just ignored or were oblivious of the traffic lights, meaning pedestrians took their lives in their hands crossing the road when they'd got the right of way. It became more than a little frustrating.

Seeing a dead humpback whale off the coast of 17 mile drive. This was so sad. It wasn't clear if it was stranded at one point, as it did appear to move, but think that was just the movement of the water. As soon as I'd got a signal a bit further round, I googled the location to see if anybody had reported it, and if not who I could contact. I discovered it's body had apparently been washed up there 3 days before. Thankfully, all signs seemed to point to a death from natural causes, and not anything untoward, I'd been worried that it had got trapped there and died before it could be released back to deeper water.

Thanks

Finally I'd like to thank everyone who has ever contributed to the West Coast planning part of the Dibb, plus those who have written trip reports. I've read so many of your posts, some of them from years ago. Even if I haven't always commented, I've found it all so useful, and without your information, tips and observations, our holiday would not have been such a success. Time to try and condense our photos over the next couple of days and see if I can write a trip report - it might take a while.

Now if any of you lovely people would like to provide similar help for the Rockies and Vancouver - I'd appreciate it!

[TractorBoy]

So glad you had a great time. We are off in two weeks and can't wait. Few more miles this time but if you want to see the country that's what you have to do!

That is for the post!

[Vikkicat]

wow! looks like an amazing trip, thanks for sharing

[Guest]

What a great trip. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Melbatb]

Glad you had such a great time Jo!

I can gelp with Vancouver and Whistler but it has been 19 years since I went to rhe Rockies!

[MarionG]

Sounds like a wonderful trip.
We did the Rockies and Vancouver in 2008. Basically we flew into Calgary and stayed a couple of days, then drove to Banff for a week. Then drove to Jasper for a few days before dropping off the hire car and getting the Rocky Mountaineer train to Vancouver. Stayed in Vancouver for 5 days (I think as this is from memory!) Did Whale watching there, amazing. We then picked up a hire car (well a Yukon actually) and drove back to Calgary over 2 days to fly home. Stunning scenery and if funds were unlimited I would return in a heartbeat.

[YLL]

Yosemite is fantastic, agreed!

[tinkerbelll]

Sounds a great trip. Totally agree with Yosemite being best part of our trip too. You'll be back on Skyscanner soon. Let us know if you find any good deals.

[daytonababe]

Glad you had a good trip.

I've done Warner and loved it but I can see a bad guide would make it far less interesting, Ours was really good and made it interesting.

LA traffic yep its a nightmare ..

[UncleLatch]

Originally Posted by daytonababe

Glad you had a good trip.

I've done Warner and loved it but I can see a bad guide would make it far less interesting, Ours was really good and made it interesting.

LA traffic yep its a nightmare ..

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^^Have to agree with this. I suppose a guide, good or bad, can make all the difference to tours like Warner Bros. We were lucky, ours was excellent and we really enjoyed it, but I can easily see how a bad one could ruin the experience.