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Old 29 Jul 16, 09:51 PM  
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Gill635
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The Where & When

Firstly, apologies for the slowness of updates here. There has been some chopping and changing around, and I wanted to get as much organised as possible before updating anything here.

A couple of the hotels can still be changed, so I'm keeping an eye on prices just in case a steal appears but the details below are what we are working with!

So, we depart Manchester airport on the 19th September at the ungodly hour of 6.30am! We fly to Seattle via Heathrow (there's just short of a 2 hour gap between flights, but I'm checking them every week to make sure they're on time and so far so good)
Currently we are scheduled to fly out on the 777 and back on the A380 - my dad is beside himself with excitement.



At present we have not paid to pre-book seats. We are a group of 3 on a 3-4-3 configuration, so chances are we will be seated in a 3 anyway. We have put a request in for window seats, and will be checking in online 24 hours before (to the minute) so should be fine.

We are (most likely) getting an Uber from Seattle airport to our hotel. There is apparently an Uber desk at the airport itself.

We will be staying at the Quality Inn & Suites in Seattle. This is the second hotel we booked here as the first one was too far out of the city. Its basic, but we are only sleeping there and it includes a basic breakfast. Reviews state that its clean, its super close to everything, and it was cheap - man is Seattle expensive!



On our 3rd day there, we collect a hire car for 48 hours to travel to the San Juan Islands. The main reason (initially) for visiting Seattle was to see the Orca in the wild, and we are all BEYOND excited to do this.

We stay at the Orca Inn at Friday Harbour (again basic but affordable and clean) for 1 night.



This has been a super carefully planned exercise involving booking ferry crossings etc, but I think we're good.

On the way up, we're planning on hitting the Boeing factory for one of their tours (we're slight plane geeks), and on the way back a Walmart and a few shops.

Our whale watching trip is booked. Again, this was a lot of research, but we settles on a smaller company called Mayas Legacy. Much smaller boats, really good price, and a maximum of 6 passengers. There's lots to see there, but we're hoping for the big guys.





On the Saturday we are flying to San Francisco (Oakland to be exact) for the next portion of our trip.

We have 4 nights in San Francisco, staying at the Hotel Mark Twain.



This is about the 6th hotel we have booked - its none refundable so its also the final one!

As is the theme with this trip, its not super modern and fancy (although its just had a refurb), but its clean, affordable and seems to be in a decent location.

We have 4 nights in San Francisco. My 'to do' list here is as long as my arm, and I haven't even opened the guidebook yet! In fact, I'm seriously behind on my pre-trip reading as I've just been so busy. That fact needs to be rectified soon!

After our final night in San Fran, we are collecting a hire car from Alamo in Union Square (has anyone else here done this, as I'm reading shocking reports of this depot?), and head off for 2 nights in Heavenly, Lake Tahoe.

Now a bit of background here. Many, many, many years ago, Doritos were running a promotion with American Airlines, whereby if you could eat your body weight in their snacks and collect enough packets, you could have 2-4-1 flights to the US. My parents were desperate to visit the West Coast, so my Mum made my poor Dad eat the cheesy vileness that is said snack until he was almost physically sick. It was no hardship though, he loves (well at least he did) them, and we got used to the strange shade of orange he turned eventually.

They used their super cheap voucher to visit San Francisco for 2 weeks, and spent that time driving all over the area to different places. They absolutely fell in love with Lake Tahoe, and have been desperate to go back ever since. It held absolutely no appeal to me - there doesn't appear to be anything to do here, however its their holiday too, and its a pretty busy one so maybe a couple of days by the pool is a good idea (if nothing else, I can finally read my guide books!)).

Our accommodation here is an Americas Best Value Inn. This could well change if we get something better / nicer / cheaper, and I am keeping my eyes peeled. However, its right opposite the beach, clean and near to the small amount of things in the area - ooh and parking is free! That on its own is a huge bonus on the West Coast.



I've recently purchased myself a super cool, fancy camera that I cannot yet use, but I'm hoping to have it figured out in time for this trip as the photo opportunities alone are immense.

After here we head to the beautiful Yosemite for 1 night, staying at Oakhurst Lodge.

I need to digress again a bit here. Yosemite was always in the plan for 2 nights. I wanted to stay in the valley itself, enjoy some beautiful scenery, nature and walking (not a trek though, I'm far too much of a heifer for that) but just taking in the peace.
After many, many conversations, Yosemite was actually taken out of the mix altogether. To be honest, I can't even remember what replaced it, but I wasn't happy and (as I later found out) neither was anyone else! We decided that it was back in, but after all the faffing we struggled to find accommodation within our price range. Mum called me all excited one day, talking about this amazing ranch she had found with horses, a cute b&b that was within price range. It sounded too good to be true, so I quickly googled it only to find that everything she had told me was correct, but... it was in Montana! I've no idea how she got there, but there you go.

Finally we agreed that we would just have to stay outside the park. We could get Curry Village (as it was then called) for a good price, but Mum wanted recent reassurances that the showers and toilets were spotless, and I couldn't get them, so outside the park it was. Apparently, we are 14 miles outside the South entrance to the park ? No idea if this is good or bad - it sounds good, easy in and out of the park in the limited time we have, however I haven't reached that particular guide book yet. As I say, it can be changed so we will keep an eye out for something different, but at this stage, I would only really want to swap it for something inside the park



From our night in Yosemite, we head to the wonderful Las Vegas.

Now, our hotel here looks like we have splashed out on a bit of luxury. That's kind of both true and not true. In Vegas we have 2 gorgeous rooms for 3 nights at Trump International.



In all honesty, we were going to end up in the Tropicana in Vegas. We fell lucky with this one though. When we first priced this up, a twin room was over £1000 for the 3 nights - no way were we paying that. Thanks to his popularity, prices dropped. Actually, they didn't drop, they plummeted. It eventually worked out cheaper to book 2 rooms here that it was to book ANY of the accommodation we had so far stayed at, so we did. Again, this is a none cancel, none refund rate but that's fine with us as we haven't seen anything cheaper since.

From here, we venture to another jewel in the crown - Disneyland.

I managed to find a cracking deal at La Quinta Inn & Suites, which is a 15 minute walk to the parks, but offers free transfers. Its opposite the Garden Grove shopping area, which houses a Cheesecake Factory, Bubba Gumps and so much more. Its close enough to be near the action without being in a super busy area, and again offers free parking and a free breakfast. We have a 1 bedroom suite here, so we will have some privacy (read space ha ha) from each other.



Obvious must do's here will be Disneyland. I will update with more information on what we are doing where in another post, but I have a 3 day hopper, and my parents have 2 day hoppers. I'm hoping to also squeeze in a tour, and a MNSSHP depending on funds.

Sadly, we then reach the last leg of our tour with 2 nights in LA.

Initially, we didn't think there would be anything to keep us occupied here, but research is proving different so it could be pretty packed with stuff if we're not careful. I think we might be best all picking 1 thing and doing that? Either that or going separately to get what we want to do done. The last thing we want is to come home needing another holiday!

Accommodation here is basic, motel style. Not ideal, and will more than likely be changed - its another one I'm keeping my eye on, but it appears to be right near Garden Grove and the Farmers market, clean, free parking and breakfast. I don't know if this is a brilliant area or not, but hopefully as I find out more I'll either be reassured or changing.

We're staying at the Studio Courtyard.




There is a lot of different things that have to go on in the background of our planning. The main one is that my Mum has Coeliac disease, meaning she can't eat gluten, wheat or barley as she becomes really poorly. Whilst some places seem to be super in options for her, others I am really struggling with. This is a major problem for me. We can't spontaneously just stop somewhere for food like we used to, and there's nothing worse that going in somewhere that claims to be gluten free, only to find they're actually not. Apart from the health risks, I just can't take the look on my poor mums face when she realizes that she (and in turn us) can't eat there after all. Not to be dramatic, but its pretty heartbreaking. Most of my research this far has consisted of finding places she can eat. With that in mind, when it comes to changing hotels, the free breakfasts don't really bother us. Mum can't eat 99% of what they offer anyway, so if there isn't one we don't care.

Basically, what I'm saying is if anyone can recommend anywhere in some of these places to stay, that may be nicer (but still on a budget) feel free to let me know.

I'll end here for now, I'll be back to update you with an actual itinerary of sorts later on. We're not massive planners in the sense of knowing where we're going and when, more than likely I will draw up a series of 1 day itineraries for each place and we will pick what we're doing the night before (with a few exceptions). This does allow us flexibility which is fabulous, so again, any suggestions for things to not be missed are extremely welcome.

Thank you for reading (if you're still awake)


Gill xx
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Edited at 02:49 PM. Reason: Updating Our Plans
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Old 30 Jul 16, 12:03 AM  
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We loved Seattle in June! We stayed at the Travelodge which is right next to yours - yes Seattle is expensive! We got the light rail from the airport to the Westlake Center and then the monorail to the Space Needle. Really quick and easy and then it's a 5 minute walk to the hotel. We used the monorail a lot - $2.25 a trip.

We got the car leaving Seattle and drove down to San Francisco. Also flew BA. Have a look at my trip report - I'm half way through now!
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Old 30 Jul 16, 10:05 AM  
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Gill635
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Originally Posted by anji View Post
We loved Seattle in June! We stayed at the Travelodge which is right next to yours - yes Seattle is expensive! We got the light rail from the airport to the Westlake Center and then the monorail to the Space Needle. Really quick and easy and then it's a 5 minute walk to the hotel. We used the monorail a lot - $2.25 a trip.

We got the car leaving Seattle and drove down to San Francisco. Also flew BA. Have a look at my trip report - I'm half way through now!

Hi Anji!

I have been reading your trippie and loving it! Apologies that I haven't commented, I keep reading on my mobile and forgetting to log in!

How were BA? I've only ever done short flights with them and wasn't keen to be honest, but that was years back and I'm starting to hear good things again.

So do you think the light rail into our hotel would be a better option for us? I guess on the day we can weigh up how tired we are and decide then (we will have been on the go since about 3am!) between the light rail and uber. Tripadvisor forums made it sound like it would be a complete and utter nightmare, but they've let me down a couple of times recently so I don't fully trust them anymore.

I've no idea if I'm setting out and linking this correctly, as I've never managed to do a trippie so please let me know if I'm getting it wrong somewhere!

Thanks for reading

Gill xx
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Old 30 Jul 16, 10:42 AM  
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BA were fine. Good entertainment and food was good for airplane food (which I like!). We were a bit late leaving Heathrow because of weather but they made the time up.

Depends how much the Uber will cost you really? The train is $3 and the monorail $2.25. We found it to be very easy and you just buy your ticket from the machines for the train and the kiosk for the monorail. I guess the Uber is more straightforward and comfortable so if you're tired too it may good!

Glad you're enjoying the reports! Would have loved to see the Orcas
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Index to all trip reports here https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...3#post15913083
Seattle to San Francisco
Road Trip Florida 2017
New England Road Trip 2019
Florida Road Trip 2022
Canada/Pacific NW Road Trip 2022
Cyprus Chill week May 2023
Road Trip California & Arizona 2023
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Old 30 Jul 16, 04:34 PM  
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Originally Posted by anji View Post
BA were fine. Good entertainment and food was good for airplane food (which I like!). We were a bit late leaving Heathrow because of weather but they made the time up.

Depends how much the Uber will cost you really? The train is $3 and the monorail $2.25. We found it to be very easy and you just buy your ticket from the machines for the train and the kiosk for the monorail. I guess the Uber is more straightforward and comfortable so if you're tired too it may good!

Glad you're enjoying the reports! Would have loved to see the Orcas

I'll have to see if I can get an Uber quote in advance so at least we know our options!

I know, I cannot wait to see the Orca. You'll just have to go back to see the resident or transient pods!

I am indeed loving your reports, you've got me interested in places I have never imagined visiting before

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Old 31 Jul 16, 12:19 PM  
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Sounds like a great holiday hope you all have a fabulous time

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Old 31 Jul 16, 08:21 PM  
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We stayed in Curry Village last summer and the showers and toilets were spotless. I got an emailed link from Road Trippers a couple of days ago with information on Lake Tahoe it looks amazing and they recommend hiring a kayak.
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