Disneyland & West Coast Road trip June 2019

[Silvercat]

TRIP REPORT : The West Coast Road Trip!
California 2019

Cast : Carolyn – happiest when trip planning
DH - grateful not to have to do any planning!
Robin & Larry – friends from Texas
Paula & Wes – Robin’s sister & brother in law, also from Texas
Assorted other family & friends of Robin & Larry

Experience : Carolyn – 17 trips to Walt Disney World, 1 to Disneyland, 9 to Disneyland Resort Paris, 1 to Hong Kong Disneyland, 1 to Tokyo Disneyland, 1 Disney Cruise (The Disney Dream)
DH - 10 trips to Walt Disney World, 1 to Disneyland, 5 to Disneyland Resort Paris, 1 to Hong Kong Disneyland, 1 to Tokyo Disneyland, 1 Disney Cruise

Transportation : Personal car, aeroplane, hire car

Accommodation:Raddison Blu, Manchester
Golden Nugget, Las Vegas
Best Western Plus Inn, Anaheim (two visits)
Grand Californian Grand Villa, Disneyland
The Redondo Beach Hotel
The Queen Mary, Long Beach
Holiday Inn Express, Indio
Holiday Inn Express, Prescott
Arizona Mountain Inn & Cabins, Flagstaff
The Grand Canyon Railway & Hotel, Williams
Hoover Dam Lodge & Casino

Dates : Saturday 08 June to Sunday 30 June 2019

PLANNING

This is yet another trip that was started by a throwaway comment made by our friend Larry. We met up with Larry and his wife Robin in Walt Disney World in 2017, and at some point during that week Larry happened to mention that as his 60th birthday coincides with the 60th birthday of the Matterhorn, the Monorail, and the Submarine ride in Disneyland, California, he would like to spend his birthday there and invite all his Disney friends to join him. We thought about it overnight, discussed it, and decided that it sounded like a splendid idea to us!

As per usual with us, over the next few months this trip expanded and grew into a bit of a potential road trip. Robin and I were in almost constant email contact for the first few months, and we agreed that it would be great to start the trip in Las Vegas, (somewhere none of us have been before), before driving down to Anaheim. We agreed on dates, as we knew we had to be in Disneyland by the date of Larry’s birthday. Robin and Larry were going to drive to Las Vegas from Texas, and they planned out places to stop off and visit along the way. Larry also wrote a carefully worded email to the President of Disneyland, informing her that it would be his 60th birthday on the same day as 3 of their attractions, in the hope that Disney might help him to celebrate alongside the attractions!

Meanwhile, DH and I looked online at the rest of the West Coast area and made a list of all the wonderful places we would love to visit. Unfortunately, this list was huge and we reluctantly agreed that it would be impossible to cover all these places in just one visit, so we got the big World Map book off our bookshelf and began to make a more realistic plan! We decided on a 3-week trip, and with our more realistic list of places to visit, DH ordered a couple of folding maps from Amazon for California and Arizona that showed travel times between towns. After some discussion with and advice from my son’s in-laws, who had recently been to the USA, I bought a second-hand, reasonably priced Satnav through a UK-based Disney fan website, loaded with maps of the USA, as this is something we would need for a road trip. We already have one of these, I bought a new one from Walmart a few years ago, but it is currently lounging in our locker box in Florida!

We had a rough idea of places we wanted to visit, and were able to cross Phoenix off the list fairly early on. Our original plan had been to visit there to go to Alice Cooper’s restaurant, but due to the area being redeveloped, the restaurant had closed unexpectedly a few months ago. Also, Phoenix was a bit too far East for us anyway, we were attempting to do a circular route and only had 21 days to do this in. I was also very keen on keeping driving times between places we would be visiting/staying to a maximum of 4 hours at a time where possible, because I wasn’t going to be doing any of the driving and I didn’t think it was fair on DH for him to be driving for hours on end and not see any of the amazing scenery I think we will be driving through, so this meant lots of planned stops along the way, which we are both more than happy with. Ultimately, after much poring over maps and plenty of discussions, we agreed that we would spend a few days in Las Vegas followed by Disneyland with our friends, and then when they departed for home, we would spend one day on our own in Disneyland before starting our road trip. This would take in Redondo Beach, Long Beach, (at DH’s request – he wanted to visit the Queen Mary and I booked us a surprise one-night stay there), the Joshua Tree National Park, Prescott, Sedona, Flagstaff, Williams including the Grand Canyon, and finishing with a day at the Hoover Dam, before returning to Vegas for our return flight. It was so hard to decide how many days and nights to spend in each location, and I’m not sure even now that we have made the right decisions, but I had to get on and book hotels so we’ll just have to make the best of it now!

Robin had researched hotels in Vegas and suggested the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street to me, as she said it has 4 towers in varying levels of status, and the deluxe Rush Tower had just been refurbished. It is ideally placed for exploring and sightseeing, but is slightly off the strip so is more affordable. On her advice, I bought a Landry’s Select Club membership, as that will give us discounts in lots of hotels and restaurants over there. The card costs $25 but you immediately get that put onto your card as a credit, so I thought this was be a good thing to do. We then both made separate reservations at the Golden Nugget, although for some reason I wasn’t able to do the reservation using my Landry’s card, so I just made the booking and I’ll raise this with them when we check in.

Robin then had this brilliant idea to try and reserve a Grand Villa at the Grand Californian hotel. She said that on their own, the price was extortionate, but that if we would like to share the villa and the cost, and her sister Paula would too, then it would be more affordable. We loved the idea, and once I had checked out the layout of the Villa, we were definitely in! We would be spending the night of the day we arrive in Anaheim offsite at a Best Western, and then would move to the Grand Californian Grand Villa for 3 nights. Robin is trying to keep this as a birthday surprise for Larry, he thinks they are booked into a standard room there. There are 3 bedrooms with attached bathrooms in the Villa, so each couple staying there get their own bedroom and bathroom, plus there are a couple of sofa beds and one general bathroom. There are only 2 of these Villas available and they are DVC, but Robin was able to negotiate booking someone’s points there for 3 nights for us all. We are all very excited to be staying there, but how long we can keep this from Larry we don’t know! The list of people staying in the Villa increased, then decreased, then increased again, until neither Robin nor myself were quite sure who was staying where at one point!

As our 7th wedding anniversary is the day after we arrive in Vegas, I suggested that the daftest way I could think of to celebrate our anniversary would be with an Elvis Vow Renewal ceremony! DH thought that sounded like great fun, so I researched available venues near our hotel on Fremont Street, and found The Graceland Chapel. For just under $200, (plus a $60 minister’s fee for Elvis!), we could have a basic vow renewal package, which looked perfect for us! I had to put down a $100 deposit, but we can have up to 30 guests so I told Robin that as many of her friends and family who wanted to attend, could do so – it sounds like it will be a lot of fun. I already have a lovely, peach-coloured 1950’s style dress with lots of net petticoats, and I picked up a very pale green Rockabilly-style shirt for DH online, which he can wear with a plain white t-shirt underneath and his dark green Chino shorts. I also got myself some pale gold eyeshadow, and a peach, shimmery lipstick, along with a pair of white, platform Croc flip-flops with a rose-gold coloured metal trim, as I can’t wear closed-in shoes. We got married 7 years ago near a music festival so that we could hold our wedding reception there, and we still visit this festival every few years or so, so when we attended this year, I browsed the stalls there until I found a halo of peach and pink artificial flowers to wear in my hair for our ceremony, too.

Disney suddenly announced that they were about to increase the price of their admission tickets, so Robin and I got onto a website called Undercover Tourist, who were selling tickets at the 2018 prices until stock ran out. I got us a 5-day Park Hopper ticket each, as we were intending to stay in Anaheim for an extra day after everyone else left, before we started our road trip. Disney also then announced the opening date for their new Star Wars-themed land, Galaxy’s Edge. It was due to open to the general public at the end of June, but from 31 May to 23 June, folk would be allowed to visit for a 4-hour period only, if they made a (free) online reservation. Numbers of places were strictly limited, in order to hopefully control over-crowding issues. However, anyone who was staying onsite in one of the Disney hotels would automatically be allocated a 4-hour visiting time. Robin contacted Guest Relations and told them we would need access for 13 people! They were a bit taken aback, but allocated us from 08:00 to 12:00 hrs on Saturday 15 June, which we were happy with. The only problem was, Larry became quite worried about this as he thought that he and Robin were the only ones staying onsite, and he felt guilty that they would be able to visit Galaxy’s Edge when the rest of us probably wouldn’t be able to! He messaged me to ask where we were staying, and I told him the Best Western just over the road, which wasn’t an actual lie as I already had a booking there for 2 separate nights, one before and one after our Grand Villa stay.

I booked flights with Virgin Atlantic, leaving from Manchester airport, booking and paying extra for exit row seats too as DH is very tall and always seems to sit behind someone who reclines their seat very suddenly, smacking hard into his knees, and then staying there for the duration of the flight! I also booked an overnight stay at the Radisson Blu airport hotel for the night before our flight, with meet & greet parking for our car, as the flight departed just after 9.00 a.m. on the Saturday and we would rather stay overnight at the airport than have to drive up on the morning of our flight – we live near Birmingham, and it takes us about 1.5 hours to drive to Manchester, but we didn’t want to risk getting caught in traffic. Finally, I booked us a rental car through the broker I have used for many years, getting us an SUV (from Thrifty), as we would be spending a lot of time in the vehicle during the 3 weeks.

I knew our ESTA visas would be valid until the end of 2019, so I didn’t need to check those, and at the beginning of the year I renewed DH’s passport, as this expired in August 2019 but most countries prefer you to have at least 6 months validity on your passport.

Travel insurance is taken care of through my bank account, so that was one less thing to think about. We also still had just over $650 left in spending money from last year’s sadly short-lived trip, so I picked up another chunk of dollars from the local Post Office, who were doing the best exchange rate at the time.

I bought us both a new cross-body bag each to carry daily, which had a water bottle carrier attached to the side of it. They are dark coloured fabric, and quite utilitarian in design, so DH wouldn’t look like he was carrying a handbag! They have lots of internal, zipped pockets, but aren’t too large, and the straps are quite wide so they will be comfortable. I also purchased a couple of neoprene bottle covers, which will not only keep bottled water cool while we are out and about, but will also absorb condensation drips from the bottles.

We planned to pack two suitcases with clothing and toiletries, but also to take another 2 empty cases with us, one inside the other, to hold any goodies we wanted to bring back with us! This is also where the packing cubes I bought a couple of years ago came in handy, as I was able to pack those very efficiently to keep things together, such as medicines, socks and undies, toiletries, different types of clothing, electronics’ charging cables, etc. We wanted to pack as light as we could, but equally had to remember that we wouldn’t have access to laundry facilities this year, due to all the travelling about we were planning to do. This meant we had to take enough clothing to last the full 3 weeks.

I printed off all the hotel confirmations, including the full address of each hotel booked, plus the Disney tickets, rental car confirmation, a shopping list for if we managed to find a large supermarket, and the spreadsheet with our itinerary on it. All of this went into a plastic wallet folder in my hand luggage bag. We were ready to go!

DAY MINUS 1 – Friday 07 June

Plan : Work from home, drive to Manchester airport

Actual : I had quite a busy day today, trying to get everything finalised before I left. I work as a PA to the CEO of a large law firm, and also support the Chief Financial officer and the Chief Operations officer, so there was certainly enough to keep me busy that day! Around mid-afternoon, DH took our pet bearded dragon, Zelda, to the reptile boarders, while I did the usual stuff that has to be done last minute. DH returned, we loaded up the car and set out at about 4.30 p.m.

However, we encountered the most awful weather as we attempted to get to Manchester. The rain poured down, slowing traffic on the motorways right down, plus there were quite a few accidents and a lot of roadworks going on. The journey that usually takes 1.5 hours ended up taking us 3.5 hours! We had to stop at Knutsford services for a restroom and coffee break, something we would not normally need to do on such a short journey. We were really glad now that we had opted to drive up the night before, rather than travelling on the day we had a flight to catch!

We finally pulled into the Meet & Greet car park at 8.00 p.m. The location of this had changed since we last used it, a couple of years ago, and is now on the top floor of a multi-storey car park. Anyway, the staff were helpful and friendly, as they usually are, and we happily left DH’s Dodge Caliber in their care. We walked over the skyway bridge to the Radisson Blu hotel, and checked in for the night. When we got up to our room, we had been upgraded to a Superior room – it was lovely! Really large, King sized bed, and plenty of space for our luggage. The bed was huge, with very fluffy pillows, and we looked forward to a good night’s sleep.

We turned on the massive TV and had our hotel picnic for dinner – cheese & tomato baguette for me, cheese & ham for DH, packets of crisps, soft drinks, and a bag of tiny, bite-sized cakes. I also made some coffee using the machine in the room. After dinner, I called my son to have a chat with him, as I hadn’t had chance to call him earlier in the day and wanted to say goodbye before we went away. DH reminded me that I hadn’t done online check-in for our flight yet, something I had been meaning to do all day, so I then began that. DH was checked in easily, but when I went to do this for myself, I received a message to say that I had been randomly selected for extra security checks and would not be able to complete online check-in, but would have to do this at the airline desk the next day. However, the next screen I encountered in the process said that our ESTA Visas had expired. I thought this was a bit odd, and also that it must be incorrect, as I knew they had until the end of 2019 before they expired. I fished the printed copies out of my paperwork folder just to double check this, and was utterly horrified to discover that they had expired in the middle of May 2019!

WHAT?

How on earth could this have happened? I couldn’t believe it. Only once in the last 18 years have we gone to America in May, all the other times we have travelled in October or November, so I was absolutely astounded by this. The only explanation I could think of was that I had been so excited to go away in 2017 that I must have applied for the ESTAs early. I told DH what I had discovered and he went very quiet, then nodded and said he was going outside for a cigarette. (I later found out that he had been really saddened and upset by this, but didn’t want to make me feel any worse than I already did, so just went outside while he tried to come to terms with what had happened). I frantically went onto the ESTA website, and applied for new Visas for both of us, but the website stated that the applications could take up to 72 hours to be approved. I called the Virgin Atlantic 24-hour helpline and spoke to a customer services advisor, explaining that our Visas had expired without my realising, but that I had applied for new ones online. He was adamant we wouldn’t be able to get into the USA without a Visa, but told me to check again as soon as we got up in the morning, and if they hadn’t been approved by an hour before our flight, to call them again and the flights would have to be rescheduled. But he also reminded me that as DH had had a new passport, his ESTA would have been invalid anyway, as it is tied to a current passport number – I hadn’t even thought of this! I was devastated, I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid as to not check the expiry date or realise that DH would have needed a new ESTA anyway.

DH came back and I told him I had reapplied, and what the Virgin Atlantic advisor had said. He tried to comfort me, but I was just so upset, and felt so guilty. We settled down to try and get some sleep, and I was also cross because the bed was so soft and comfortable, but I just couldn’t settle! I must have dozed on and off, and at 5.00 a.m. I gave up trying to sleep and checked the ESTA website again. First of all, I checked DH’s application – it had been approved. Then I checked mine – also approved. I wanted to cry with relief! All sorts of things had been going through my head all night, thinking we would have to wait for days before approval – we would have to try and stay at the airport hotel for extra nights, or we would have to drive home and then all the way back again once we had rescheduled the flights, it was going to cost a fortune to change the flights and we would lose days of the holiday, we would also lose out on days of accommodation and potentially the vow renewal ceremony, etc. etc. etc. What a horrible situation!

DAY 1 – Saturday 08 June

Plan : Fly to Las Vegas

Actual : After I had sat in disbelief for 10 minutes, I checked both applications again just to be sure, and then began to quietly get washed and dressed as I didn’t want to disturb DH until the alarm was due to go off at 5.30 a.m.

The alarm went off, DH grunted and turned over, opening his eyes to find me nose to nose with him. He stared at me for a second while his brain caught up with what he was seeing – me, grinning from ear to ear. “We’re going!”, I said to him. His eyes widened, and he made me repeat what I’d said, although he still didn’t quite believe it so I had to show him the website pages. We felt so happy!

DH got ready for the trip while I packed up our toiletries and refastened the suitcases, then we trundled them down to reception and checked out. We were still in shock at the near-miss we had had, but were now determined to put this hiccup behind us and get on with our adventure!

We made our way over the bridge again, and into Terminal 2. The Virgin Atlantic check-in desk was quite close to the entrance, and we joined what at first looked like a large queue, but turned out to be about 3 large families, so we didn’t have too long to wait. I was watching the luggage belt while we waited, and it didn’t appear to be working. When we were called across to be checked in, the attendant confirmed that the belt was indeed broken, and after she had checked us in, weighed and labelled our luggage and given us our boarding passes, she asked us to take our cases to a man standing with a large cage on wheels, off to one side. This poor man was having to lug huge cases into the cage, before hauling it off somewhere – hopefully to our aircraft for loading!

Now happily case-free, we made our way to security for departures. This all seemed very rushed, as usual, and I had barely had time to remove my Kindle, tablet, and mobile phone from my bags before I was being directed to a security line. After I had gone through the body scanner, I was “randomly” picked for an extra pat-down and going over with an electronic wand.

We collected our bits and bobs again, before heading for Duty Free. DH went into the “Room of Shame” to get some cigarettes, and I persuaded him that, even though he only smokes around 8-10 cigarettes a day, it would probably be a good idea to get two packs of 200 each, as we would be away for 3 weeks in total. From there, he made his way out to wait for me at the other side, as he hates the overpowering smell of the perfume department, but I wanted to visit the Jo Malone stand. I wanted to get some Grapefruit body wash, but was really disappointed to find that it is no longer made. The lovely young man who served me seemed quite upset at my disappointment, but helped me to select a bottle of body wash in my second favourite scent, Pomegranate Noir. I also got a small bottle of the Grapefruit scent, as the one I have at home is quite large and not really handbag sized! So, upset young man then helpfully pointed out the newest range of summer flower scents, and sprayed each one onto a slip of paper for me to test. I really liked the one called Star Magnolia, which has top notes of jasmine (which I love), so I got a small bottle of that, too – easy sale for him. Upset young man then gave me a £5 discount on my purchases, to make up for the fact that they didn’t have my first choice of body wash! Result!

We needed to get some breakfast, but were running out of time to have a sit-down meal, so decided to grab something from Burger King. I left DH with the bags in some nearby seats, and went into Burger King. They have ordering screens now, just like McDonalds do, so I got us both a bacon roll, and one serving of hash browns for DH. I didn’t get drinks as I wouldn’t have been able to carry them as well. The total cost was just over £10, which is shocking for 2 bacon rolls and a hash brown! We ate these in view of a ‘departures’ screen so we could keep an eye out for our gate announcement. After breakfast, I took a quick restroom break, then swapped places with DH so he could go. Just as he was coming back towards me, our gate number appeared on the screen, so we headed off to park ourselves there. We weren’t sitting there for long before our seat row number was called, so we went to go through for boarding, but once again I was “randomly” selected for extra security screening – for the third time this trip! I was taken to one side, patted down again, and then swabbed for drugs on my feet, shoes, the waistband of my trousers, and the front and back of my hands. The inside of my hand luggage case was also swabbed. None of this took long, and I was soon rejoining DH for our boarding.

I had selected excellent seats for us, row 36, seats A & C (there were only 2 seats), and we had loads of leg room. The only slight downside was that there was limited hand luggage space in the lockers above the seats, as the crew bags had lockers directly above our seats, so we had to put our bags a bit further back behind us. That wasn’t really a big deal though, as we knew that if we needed anything out of them during the flight, they weren’t far away. We settled ourselves down and got comfy, for the long 10.5 hour flight ahead of us. Due to my weight loss last year, for the first time I had room between my leg and the side of the seat, where the earphones normally plugged in; however, ironically, for the first time the earphone socket was at the side of the TV screen!

We took off on time, and the flight went very smoothly. We watched the new Laurel & Hardy film, Stan & Ollie, which we loved, and then one called Small Foot, an animated movie about yetis who lived with the legend of humans, which was really funny and cute. In between watching films, we napped a few times. Having spent many years moaning that the games on Virgin Atlantic flights hadn’t been updated for about 20 years, this year the games had all been changed, for the worse! I used to be able to amuse myself for hours playing Bejewelled, but now the only choices were a version of the old Nokia ‘Snake’ game, a couple of boring card games, chess, trivia, and a rather entertaining but very limited Hidden Objects game. I played the Hidden Objects game twice through, then gave up on that and listened to David Bowie’s Blackstar for a while.

The food also surprised me this time. The choices were the usual curry, something with garlic, or the one I opted for – chicken & mushroom, mashed potato, and peas. This was really tasty, quite salty and savoury, and I really enjoyed it! Good job really, as I’d forgotten to pick up a meal deal sandwich thing before we boarded, which I normally do. Dessert was a delicious Gu pot of chocolate mousse with yuzu caramel, and the yuzu flavour was quite pronounced, yum. We had lots of coffee and apple juice throughout the flight, and then about halfway through, we were offered a choice of steak or cheese & tomato pasty (I had steak, DH had cheese). This was warm and also very tasty. An hour or so before landing, we were given a cheese and pesto roll, which I gave to DH on account of the garlic, and a scone with jam and clotted cream. Overall, I was impressed with the food, for the first time in years.

There was a small amount of turbulence every now and again, but not too much, and I think I was napping when the Fab ice-lollies were brought round as we didn’t get offered them. Shame. When we were almost in Las Vegas, we reset our watches, as the West coast of America is 8 hours behind the UK.

We had an easy, if somewhat steeply dropped, landing, and deplaned quite quickly, but then stepped into the immigration hall to see the world’s longest queue! I have no idea what happened to the self-serve kiosks from last year, but they were nowhere in sight. Instead, we shuffled along in the windiest queue ever for just over 2 hours! We were tired and hot, and just wanted to get on with it, but had to put up with passing the same handful of people first one way, then the other, then back again – you get the picture. Anyway, EVENTUALLY it was our turn, and we chatted to a really nice, friendly customs lady, she was lovely and it was nice to finally be on our way. DH breathed a sigh of relief as we were waved through, as he still hadn’t been able to quite believe that our Visas had been approved!

Our luggage was going round and round the carousel in a resigned manner, like it had been for the last hour and a half. We hauled it off and out of the door, where DH desperately smoked 2 cigarettes, before we found the shuttle bus stop to take us to the offsite rental car centre. We waited about 10 minutes for a bus, and were soon on the journey to collect our car, about 20 minutes away.

After an easy shuttle bus journey, we made our way into a huge rental car hall, with desks for all the rental companies arrayed around the outer edge. I was pleasantly surprised that the Thrifty sales guy didn’t try to upsell us anything, but was polite and friendly, and told us which way to go to find our row of cars, once we had completed the paperwork. There was a slight moment of confusion when he asked me whether I wanted to return the car empty or full of fuel, or whether I wanted to buy a full tank of fuel from them. I said that I believed I had pre-paid for a full tank, and that I assumed this meant we could return the car empty, if we wished to. He seemed to agree with this, and we left it at that.

We walked outside and there were only 3 cars in our section to choose from, so we selected a silver GMC Acadia, which was really lovely. We folded down the back set of seats (there were 3 rows, and as per usual in these larger cars, there was very little boot space!) in order to be able to fit in all our luggage, and clutching the map I had printed out from Google, set out for our hotel.

It was a really easy, 10 minute drive to The Golden Nugget on Fremont Street, and after a bit of driving round to find the parking garage, which wasn’t very easy as the hotel was HUGE, we parked up and walked back to the hotel. It was very hot at this point! As we walked into the hotel and followed the signs for reception, who should be walking towards us, towing suitcases, but Larry! We were really pleased to see him, as we weren’t sure what time they would be arriving. He told us that Robin was just sorting out scooter hire with the concierge, so we said we’d see him later and made our way round to the reception area. DH stood off to one side with the luggage, and I got into the queue to check in. Robin spotted us and whizzed over on her newly hired scooter! It was lovely to see her again, we hugged and she told us her room number, which I wrote down as I was likely to forget it.

(In my notepad of trip report notes, Larry stole it at some point here and wrote on this page, “Larry, nicest guy I’ve ever met” LOL).

We agreed to meet up later, and I continued onto check-in. We were given room 17220, in the Rush Tower, which was a King bedroom. Walking back to the elevators we were amazed at the hotel – I guess we weren’t quite prepared for the ‘casino’ bit, and were astonished at the sheer number of slot machines, games tables, bars, etc. People were smoking whilst sitting at the slot machines and game tables, which was a surprise to us, as smoking is pretty much banned everywhere in the UK, and particularly inside public buildings. To be honest, we were a bit overwhelmed by the choice of machines – before we saw this for ourselves, we had intended to drop a few quarters in the slot machines, but the number of them made me panic a bit – we had no idea where to start.

Up we went, in the elevator, and found our room – it was gorgeous! Really big, although the view was of the car park! DH does what he always does when we get to a new hotel room – grabbed the TV remote control and ‘tested’ the comfort of the bed. He does this to stay out of my way while I fuss around, unpacking what we will need over the next day or two, and checking out the bathroom. However, I couldn’t get my suitcase open – it has a built-in lock on one side, which the zipper tabs fit into. I usually pop the tabs in, but don’t activate the number-controlled lock. However, it looked like the lock had been crushed and therefore damaged slightly, either by being dropped or having another case dropped onto it, and the tabs were jammed in place. I rang reception, who promised to send an engineer up as soon as they could. He arrived within a few minutes, and using a huge pair of pliers, managed to extract the tabs without causing any damage to the zip, thank goodness. I was going to give him a tip, but he fixed the case and then disappeared so quickly, I never got chance to!

Anyway, I unpacked a little and then we relaxed in the room for an hour or so. We noticed there was no coffee machine in the room, which was a bit irritating, as we always make good use of those. I rang Robin and Larry’s room, and said that we would meet them in one of the hotel restaurants later, although DH and I were feeling very hot, tired, and jetlagged, and agreed we probably wouldn’t want anything to eat. But we did want to spend some time with our friends, and also we wanted to meet Karen and Clive, some long-time friends of Larry’s, who were spending the first few days of our adventure with us all. Robin and Larry were going to have a quick meal before leaving for the airport, to collect Larry’s son Greg and Greg’s 4-year old daughter, Eilidh, (mum and baby son had to stay at home due to other commitments).

At 7.00 p.m., we went downstairs to Vic & Anthony’s Restaurant, meeting Larry and Robin outside. We were introduced to Karen and Clive, who seemed really nice. We had to wait a few minutes before being seated, and then we explained we wouldn’t be eating, but would stay to be sociable for a little while. DH ordered a beer, and I stuck with a glass of iced water. We had been awake for around 24 hours now, and were starting to feel a bit woozy!

Everyone else ordered food, and we sat and chatted. We thought Karen and Clive were a lovely couple, so friendly and relaxed, and a lot of fun. Clive was trying to explain to me that he thought the bedclothes in their room seemed a bit heavy, but the way he did this was to ask me if I was hot in bed? This caused much general hilarity, and became something we referred to many times during our time spent with them! Larry also, completely out of the blue, asked me whether I had managed to get reservations for a visit to Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge, which caught me off guard. I managed to waffle on about how my brain was fried due to extreme jet-lag, and that I couldn’t remember, but would check my spreadsheet and let him know. Phew, crisis averted! Luckily, in true Frozen fashion, Larry ‘let it go’ and didn’t ask me again.

We had a lovely time, catching up with Larry and Robin, and getting to know Karen and Clive, but before too long, DH began to feel a bit too tired, so we made arrangements to meet everyone in the morning, bade goodnight to all, and got up to leave. However, DH had one of his ‘funny turns’ and I had to discretely help him out of the room. (DH has been having ‘funny turns’ for about a year now, where he goes a bit lightheaded and struggles to support his weight on his one side, leading to him staggering when he stands up or tries to walk. We had tests done at our local hospital, but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him, so they just dismissed the issue. It happens so infrequently that we keep forgetting about it, but then when it does happen, it is very worrying, he almost collapses and it lasts for a good few minutes).

We got back to our room, and after checking that DH was okay, I left him watching TV and went for a shower. He was asleep by 9.00 p.m., and I followed soon after.

DAY 2 – Sunday 09 June

Plan : Trip to Lake Mead, Elvis Vow Renewal

Actual : To my absolute amazement, we both slept really well, not waking up until the alarm went off at 6.00 a.m.! Normally, on our first day in the USA, we are both wide awake at about 3 or 4.00 a.m., so we were both pleased to have slept through. I think the unsettling events of our night before we flew out must have left us both exhausted.

We wished each other Happy Wedding Anniversary, and then got ready for our day. We had arranged to meet everyone at the Rush Tower front desk (which was unmanned), at 7.30 a.m. today. That desk ultimately became our usual meeting place. Robin had very kindly planned a full day of activities for us today, but had assured us we would be back in Vegas in time for our vow renewal ceremony!

We got down to our meeting place a few minutes early, and everyone began to arrive – Robin and Larry, Karen and Clive, Greg and Eilidh, and Robin’s sister and brother in law, Paula and Wes (they had been on a mini-road trip before they got to us). We had met Paula and Wes before, in Walt Disney World a few years ago, and it was lovely to see them again. We said hello to Greg and Eilidh, who was understandably a little shy, but was very sweet.

We collected our car from the car park, and the 3 vehicles now began our trip to Boulder City for breakfast. It wasn’t far, about 20 minutes away. Boulder City was originally set up as a town for the men who built the Hoover Dam, and their families. We were heading for a restaurant called “The Coffee Cup Café”, which has featured on an American TV Show called “Drive-ins, Diners & Dives”, and which is quite well known in the area. We really liked the look of this town, it was quaint and interesting, with lots of tiny, bohemian shops. We all parked up, and headed over the road to the café. Paula went in and requested a table for 10, but we were told we would have to wait for about 15 minutes, which was fine with everyone. We sat around outside and chatted, taking it in turns to have a quick look around the nearest stores, and take photos. Eilidh was telling us about her nursery teddy, (which was actually Arlo the dinosaur from the Disney film, “The Good Dinosaur”). Apparently, she had to take lots of photos of him on his holidays to show to everyone at nursery when she got back!

In the end, we had to wait about half an hour, but apart from everyone being starving by then, we were all still quite happy. We went in and sat ourselves around a long table, to peruse the menu. The waitress brought coffee, which was very welcome and very delicious – we both had 2 cups and then got another one to go, at the end of the meal! I ordered 2 pancakes with crunchy peanut butter, (actually IN the pancakes, giving them an amazing texture and flavour!), and a side order of bacon. DH got something called a Big Texan Omelette with home fries, which was loaded with ham, bacon, sausage and onion, topped with red chili, Cholula Sour Cream sauce, and cheddar cheese. Total cost for us was $30, and it was all really, really delicious.

After breakfast, we all got back into our cars and drove to the nearby Nevada State Railroad Museum. This is a very small, free museum, with an assortment of railway trains and carriages in various states of repair. It was really interesting, we looked around the trains and chatted to the volunteers who work there, restoring them. There was one set of carriages in particular that we loved, they were very old and all decked out in a dark wood, which is in the process of being stripped of all the old varnish and dirt, to bring it back to its glorious natural colour. In between touring trains, we took turns in sitting around on some benches and chatting to whoever from our group was there, which I really enjoyed.

We had a lovely time there, but all too soon it was time to set off for Lake Mead. When Robin had planned this River Cruise for us all, she had offered to pay for our tickets as a pre-wedding present from her and Larry – she is such a sweetheart! It was only a short drive to the Lake, and we paid our entrance fee and parked up. Then we went into the Visitor Centre, and I picked up some fridge magnets, a pin for DH, and a couple of bottles of water, before we all sat around and relaxed whilst waiting for our boat cruise time.

The crew were about 10 minutes late actually boarding our boat, but eventually we all started to file through. We posed for a group photo before boarding, (which we could purchase at the end of the cruise), and then once we were on the boat, we all went off in different directions. Robin went inside to the seating area so she could keep Eilidh entertained, and we went out to the front of the boat on the second floor, as most people seemed to be heading for the seating on the top floor. We stood at the deck railing and watched the scenery, which was breathtaking. As we had flown into Las Vegas airport, we had seen huge areas of what looked like red sand, and now the pre-recorded boat commentary told us this was called Fire Valley, with the red sand being remains of ancient sand dunes. We sailed through Black Canyon, so called because of the old lava flows which caused a lot of black mountains to be formed. We saw a mountain called Fortification Hill, which is an extinct volcano, and the Arizona Paint Pots, which are beautifully coloured mountains. The Hoover Dam came into view as we sailed around a bend, and it really was magnificent to see. We loved the recorded commentary that was piped throughout the boat, it was really interesting and helped us get a handle on what we were seeing. The scenery really was incredible, and with the sun shining down on us, and the temperature being a very comfortable 85 degrees, we both felt ourselves begin to relax. Our attempted trip to Florida in October 2018 had been cut tragically short due to the unexpected death of my mother, and neither of us had really come to terms with losing her yet, but during this boat trip we both began to relax and start to feel ‘normal’ again, albeit in a different way to before. The stresses of the last 8 months began to drain away, leaving us both feeling happier than we had in ages, and I could have hugged Robin for suggesting this River Cruise, as it turned out to be the perfect way to start our holiday.

When we got off the boat, I was looking for the photographer to see if we could purchase a copy of the group photo she had taken, but it turned out that she had come round the boat with them during the cruise. She hadn’t come outside, so we didn’t know she had been round. Fortunately, Greg had purchased the photo package and said he only wanted the small copies of the picture, so he gave us the larger, framed picture and then wouldn’t let me pay him for it, he said it was a wedding gift! That was so kind of him, and it really is a lovely photo of us all.

Returning to Boulder City was next, for lunch. Robin had found a place called Chilly Jillyz, which was a really quirky, fast-food restaurant that apparently served pineapple Dole Whip. It was only a few minutes’ drive from Lake Mead, so we all headed there. We parked up and went inside, dragging 3 tables together so we could all sit as a group. There was a whole line of dispensers of yummy, iced goodness on the wall next to us – frozen custard, dole whip in different flavours, frozen yoghurt, and a small number of ice-cream flavours too. DH wanted a burger, but I was invoking a rule from an online friend, who substitutes one meal per holiday with ice-cream – known as The Russo Rule, (named after its inventor!). Therefore, DH had a Black & Blue Burger with fries and coffee, and I picked up a medium-sized cardboard tub and headed determinedly for the dispensers ……. I had a swirl each of cheesecake frozen yogurt, pineapple dole whip, orange dole whip, and chocolate & vanilla frozen custard. This was sold by weight and the total cost was only $6, which I thought was good! I also ordered an iced coffee. DH said his lunch was really nice, but mine was just amazing – everything I thought it would be, and more!

After lunch we began the drive back to the Golden Nugget. We weren’t really sure of the direction we were going in, and Robin, who drives it like she stole it, soon disappeared. So we carried on following Paula and Wes, but at a very busy traffic junction, we spotted Robin and Larry up ahead, and they turned left. Paula and Wes turned right, and we dithered! We finally ended up following Paula and Wes, but then after a couple of minutes we realised they would probably be heading back to their Air B&B, as they weren’t staying with us at the Golden Nugget. We totally forgot they had Karen and Clive in their car, who WERE staying with us! So we executed a quick u-turn and tried to find our way back on our own. We got the general direction right, and could actually see our hotel, but couldn’t find out how to drive to it, all the roads we followed seemed to go elsewhere. I imagined Robin and Larry would be in the hotel foyer, panicking, worrying about where we had got to. Well, we finally managed to find the Golden Nugget multi-storey car park, and after parking, went into the foyer, expecting to see our friends worrying about us. They were nowhere to be seen! I rang Robin, and it turned out that they were completely unaware of their little lost chicks, and were busy shopping in a 7-11 somewhere – she seemed very bemused by my panicky phone call! Charming.

We headed up to our room, and DH promptly lay down for a nap. I spent some time getting ready, I put my dress and net petticoats on, added make-up and my halo of artificial flowers, and woke DH up after an hour. In typical man style, he threw on his clothes and was ready in about 3 minutes flat!

At 6 ‘clock we met everyone at the front desk. Everyone looked lovely! Larry and Greg were wearing kilts and looked amazing, Clive had a cream-coloured suit and trilby on and looked so dapper, and all the ladies looked gorgeous. I felt so honoured that everyone had made such an effort, just for us! We set out for what we thought was about a 10 minute walk to the Graceland Chapel, but it turned out to be a lot further than we had realised, and it actually took us closer to half an hour to get there. I felt guilty about this, as we had turned down the offer from the Chapel of a free limo to take us there, (you just have to tip the driver), thinking it wasn’t worth it was it was only a short walk away.

Anyway, we got there in the end, and while everyone took photos of each other outside, I went inside to register and complete the paperwork. I had paid a deposit of $100, so had to pay a further $99 plus taxes, and sign a form. I was given a hand-tied posy of real flowers, which was really pretty – there was a pink rosebud, bits of fern, and a sprig of Baby’s Breath, all tied up with pink ribbon. I also received a pink rosebud buttonhole for DH. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all, I had expected a bunch of artificial flowers, but everything was really pretty and fresh. I went back outside and pinned DH’s buttonhole to his shirt.

(There was what looked like a real wedding going on before ours, the bride was very tall and willowy in a long, elegant white dress, and her groom and guests all looked like gangsters - gulp!)

Next, we were shown into a waiting room, and were extremely surprised to hear traditional wedding music being played for the bride before us – surely if you are going to somewhere called “The Graceland Chapel”, you would want the Elvis wedding, not a traditional one. We had passed 3 or 4 wedding chapels on our way here, all of which looked like they were traditional, so we wondered why this family had opted for what they had? Ah well, I guess it was their choice.

So we had been sitting around this waiting room for about 15 minutes, when there was a knock on the door leading to outside. Wes, who was nearest the door, stood up and opened the door. A very tall and handsome Elvis walked in, turned to him and said, “Thank you very much”, in a perfect Elvis voice – we all fell about laughing! It just added to the surrealness of the event, and was so much fun – he joined in our laughter, before excusing himself and disappearing off somewhere. Not long after this, the wedding party before us left the chapel, and a very nice young lady escorted us all inside. I was asked to stand at the back of the chapel, DH was directed to the front, and then everyone else was told to just take seats in the pews. She then ran through what was going to happen, just so everyone was clear.

She left, and the next person we met was Diago, our photographer. The vow renewal package we had bought included the photographer, although we had to tip him, but didn’t include any photos. These could then be viewed online after the event and any purchases made.

Suddenly, Elvis walked in. He looked amazing, wearing a black and gold jumpsuit, lots of gold jewellery, and high-heeled black boots. He was a lot taller than I was expecting, DH is 6’4” and Elvis was even taller than him! He introduced himself to me, which was quite amusing, and then asked me which song out of two I would like him to sing, as he walked me down the aisle. I selected, “Love me Tender”, as I prefer that to the other choice, “Can’t help falling in love”. He tucked my hand inside his crooked arm, and we slowly walked down the aisle as he crooned to me. It was actually very lovely, and nowhere near as tacky as I was expecting!

Elvis asked us to repeat our renewal vows after him, and they were beautiful, and surprisingly tender and apt words. Then he said we had to repeat the “Elvis Vows”, which were all made up of lines from his hit songs and were very funny. DH is an incredible mimic, and managed to say his in EXACTLY the same voice as Elvis, which kept making Elvis laugh! (Out of the corner of my eye, I could see little Eilidh fast asleep on the pew, she was having a bit of trouble adjusting to the vastly different time zone, poor little flower.) Everyone then joined in with singing, “Viva Las Vegas”, with enthusiasm and much laughter. I can honestly say this was one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life! Everyone seemed to be having a great time, there was a lot of laughter and fun, and equally the vows were surprisingly sweet and very moving. Afterwards, everyone in the group kept telling us how much fun they had had! Elvis insisted on having a photo taken of himself with Larry and Greg, as I think he was impressed with their kilts. Everyone then cleared out to the waiting room while Diago took a few more photos with just us and Elvis, then Elvis shook our hands and left, and Diago took a few more photos before telling us he had to unfortunately deal with the financial side now! We paid him the $60 Minister’s Fee for Elvis, plus his own tip of $20, and he gave us a business card with details and the password to view our photos online. We have 6 months to view and make our purchases, and we have already decided to make up a photobook with some of them, as we did this for our actual wedding 7 years ago.

Eventually, we rejoined our friends in the waiting room, and went outside to take more photos with our phones, before making our way back towards Fremont Street. (Paula and Wes had driven there, so got back in their car to drive to the Golden Nugget parking garage). We were all talking about the lovely day we had had, and trying to decide where to go to eat. With that many people involved, it was difficult to find somewhere that we all agreed on! Plus it had been a long and eventful day, and we were all a bit tired by then. Clive suggested we go to Hennesey’s Irish Bar, which was at the end of Fremont Street and which we were approaching by that point, and we all agreed with him that it looked a good place to go. We all trouped inside and found a table that would seat us all. Larry popped back to the Golden Nugget, and we ordered some drinks as we wanted to wait before ordering food until we were all there. I ordered a bottle of Bud, and DH got a pint of IPA with a Jamieson’s whisky chaser, which was Clive’s fault as he was urging DH to celebrate our vow renewal! The waitress began to take our food orders as Wes and Paula, and Larry, reappeared to join us all. DH and I were not very hungry, so decided to share a grilled chicken club sandwich with fries, which was delicious, and exactly what we needed. DH had a second pint and chaser! We had a lovely couple of hours, everyone chatting away, with Eilidh still fast asleep across her dad’s lap! She didn’t wake up once, not even to drink her milk in a souvenir cup.

After we had all finished dinner, we started to walk up Fremont Street back to our hotel. The street was absolutely heaving with people! There were loads of very scantily dressed young ladies, (and some not so young!), wanting people to pose with them for photos and then to pay them, youngsters doing magic tricks for cash, and stalls of touristy items for sale. The atmosphere was amazing, it was so electric! We didn’t feel unsafe, although obviously we were alert for possible pickpockets etc. It was hard not to gawp at the alleged “firemen” wearing just a pair of tight trousers and a fireman’s helmet, and we noticed the nipple covers on the women got smaller and smaller the further we got down Fremont Street! There were quite a few ‘showgirls’, wearing a tiny pair of sequinned knickers with a huge plume of feathers attached behind, high feathered headdresses, and it looked like they were topless until you saw the front of them and they had bits of sparkly tape across their nipples! They looked amazing. There was one woman who we only saw from the back at first, she was wearing tiny, black leather shorts and a matching, strappy bra. She had a lovely bum, then she turned round and we saw her face – she looked like she was about 75! Two young ladies wearing nothing but three strips of strategically placed leather called over to me, and told me I looked beautiful! (I still had flowers in my hair and my 1950s dress with net petticoats on). It seemed okay to glance and admire, but we had to try and avoid eye contact with anyone in case they thought that was encouragement, although we never felt pressurised or hassled by anyone to pose for photos.

As the street was so busy, we lost sight of everyone else before we got to the Golden Nugget, but Robin had asked us to go up to their room on the 20th floor, as she said there was a surprise there for us. We got into the lift at the hotel, but as it is operated by scanning your room key as a security measure, we couldn’t get up beyond the 17th floor. At this point, we had forgotten they were on the 20th floor, and thought they were on the 22nd. DH suggested we take the stairs from there, as it was only another 5 floors. I grumbled, but we hunted around and found the stairwell, and began to climb. The sets of stairs were quite long, and there were 10 sets before we saw the door for the 22nd floor. But – again, due to security measures, the doors would only open from the other side! I pulled out my phone to call Robin and see if someone could come and let us in, but there was no internet signal in the stairwell! We had no choice but to tramp down 44 sets of stairs to try and get out. At the door for each floor, DH tried the door but none of them opened, until we got to the 4th floor. There was a sign on the door that said, “Employees only”, and the door opened when he tried it, but it only led to some kitchen area, so we carried on down. The 3rd and 2nd floor also had Employee only exits, and when we got to the ground floor, the door stated “Emergency Exit only”! Regardless of whether this would set off an alarm, we had no choice but to exit through this door, as otherwise we were trapped. The exit spat us out next to the car parking garage, no idea how this happened. We were hot, exhausted, and thirsty by this point, I was understandably quite ratty, and DH just kept laughing at my moaning, which didn’t help! I suppose with hindsight, it was quite a funny situation. Anyway, once outside I was able to contact Robin and she sent Larry to meet us at the elevator on the 17th floor, so he could take us up to their room on the 20th floor (not the 22nd!).

We finally got there, discovered everyone else was there too, (apart from Greg who had had to put Eilidh to bed, bless her), and I was able to slump on a sofa and tell the story, which by that point was indeed quite amusing. Robin poured us glasses of cold Coke, and we saw the beautiful cake she had ordered for us from a bakery near Boulder City! It was gorgeous, a vanilla layer cake with strawberries and cream filling, and a white chocolate “Married in Vegas!” sign on top of it, along with plastic dice, white chocolate poker chips, and King & Queen of Hearts playing cards. The buttercream frosting was white, red, and black, it just looked spectacular! We couldn’t believe they had got this cake for us, and there was also paper plates and napkins themed to the King & Queen of Hearts, red plastic forks, and matching plastic glasses. We all had a huge piece of this delicious cake, which helped me get over the ordeal of “stair-gate”! Robin and Larry really are lovely people, and such good friends to us. Eventually, everyone started to leave, and Robin asked if we could leave the cake there until tomorrow, so that Greg and Eilidh could have some, which we agreed to.

We finally got back to our room after 11.00 p.m., thoroughly exhausted but having had an amazing, surreal, incredible day! Bed.

DAY 3 – Monday 10 June

Plan : Las Vegas Neon Museum

Actual : After yesterday’s action-packed day, we were up slightly later this morning. We got washed and dressed, and went down to the Starbucks that was at the back of our hotel, fronting onto Fremont Street. I got DS an Americano, and I had a Java Chip Frappuccino, which was delicious! We met everyone at our regular meeting place in the lobby, and then all grabbed our cars and drove a short way to the Las Vegas Neon Museum. This is the place where all Vegas neon signs go to die! Robin had a Groupon offer that gave $2 off the entrance fee, so we took advantage of this and it only cost us $18 each then. We walked through the gift shop, intending to visit that afterwards, and went outside to the exhibition.

Basically, this place takes in donated, old neon signs from hotels, restaurants, nightclubs etc., then renovates them and displays them. It was amazing! Quite small, and easy to get around, which was a bit of a bonus as the weather was incredibly hot today, approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and there isn’t anywhere to shelter from the sunshine as you walk around the exhibits. We had a lovely time looking around, and were delighted to find an old Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino sign, from when the hotel had first opened in 1946. There were a few tour guides hanging around, and they told us interesting information about some of the exhibits. The original Las Vegas Hard Rock Café guitar was there, it was absolutely huge, towering over all the other exhibits!

We had a really lovely time, wandering around and taking photos, interspersed with sitting in a shaded seating area for a drink of water and a chat with whichever of our friends happened to be there at the time. At one point, I suddenly turned to Larry and told him that I had checked my spreadsheet, and realised that we did indeed have reservation passes to visit Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland. I said I had forgotten that I’d managed to grab some when Disney had released the second wave of reservations, and that I’d got some for the same date and time as they already had them for. He looked a bit doubtful, but said he was happy about that.

Eventually, we went back into the gift shop and picked up a few things, including the usual pin for DH.

Once everyone had finished looking round, we all went back to the cars and drove back towards the Golden Nugget to find somewhere for lunch. We found a place to park, on the road, and walked around a bit to try and find somewhere to eat. As no-one had had any breakfast, we were all starving! We found a row of small restaurants near the courthouse, but they were all a bit too small to seat all of us together, so it was decided that each couple would just go into wherever they fancied. We went into Anthony’s NY Pizza and Deli, as did everyone else in the end! I sent DH to find us a seat, and stood behind Clive in the queue. The lady who served him thought we were together, as we’d been chatting and laughing in the queue! The staff there were lovely, lots of fun and really friendly. Anyway, I ordered chicken fingers & fries for me, and a turkey sub and fries for DH, along with coffee for him and a soft drink for me (self-serve machine, I went straight for the Minute Maid Lemonade, yum!). It wasn’t long before we had our food, and it was delicious, we really enjoyed it. During lunch, Wes popped out and kindly topped up our car parking ticket, as we hadn’t been able to get more than 1 hour at a time.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, which was just around the corner. Larry, Greg and Eilidh went swimming, we quite fancied doing this until we saw how crowded the pool was, and that it was in direct sunshine, with no shade. Karen and Clive went to visit the Mob Museum, which we also really fancied doing but it was a good 10 minute walk away and we were very hot and tired, so we opted for some downtime in our room. We ended up falling asleep for 2 hours!

We had arranged to all meet up at the Claims Jumper Restaurant in the hotel, for dinner later, where Robin had booked a table for us all. However, when we got there, we were told that that particular restaurant didn’t accept reservations and we would have a to wait for an available table for 10 of us! Very bizarre, but eventually we all got seated. We both ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, DH with ham, and mine just with cheese. Mine arrived with added bacon though, which I was happy with – it was really good! DH had a side of onion rings, and I got a bowl of fresh fruit, which turned out to be mostly melon, and 2 grapes. We also had coffee. Karen was telling us all about the Mob Museum, and I really wished we hadn’t been too tired to go there, as it sounded great!

After a great evening with our friends, we headed to Starbucks to pick up a couple of “You are Here” Las Vegas mugs, as we collect these from our travels around the world. Then we went to the small hotel store and got a Golden Nugget t-shirt each, (which were on offer, $16 each or two for $25). Bed.

DAY 4 – Tuesday 11 June

Plan : Explore the Las Vegas strip

Actual : We all met downstairs in the lobby at 7.45 a.m., to head out to breakfast together. Wes and Paula were heading out of Vegas for a small road trip of their own, so we shared a last meal with them before they departed. Our destination today was Hash House A-Go-Go, which we’d decided on following a discussion last night. It was about a 2 minute walk further down Fremont Street, and seemed quite quiet that morning. Fremont Street looks so different during the daytime!

All seated, we perused the menu and decided on pancakes. I ordered a Red Velvet pancake, with a side order of bacon. When it arrived, the pancake was bigger than my head! It was drizzled with cream cheese frosting, and was just superb, but I had to get a ‘to-go’ box as I only managed about half of it! DH got something called the Tractor Driver Combo – eggs, sausage patty, home fries, and a chocolate chip pancake. He managed to eat most of it, but had to put about a quarter of his pancake in the box with mine. We also got coffee, and it was all really good. (A tad expensive though, at $45 for breakfast.) When we left, Paula and Wes waved everyone goodbye for a couple of days, (at her insistence, I had given Paula a shopping list and some money to pick up some bottled water and a few other bits for us, as they would be passing a large supermarket and I had been thinking of things we would need for our road trip later in the holiday. We could collect these things from them when we all got to Disneyland), and they set off on their road trip.

Yesterday, we’d spotted a notice up in one of the casino areas of our hotel, stating that Complimentary Craps Lessons would be taking place today at 10:45, so we’d all agreed to give that a go. So after breakfast we headed for our craps lesson. Robin had played before, albeit online, so had an idea of what was going on, but we just stood and stared – it went completely over our heads! I don’t have a mathematical brain, which didn’t help, but also the guy who was giving the lesson wasn’t the best teacher. He went through everything really quickly, and didn’t give me chance to ask why particular numbers were ‘high’ or what on earth the ‘pass line’ meant. Plus, rather than giving us some ‘test’ chips to play with and experience it for ourselves, he just showed us everything and expected us to follow along. After about 15 minutes of this, DH and I got somewhat confused and bored, agreeing quietly between ourselves that we would have been able to learn better had we been allowed to pretend-play ourselves. I think others in our group enjoyed it, and we were glad we had given it a go, but we came away more baffled than when we arrived!

Eilidh was very tired, she and Greg and been up since 3.00 a.m., so they went back to their room for a nap. The rest of us went to Starbucks, got drinks, and sat outside on Fremont Street to relax and chat. DH got his usual Americano and I had another Java Chip Frappuccino. After an hour, we agreed to meet up at 2 at our usual spot to go and explore the Las Vegas Strip, and everyone went back to their rooms for a bit of rest and relaxation. We followed Larry and Robin up to their room to collect a couple of things we had ordered a couple of months ago and had delivered to them, although stupidly we forgot to pick up the rest of our cake from them at that point.

(Walt Disney World had announced that they were retiring the “Walk Around the World” commemorative bricks from their property, due to various areas of redevelopment, and had offered replicas for sale for anyone that wanted one. Anyone who had originally bought one, like myself and my sister, could buy a replica at a deeply discounted price. Unfortunately, they neglected to tell us, until we got to the checkout point on the Disney Shop website, that they wouldn’t post these replicas outside the USA! We were both quite upset about this, my sister wanted a copy of her brick for herself, and I wanted to get both my kids one each as Christmas gifts. Robin to the rescue – she allowed us to have them all delivered to her in Lubbock, and then brought them all the way to Vegas with her, for me to collect. She also let me have a Haunted Mansion print tablecloth delivered to her, too! The bricks are beautiful, I got exact replicas of my original, right down to the location number printed on it, and they are actually made of brick, rather than the resin replica I was expecting!)

We freshened up in our room and then relaxed a little, with DH taking a short nap, before heading downstairs again. Not everyone opted for the Strip tour, Robin was staying back to rest, and Clive had already headed out to the Main Street Casino for a spot of Las Vegas-style gambling. Karen was very much in charge of this section of the trip, she knew exactly what to do! We walked a few minutes down Fremont Street to a big junction, turned left and found the bus stop, where we pre-purchased a kind of day-saver bus ticket for $8 each. Before we got to Vegas, I had naively thought we would be able to stroll all the way down the Strip; in reality, it is huge, 6 miles long and very wide, making it impossible to stroll gently down!

We didn’t have to wait long before our bus arrived, and we all boarded. About 20 minutes later, we all got off at the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. We were really surprised at how small this sign is, we had thought it was going to be massive, but it seemed really tiny! There was a queue of people waiting to take their photos with the sign behind them, but we weren’t bothered about the sign being central in a photo, so just walked to one side of it to take pictures. We crossed over to the other side of the road, and waited for a bus back, as we were going to explore some of the hotels. The Luxor looks a lot smaller than I thought it would! The sun was blazing down and the temperature was around 112 degrees today, so the amount of exploring we were going to be able to do was somewhat limited. Karen had a think about the best hotel to take us around, and we got off the bus near to the Bellagio so we could watch the dancing fountains. From there, we walked into Caesar’s Palace. This place was enormous!

We spent the next couple of hours just exploring this one hotel, walking through all the different areas. There was a massive, multi-level shopping mall inside it, full of high-end stores and an astonishing, curved escalator, which we were all amazed at as we couldn’t work out how this worked. We sat for a few minutes in the shopping mall, which had a very high ceiling, covered in blue sky and clouds which moved, (I presume this was a projection of some kind). We browsed one or two shops, looked at the amazing fountains and statues, it was just an incredible place.

When we left there, we could see the Venetian, Parisian, and MGM hotels, but they were all so big and we were all hot and tired by then, so we decided to call it a day and make our way back. Back onto a bus we all piled, just glad for a bit of air conditioning.

We got back to the Golden Nugget and all went to our rooms, agreeing to meet up for dinner later. I had a shower, DH took another nap. At 6 p.m. we met everyone downstairs, Karen and Clive were just having a cocktail but we declined to join them, as we were tired enough without adding alcohol to the mix! We all walked out onto Fremont Street to find somewhere for dinner. We walked past the Heart Attack Grill, pausing to peer inside at the diners all dressed in hospital gowns and with drinks at their sides served in IV bags on stands. No-one particularly fancied being spanked by a waitress for not finishing their dinner, so we walked on.

Robin was busy Googling dinner places, and she found a place called Eureka nearby, which had a menu we all quite fancied, so we headed there. It looked lovely, all bare brick walls and industrial lighting, very hipster. DH ordered a beer, and the Eureka burger with fries. I got corn-dog lollipops, fries, and stuck with iced water. The food was expensive but all really good, and we enjoyed our last dinner together, as Karen and Clive would be departing tomorrow morning.

After dinner, we struggled against the crowds making Fremont Street mad and loud, and finally got back to the Golden Nugget with our sanity mostly intact. We said a sad goodbye to Karen, but Clive had popped off somewhere to do a bit of last-minute gambling, so we never did get to say farewell to him. We had had a really fab day, and we thanked Karen for her time earlier on, in showing us around Caesar’s Palace.

The temperature today had been 107 degrees C, with a bit of cloud.

We made our way up to our room, and DH relaxed while I took a shower, then we packed up as much as we could as our adventure in Vegas would be over tomorrow! Bed.

DAY 5 – Wednesday 12 June

Plan : Drive to Anaheim

Actual : We both slept really well, and got up at 9.00 a.m. We did the last bits of packing, and then finished off our leftover pancakes from yesterday. DH went to get the car, while I checked out, and then we loaded up the cases and drove back into the parking garage to set up the Satnav. We had a couple of problems with it, as not only was the bracket for fixing it to the windscreen extremely fiddly to get right, but also we couldn’t seem to get any sound on the thing, so I had to keep watching it and directing DH where to go.

Anyway, we waved goodbye to the Golden Nugget, and set off for the I15, which was really easy to find. We drove along this freeway for about 1.5 hours, before stopping at a Rest Stop. We were 4,000 feet above sea level, according to a sign we saw there! The Rest Stop was lovely, really clean and with spotless restrooms. We read the information boards, they were really interesting, and they informed us we were now on the edge of the Mojave desert. The views around us were absolutely stunning – mountains, desert, very desolate but so colourful.

We got back in the car and drove on for another hour, before stopping in a place called Baker for lunch. We spotted a Denny’s, so headed there. We both got coffee, then DH had an All-American Slam, and I got another Build-Your-Own Slam, with bacon, scrambled egg with cheese, biscuit, and hash browns. It was all really good, and we got some coffee to go.

Back on the road again, at one point we drove past a sign that pointed to a road called, “ZZYZX Road” – no idea how that would be pronounced! We got a little lost between the I15 and the 215, but then managed to find the next freeway we needed. We also got a bit lost again when we tried to find our hotel in Anaheim – it finally dawned on me that I had been reading the coloured arrows on the Satnav incorrectly and had been directing DH to follow the wrong ones! It didn’t help that I hadn’t used this make of Satnav before, (TomTom), and we didn’t have an instruction manual, plus she still wasn’t speaking to us! Oh, and the minor detail that I am totally rubbish at road navigation, you can pretty much guarantee I will get us lost at some point if I’m in charge of directions …..

We finally pulled up in front of the Best Western Plus Suites, parked the car, and went into reception. To be told there were two Best Western Plus Suites, and we were at the wrong one! Sigh. We got back into the car, drove about 200 yards down the road, and finally found the right one. DH parked and I went into reception, to be allocated room 105, which was very close to reception. The lady who checked us in told me where to go for breakfast, but didn’t tell me that it was included in the room price, which I didn’t know about. I went to find DH and he had parked next to Larry and Robin’s car! Apparently, they had got here about an hour before us; after dropping Karen and Clive off at the airport, they had stopped at the same Rest Stop as us, but had gone somewhere else for lunch, albeit in the same town as we had stopped in. Larry spotted us parking and came out to help us with the cases. They were going to Downtown Disney to get some food, so rather than freshen up a bit first, we just dropped everything in our room and went with them. This hotel is almost directly over the road from the drive that takes you to both Disney parks, and Downtown Disney, so we didn’t have far to walk. Greg and Eilidh were with them as well, plus Larry’s other son, Ed, who we hadn’t met yet. Wes and Paula would be joining us tomorrow, too. Ed seemed really nice!

We wandered through Downtown Disney, happy to be there and enjoying the atmosphere. We managed to find Robin and Larry’s commemorative brick in the walkway around the Disneyland entrance, so took some photos of them standing near it.

After a brief discussion, we all agreed on The Earl of Sandwich for dinner. DH and I had what we usually have from EOS, an Original 1762 for me, and an Hawaiian Barbeque for DH. I got him a bag of chips and some coffee, and got Sprite for myself. Dinner was lovely, we were all excited to finally be at Disney, plus we all really love Earl of Sandwich!

After we had all finished, we took a slow stroll through Downtown, and into the World of Disney, where we all went off in different directions. I had told everyone I needed to get some Minnie ears, and was on the lookout for a pair of Potion Purple ears, which are fairly new. However, I couldn’t find any and a Cast Member said they had sold out, so I settled for a pair of Briar Rose Gold ears instead, although they are pretty much the same colour as my Rose Gold ears, just a different fabric. I also picked up three Sprit Jerseys – I am a bit obsessed with these, but they are so comfortable and stylish. I got a Potion Purple one for me, and a Heavenly Blue one for DH, but then I spotted one I had wanted for months but thought was no longer being made – the Cotton Candy jersey! They have recently been re-released but with Stitch on the front, and I’m not really a fan of Stitch, so didn’t think I’d be able to get one, but there were loads of the original style in World of Disney, and I managed to get one!

We all met up again outside the store, and Larry was still fretting about Galaxy’s Edge on Saturday morning – every time he had asked me where we were staying, I had just had to keep saying, “The Best Western over the road from Disneyland”. Now Robin was muttering to me that she really wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up for, as he kept asking her again who was staying where, and in the end I just quietly said to her, “tell him now”. So she did, telling him that whereas he had thought that they were just staying in a standard room at the Grand Californian, in actual fact they would be staying in a Grand Villa, and that all his family and friends would be joining them there! He stared at Robin for a few seconds, before the true Scot/Yorkshire in him burst out asking how much that had cost! I think it was just shock, as he soon seemed to warm to the idea and agreed that it was indeed a nice surprise. I was quick to reassure him that I had paid for both DH and myself, and Robin said that Paula and Wes had also paid, so he seemed a bit happier after that!

We then made arrangements for the next morning, before returning to our respective rooms at the Best Western. Ours really was a lovely room, with a King-sized bed and lots of space, and it seemed a shame to be only staying for one night! The coffee machine was a pod one, so I made us a cup of coffee each and then popped the spare pods into the food bag, in case we encountered this type of machine again anywhere on our travels. We got our clothes ready for the next day as we would be having a very early start, and finally fell into bed, glad to be starting the next leg of the adventure.

DAY 6 – Thursday 13 June

Plan : Move to Grand Californian Grand Villa, explore Disneyland

Actual : We were very excited to be back at Disneyland, and thus it took us ages to get to sleep last night! We still managed to get up at 7.00 a.m. though, and packed up the car. We discussed whether to have breakfast at the Best Western, or whether to just get on with our day and eat later, and decided on the latter, (not realising that breakfast was included in the hotel package; however, I’m not sure even that would have kept us from Disneyland this morning!). We drove round to the Grand Californian hotel, not quite able to believe we would really be staying there, and pulled up at the front of the hotel. We opted to valet park, it would be $10 more than self-parking, but we thought it would be worth it to save time. After unloading the cases and handing over the car, we took our luggage to bell services for storage, then we took a seat in the lobby of the Grand Californian hotel, where we had sat in 2014 in awe, and had a brief moment of disbelief that this was going to be our home for the next 4 days. I called Robin to see what the plan of action was for later, and we agreed to meet up at the Carthay Circle restaurant in Californian Adventure for our World of Colour Dining Package lunch at 2.15, (those guys were already in the park, busily riding things!).

After we had been sitting down for about 5 minutes, a Cast Member came over to chat, but we had experienced this last time we were here in 2014, and knew that she was going to try and talk us into attending a DVC presentation, so we gathered ourselves together, politely bade her goodbye, and purposefully set off for Californian Adventure. We were able to walk through the lobby to the back entrance to the park, and followed the signs until we saw the way in.

We passed through the security scanners, and approached the turnstiles. I handed over the printed-off tickets I had bought, and the Cast Member there took a photo of us each, which then scanned onto paper, printed Disneyland park tickets, which also had our name on. We were good to go!

The Grand Californian entrance brings you into the park by Grizzly Peak. We headed round to start our day with a trip on Soarin’, which had become Soarin’ Over California for the month of June, for some reason. We were a bit torn about this – we were excited to see the original version of the film, which we love, but equally we were a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t see the Californian version of the new Soarin’ film, which we assume had a different ending to the one in Epcot, in Florida. Anyway, standby was showing as 20 minutes, but I noticed the FastPass return time was at the exact time we were there, so I dashed off to pick up a couple of FastPasses, before we joined the standby queue. Within 10 minutes we were boarding – and it was amazing. The film had been digitally cleaned up and was really crisp and sharp, and despite being in row 2 with feet dangling above us, we absolutely loved it! All the scents were really strong, too. We raced back round to board with our FastPasses straight away, and within 5 minutes we were seated in my favourite row, number 1!

We were a bit hungry by now, so we decided pie from Flo’s V8 Café would be good. We headed over to Cars Land, one of our favourite areas of this park, and really enjoyed walking through it. We got to Flo’s and went inside, only to find they no longer do pie! The pumpkin spice apple & cheddar pies we so loved in 2014 were gone, and they had no pies at all! We had to settle for standard breakfast, so DH had the American Breakfast – scrambled egg, bacon, potatoes, biscuit, coffee. I had the kid’s Waffle breakfast – waffle, melon and strawberry, bacon, and a small chocolate milk. It was delicious, if not quite what we had had in mind. Ah well, at least I have the recipe for the apple & cheddar pies at home, I can still make them there.

We watched Radiator Springs Racers as we ate, knowing that that was our next destination! The FastPass machines had moved since we were last here, but we found them eventually (after having had to ask a Cast Member!), and picked up some for the Racers, with a return time of 1.35 p.m. The standby wait time was up to 70 minutes, so we happily went into the single rider line, which is never very long here, and within 5 minutes we were boarding, just a couple of cars apart. The ride was as fab as we remembered! We both got the new paint job side, but DH’s car won their race and ours came second in our race. We had so much fun!

We wandered around a bit more, deciding we really didn’t want to do the two other rides there. Mator’s Junkyard Jamboree swizzles you around a lot, (ugh!), and Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters hadn’t worked properly the last time we had tried them, so they didn’t really appeal to us now.

I asked DH if he fancied doing Ariel, which is always a question he is happy to hear, so we went over to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, which was a walk on, and is always fun to experience. We sang happily along with all the fishes and sea creatures, and I delighted in pointing out Ariel and Eric’s wedding at the end to a slightly besotted and sulky DH.

Then we took a stroll around Pixar Pier, which has been remodelled and re-themed since we were last here. It was really lovely! I asked DH if he wanted to ride the Incredi-Coaster, but he said he would think about it. He goes on rollercoasters now that he wouldn’t have dreamt of doing years ago, but sometimes he still needs a bit of thinking time before he will tackle a new one. Along the way we picked up a couple of pins for DH, and then we stopped at Corn Dog Castle for some coffee, sitting on the side of a flower planter for a relaxing drink. We enjoyed looking at all the attractions and décor here, but didn’t ride anything else as wait times were too long. We did see the new Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind ride, which was still a couple of weeks away from opening and surrounded by hoardings, undertaking some test whirls. Toy Story Midway Mania was something we would have ridden, but it was really busy, and as we weren’t in any rush and just wanted to just enjoy being at the park, we carried on round until we were at Grizzly Peak again, at which point I sat on a bench while DH went outside the park and back through the Grand Californian to a smoking area.

When DH returned, we went to Hollywoodland, and rode Mike & Sully to the Rescue (20 mins standby), before going back over to Radiator Springs Racers to use our FastPasses. We spotted Larry in the single rider queue as we exited, and reckoned that would mean that Robin would be waiting for him near the exit. We were right, as we found her quite easily, and stood and chatted to her for a few minutes until Larry reappeared. We all walked to Carthay Circle together for our lunch.

It was fun to meet up with everyone now, we met Megan and Michael, and John and Stephanie for the first time, who are family and friends of Robin and Larry’s. Paula and Wes were back with us now too, making our group 13 people in total! We learnt that Michael is a big fan of churros, having managed to set his own record for eating numbers of them on each visit to either Disneyland or Walt Disney World, and every time he visited a Disney park he was on a mission to beat his previous record!

This was our first visit to Carthay Circle, and it reminded us of Walt’s American Diner in Disneyland Paris. It was a lovely place, and was quite quiet, so we were seated straightaway. This was a 3-course lunch, which would also get us FastPass tickets for World of Colour later tonight. We ordered glasses of orange soda, and perused the menu. For starters, DH ordered Tortilla Chicken soup, and I had strawberry and jicama salad, although I had to ask what jicama was, and it turned out to be a fairly tasteless but very crunchy root vegetable, and overall the salad was delicious. DH said his soup was a bit spicy, but was very nice and he enjoyed it. My main course was a really fresh and tasty chicken salad, and DH went with chicken meatballs with pasta. To finish, DH had a delicious chocolate mousse – I tried a bit and it was yummy! I had a strawberry popsicle, which had tiny bits of meringue and marshmallow fluff on it. The popsicle was strawberry ice-cream with a white chocolate coating, and I wasn’t quite sure whether to eat it with a spoon, knife and fork, or just pick it up by the stick, but in the end I used a mixture of both spoon and fingers. It was gorgeous! Really creamy and not too sweet. We really enjoyed this meal, the company was so much fun and the food was all delicious. At the end, we were all given our World of Colour FastPasses for later.

After lunch, some of the youngsters went off to do more exploring, whilst we went with Robin and Larry to see if our villa was ready yet. Robin had already checked in earlier, and had been given the room number, but we knew the room wouldn’t be ready for us until around mid-afternoon, so we took a slow stroll over to the Grand Californian. Our villa was indeed ready, and so we all headed up to the 4th floor.

Our villa number was 4522, and Robin handed our room cards to us. In we all went. Wow – this place was breathtaking. It was on two floors, with a door to the corridor on each floor, and had 3 large bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a full-sized kitchen with dining room, a lounge with the biggest TV I have ever seen on the wall, full-length windows in the lounge that looked out over the theme park, a pool table on the upstairs indoors balcony, and outside balconies in the dining room, and each of the 2 upstairs bedrooms. There were TVs everywhere! The master bedroom, which was downstairs and had an accessible bathroom, was enormous! There was just so much space everywhere, and it was a good job that Robin knew who was sleeping where as it was just so overwhelming. We had our own (double queen beds) bedroom and en-suite bathroom upstairs, John and Stephanie were on a double sofa-bed on the top landing, next to the pool table, then Megan and Michael, and Wes and Paula, shared the other upstairs bedroom, which had 2 queen beds in it. (I felt a bit guilty that we had a spare queen sized bed in our room and people were having to sleep on sofa beds, but we didn’t really know anyone well enough at this point to share a bedroom with them.) Robin and Larry got the master bedroom downstairs, and then Ed was sleeping on one sofa in the lounge, with Greg and Eilidh on the other sofa bed in the lounge.

We all ran around like kids, exploring all the rooms, and then Robin and I called down to bell services to get our luggage. Robin also requested the grocery delivery that she had pre-ordered, and very soon everything started to arrive. We had our luggage delivered to the 5th floor rather than the 4th, so we could get it all in and straight into our bedroom. I unpacked a small amount, mainly just the toiletries, and we checked out the view from our bedroom balcony – straight across to Mickey’s Fun Wheel in California Adventure! We could also see a small backstage area behind the outdoor Lion King show from where we were, too. DH then did his usual thing and lay down for a nap.

I helped Robin to put the groceries away, she had got bread, butter, breakfast cereal, soda, bottled water, bacon, eggs, cheese, crackers, crisps, tiny, bite-sized bars of candy, ground coffee, milk, juice, assorted nuts, trail mix, yoghurt, just loads of stuff! She also got paper cups, plates and bowls, just so everyone could use what they needed without having to wash up. She wouldn’t accept any money for any of this stuff, but just told everyone to help themselves to whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. We put out some bowls of snacks and I put the water and soda into the fridge. Paula also gave me my shopping at this point, that she had picked up for us before they left the Vegas area. I had 24 bottles of Dasani water, 2 boxes of drinks flavouring powders, a huge bag of (essential) Cheetos, and one of Lays salted chips. I stashed these away in our bedroom for future use.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Robin went to answer it, and a Cast Member wheeled in a trolley with a HUGE birthday cake on it! It was round, two layers, and iced like the Matterhorn ride with buttercream rather than frosting, (I was pleased, I find frosting too heavy!), complete with a massive chocolate Yeti on the side of it! On the top was a large ‘mountain’, which we later found out was made of rice krispie treat and covered in chocolate. The Cast Member said it was a present from Disney, for Larry’s birthday! Robin had been looking at birthday cakes for him, and she reckoned this one would have cost at least $300! Despite it not being Larry’s birthday until tomorrow, we all had a slice, and it was an extremely moist chocolate cake, not too rich, and was absolutely delicious. I woke DH up so he could have a piece too! Robin pulled me to one side and said she had also received an email from someone called Amanda, in some Disney department or other, asking us all to be in the reception area of the Grand Californian tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m., and not to let Larry know.

We made some coffee and discovered that the coffee machine was very, very, very slow to brew – we waited about 20 minutes for 2 cups of coffee to filter through! Other people were leaving at that point, so we swigged our coffee down and headed back out into the park, with instructions to meet at the World of Colour viewing area 30 minutes before the start of the show.

We headed back into Grizzly Peak, agreeing that we wanted to ride the Grizzly River Raft ride at some point, and that the ideal time to do it would be whilst we were staying at the Grand Californian, so that we could ride it and then go straight back to our villa to change our wet clothing. We had a look at Soarin’, and the wait time said it was 20 minutes, but the line looked much longer than that to us, so I checked with a Cast Member. She said it would be more like 35 minutes, and my face fell. So she asked if it was just the two of us, and when I said yes, she told us to go into the FastPass queue! That was so kind of her, and we were really excited. Within 10 minutes, we were boarding in row 1, and thoroughly enjoying our trip over California again. We do love this ride!

We took a slow walk round to the World of Colour viewing area, which was near the Ariel ride, and entered with our dining FastPasses. To my surprise, there were a few benches there, but as we approached one, a Cast Member told us that they were only for people who couldn’t stand for long, so I explained we both have issues with sore backs, and he let us both sit down. This was nice, and unexpected. We could see some of the others in our party a bit closer to the front, and waved at them. Larry came over and chatted to us for a little while, before going back to Robin when the lights started to dim for the show.

World of Colour was absolutely wonderful, we really enjoyed it. I think it has recently been refurbished, as all the lights were crystal clear and so bright. There also appeared to be tiny bits of glitter in the water fountains, which we hadn’t seen before, but I think they must have been light filters or something, as we didn’t think Disney would have added actual glitter to the water!

After the show, we all gathered together and took a slow walk back to our villa, happy and exhausted. We had all had a really wonderful day. Back at the villa, we relaxed in our room for a little while, before turning off the TV and going to bed. (During the night, we were woken up by flashing lights, and when we looked out of the patio doors, we could see the World of Colour lights and water screens being run – maybe for maintenance? At one point in the early hours, I also woke up to the smell of bacon cooking. I thought I had imagined this, until we spoke to the guys the next morning and it turned out that Michael had had Robin cooking him bacon and eggs when they returned from the parks as he was hungry!)

DAY 7 – Friday 14 June

Plan : Larry’s birthday, Disneyland Park

Actual : We were up bright and early with our alarm at 7.45 a.m., having slept really well. We showered and got ready for the day. Upon stepping out onto our balcony to welcome the day with the view across California Adventure, we could see what looked like islands just under the top surface of the lagoon where World of Colour is screened from. After a lot of hard staring and a fair bit of squinting, we came to the conclusion that these were the mechanisms for the water screens and fountains, which must be on platforms that can be raised up for maintenance. When we checked again later in the day, they had disappeared back under the water.

Downstairs, we both had a can of soda (pink lemonade and Fanta Pineapple) and a bowl of Reece’s Puffs for breakfast, forgoing the coffee as it took too long to brew I gave Larry his birthday card, which I had had made for him and featured the Little Green Aliens from Toy Story, his favourite Disney characters. He really liked it, and we also gave him the colour-changing Little Green Alien mug we had got for him as a birthday gift. Eilidh had made him a birthday card, which was really cute!

We all gathered in the lobby of our hotel for 9.30 a.m, as instructed, and suddenly two official Disney tour guides came over to us. They introduced themselves as Rebecca and Chip, wished Larry ‘happy birthday’, and told us they were going to take us on a tour this morning. (Wow! These type of tour guides are normally really expensive to hire, and we got two of them to ourselves at no cost!) They then handed us “I’m Celebrating” badges, and they all had Larry’s name written on them, as we were all obviously celebrating Larry! Rebecca and Chip then led us through to Downtown Disney, and into the Disneyland Park, then down Main Street, and we turned right into Tomorrowland. People kept staring at us as if we were celebrities! As we walked, the tour guides were telling us lots of really interesting facts about the places we were walking past.

Our guides took us to the Submarine Voyage, one of the 3 rides celebrating their 60th birthday today. Waiting there for us was a Disney employee, who said to DH as we approached, “Hello! You must be Larry!” DH quickly corrected her and pointed to the real Larry, who was walking a little way behind us. She apologised, and then introduced herself as Amanda, the lady who had written to Robin. There was a Cast Member near the Submarine Voyage with a huge, rectangular sign that said, “Submarine Voyage – 60 today!”, and he kept dancing with it behind Larry and pointing at him, which was very funny. Then he got Larry to pose for photos with the sign, and then Amanda gave Larry a huge gift bag, and wished him “happy birthday from everyone at Disney”. Amanda admitted that the Matterhorn birthday cake was from her, too. A man then came over to us, and Robin got really excited at the sight of him – it turned out he was a guy called Justin, the ‘face’ of Disney on YouTube; he does all the promo videos for different parts of Disney parks all over the world, and Robin recognised him! He was chatting away to everyone, and I took the opportunity to thank Amanda for what she had arranged for Larry, as I said to her that they must get so many letters and emails from fans asking for things at Disney. She told me that Larry “wrote the right words, to the right person”, and that her boss (gulp – the President of Disney Parks!) had forwarded the email to her, saying “Sweet guest email. Make some Magic happen”. I would have loved her job, what an amazing thing to be able to do!

A couple of other random Cast Members joined us at various points over the next few minutes, to chat with us and again wish Larry ‘happy birthday’, and then Justin and Amanda said they had to go, but that we were to follow the tour guides and they would take care of us. We all thanked Amanda profusely, much hugging went on, and Larry made a speech about how he had been going to Disney parks for years but still didn’t expect that anyone would take this event seriously today. Coming from Larry, who is an extremely good friend and completely adorable, but also one of the most jokey, sarcastic, and cutting people I know, it was a very moving speech and even made me well up a bit!

Our tour guides then led us past the queue and to the loading deck of the Submarine Voyage, where they proceeded to board us all onto a Submarine for our own, private ride. It was brilliant, we really enjoyed this, despite feeling slightly guilty that we had bypassed the massive queue, who were all probably glaring daggers at us as we boarded. (Robin sat this out, and waited for us in a little waiting room).

After this, we were led up to the Monorail station where we boarded a train, again for a private ride. Larry got to ride up front with the driver, and he took Greg, Eilidh and Ed with him. We mostly got into one car, despite having the whole train available for us, so we could chat as we rode. One of the tour guides, Chip, was sat near to us, and she told us loads of interesting stories as we rode. She has a friend who is a lighting designer, and when Fantasmic was recently re-imagined and upgraded, he designed the new lighting sector of the show. He showed it to Chip, who suggested one or two changes, which he incorporated – how cool is that? She also told us she used to do some movie work as an extra, and actually appeared in the original Soarin’ film. We made her tell us what role she took, and when she told us, we agreed that we would make sure we looked out for her the next time we rode!

When the Monorail stopped at the next station, several people were allowed to board, but no-one was allowed in ‘our’ carriage! We had a really great time, and felt very honoured not only to have got our own private train, but also to have been told so many fascinating Disney facts by Chip.

We disembarked the train at the same station we had boarded at, collected Larry and the kids from the front carriage, Robin from a waiting room nearby, and followed Rebecca and Chip to our next destination with them, the Matterhorn ride. We were greeted by a lady called Hayley, who introduced herself as the manager of the ride. She said she had something for us, and handed out plain, black lanyards, with a laminated card clipped to the end. She explained these were “Larry Passes”, and would get us on the Matterhorn as many times as we wanted, for the rest of the day, without having to use the standby queue! We all LOVED our Larry Passes, and wore them proudly for the rest of the day! She then led us past all the queues and to the boarding area, where we were loaded onto a row of waiting sleds. The ride was faster than I remember it being, but it was still loads of fun, and we could see and hear our friends in front of and behind us laughing and shrieking!

There was a Photopass photographer set up nearby with lots of signs celebrating the 60th birthday of all 3 rides today, and Rebecca and Chip ushered us over to her. Rebecca said something to the photographer quietly, and scanned an ID card of some kind, then we were all asked to pose in various groups with the signs. Finally, we got one big group shot with everyone in it, all of us laughing, and holding the largest of the signs.

It was nearly time for our lunch reservation, Rebecca and Chip had done a wonderful job of keeping everyone moving between rides so we weren’t late, as they knew we had a lunch booking. Therefore, they accompanied us across the park to the Blue Bayou Restaurant, at the side of Pirates of the Caribbean, before hugging everyone and wishing us all a magical day. We had asked them if they had any more tours for the day today, but they told us that they only did one per day – I guess each tour is a bit full-on and hard work for them, with a lot of walking involved.

Robin had booked our lunch reservation today, and they had paid for lunch for everyone. We all opted for the Fantasmic Dining Package, which would give us FastPasses for Fantasmic later tonight. We ordered drinks, (DH had coffee, I got my beloved Minute Maid Lemonade), and then we ordered our food. While we were waiting for food to arrive, Larry unpacked his gift bag that Amanda had given to him. He got a large, cuddly Yeti (which was super-cute, and when he caught Eilidh eyeing it up, he told her she couldn’t have it!), a birthday card signed by lots of Disney people, a 60th birthday certificate, a baseball cap which celebrated the Matterhorn’s 60th birthday, and a gorgeous, hand-drawn sketch of the Yeti and the Matterhorn mounted in a card frame, and drawn by an Imagineer. He was very pleased with his gifts!

DH ordered Gumbo for starters, Roasted Chicken Maison for entrée, and 8-Layer Chocolate Hazelnut Cake for dessert. I got Calamari to start, followed by steak and mashed potatoes, and then an amazing dessert called Sorcerer Mickey, which was so pretty to look at, and completely delicious to eat! It consisted of pound cake, covered in chocolate mousse, with a bananas foster centre, and a very shiny chocolate glaze, and was a round ball-shape with chocolate Mickey ears on top! DH’s dessert also looked wonderful, it was presented very attractively. As we ate, we were all randomly waving to people in the Pirates of the Caribbean boats sailing behind us. All the food was excellent, (several people had the Monte Cristo sandwich, which looked really good, but was a HUGE serving and most of it had to be taken back in a box!), and at the end of the meal we were given our Fantasmic FastPasses, and something I hadn’t expected – a purple foam seat-mat each, with images from Fantasmic printed on it! I had forgotten that Fantasmic here is all standing, with no seats unless you do the Fantasmic Dessert Party.

After lunch, our group split up again for a while. We headed round to see what the Haunted Mansion standby queue was like, and it was showing as 25 minutes, which was slightly over our usual time limit, but we were really keen to see the Mansion without the Christmas overlay, so we joined the fast-moving queue and were on the ride in 10 minutes. The ride was really fun and enjoyable.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was next, again the wait time was 30 minutes but we love this ride so much that we joined the line, and as it was constantly moving, the time went by really quickly. Yay, the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!

We walked into Fantasyland as there were a few dark rides there that we wanted to do. Pinocchio was a walk on, and we enjoyed it very much. Then we visited Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, (20 minutes, but was more like 10), and It’s a Small World, (20 minutes), which is quite different to Walt Disney World’s version in that it has Disney characters in it. I was really pleased we had ridden this, it’s one of the originals and had been closed for refurb the last time we had visited here so I had been nagging DH that we needed to ride it this time!

From there, we walked down Main Street and into the Emporium to see if we could find a 60th birthday pin for the Matterhorn. We didn’t find anything, and when I asked a Cast Member about it, he said we should be able to find something in the pin store, on the opposite side of the road. We went over the road, and found a teeny little store there, next door to a shop selling puppets and magic tricks. They had lots of pins, and when I enquired about something for the Matterhorn’s birthday, the Cast Member asked me if we were passholders. I told her no, I was just looking for something on general sale. She showed me a lovely pin that celebrated the 60th birthday of all 3 of the rides, which was perfect, so we got that for DH.

We were quite tired by now, so decided to leave the park and go back to our villa for a rest. On our way out of the park, we stopped at a kiosk near the entrance/exit archway, which had lots and lots of Potion Purple Minnie mouse ears for sale! DH sat on a nearby bench, and I went over and got 2 pairs of Purple ears (one for me, and one for my sister), plus some gorgeous red, white & blue Stars & Stripes sequinned Minnie ears, and I also spotted a Galaxy’s Edge opening day pin for sale, so picked that up for DH. We walked back to the Grand Californian, stopping at White Water Snacks to pick up some coffee on the way, and relaxed in our room for about an hour. I spent a little while on our balcony, watching Cast Members scurrying about in the backstage area, but not really sure what they were actually doing.

At 6.00 p.m., we went downstairs to join the birthday party for Larry! The management of the Resort had sent us a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries for his birthday, and then Robin had put out loads of nibbles for us all. Cheese, crackers, deli meat, fruit, that kind of thing. Plus, she had got him a lovely, 2-tier birthday cake, although the general agreement was that we save that for her sister Paula’s birthday on Sunday, given that we still had a literal ‘mountain’ of Yeti cake left to tackle! (On the subject of cake, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t seen the wedding cake that Robin had got for us in Vegas. I mentioned it to her, and she said that after Greg and Eilidh had had some, but then it was too big to fit in their room fridge and it began to go soggy, as there was a lot of buttercream and strawberries in and on it. Due to the heat, eventually it sort of collapsed and they had to throw it away. I felt REALLY bad about this, as they had gone to all the trouble and expense of getting it for us, and I kept meaning to pop up to their room to collect it so we could eat some more of it, but I kept forgetting!) We had some cans of soda with our nibbles, and then finished off with another slice of Yeti cake. By now, Larry had discovered that the mountain on the top was made of rice krispie treat, and kept swiping lumps of it – we had to keep reminding him that he is diabetic!

We all had a fun time this evening, and everyone was chatting about the brilliant morning we had had, thanks to the magic of Disney. We were amazed at what they had done for Larry and all of us, when they must get so many requests for things like this. Larry was saying that he thought they had done some research on him before deciding to make the magic happen, as he said that Amanda was talking to him about things she seemed to know about him, that he hadn’t told them about. It’s possible they had found and read some of his old trip reports, and saw how dedicated to Disney he is!

We headed back out to Disneyland park eventually, and again, everyone split up to go and do a ride or two before the show. Larry came with us on Pirates of the Caribbean, (20 minute standby), and we had lots of fun! We had remembered to bring our foam cushions with us, although they were a bit of a nuisance to carry, so we put them into a carrier bag. After the ride, we walked a little way to the Fantasmic Dining Package viewing area entrance, and handed our FastPasses over to the Cast Member, who directed us to an area directly in front of the centre of the show island. What’s great is that everyone in this area has to remain seated, so everyone gets a good view. We were very glad indeed of the foam cushions now, although Larry had neglected to bring his, so was a bit uncomfortable sat on the concrete floor! We managed to position ourselves in front of a couple of trash bins, so we had something to lean against. Robin parked her scooter next to the bins, and there was still a bit of room in front of us, so that when various other members of our group appeared, they were able to sit with us.

The show itself was absolutely amazing. (It is DH’s favourite Disney show). It had recently been upgraded, and now the water fans that spray screens of water for projections actually move slightly in the wind, meaning they are always have a flat surface. This means that the projections don’t waver and fade if the wind blows. Then the projections themselves have been digitised, and are very sharp and clear, and they have been updated so there were also very recent Disney film clips in there, too. What we love about this version of Fantasmic is the pirate ship that sails past at one point, it is really huge and there are sword fights going on on-board, between Captain Hook and Peter Pan, and also Captain Jack Sparrow and various Pirates of the Caribbean pirates – very exciting with the music and fireworks going on too.

We had been told that once Fantasmic was finished, we were welcome to stay in the area for the Disneyland Forever fireworks show, that takes place along with projections onto the castle, so we all stayed around for that. However, what we didn’t realise was that the projections are also screened on the new water screens at the Fantasmic theatre, so we didn’t miss anything by not being in front of the castle! The fireworks show was really wonderful, and during the section from Frozen, we were suddenly showered with Disney ‘snow’ from overhead nozzles, which was a surprise, and was so beautiful! Most of us ladies had the odd tear in our eyes as we all sang along loudly and enthusiastically, whilst swirling ‘snowflakes’ drifted past us. It was such a lovely moment.

Afterwards, we all split up again. DH and I grabbed an orange Fanta from a nearby snack cart as we were thirsty and hadn’t brought any water out with us. We had a quick restroom break, then decided to try out our Larry Passes and headed over to the Matterhorn. We saw Ed, Megan and Michael, and John and Stephanie in the queue in front of us, and we all made a big fuss and lots of noise about being able to use our Larry Passes! (We just went through the FastPass queue, and when we showed the pass, we were allowed to continue – I guess all Cast Members on shift that day had been briefed!) We had never ridden this ride in the dark before, and it was so much better when it was dark, we LOVED it! So much so, that we all ran round to ride it a second time! We were done at that point, but the others carried on riding and I believe they did 4 or 5 rides! We had loads of fun with the guys, but we were bushed so we left them to it and went back to the villa then. Before long, we were tucked up in bed, reliving the most amazing day we had ever had at a Disney park!