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Old 28 Dec 19, 05:47 PM  
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Stewboy
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Wonder on the West Coast: Day 1 - London to LA

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Monday 21st October 2019

So after months of planning and anticipation our West Coast adventure is finally underway. To say we’re excited would be an understatement - it’s basically the only thing we’ve been talking and thinking about for months. There’s so much we’re looking forward to: California; visiting Disneyland for the first time; going on another Disney Cruise; first time on board the Disney Wonder; spending a few days in San Diego; spending time with Jo’s friend; Halloween in the park; Halloween on the ship; visiting Mexico... and so much more.

To quickly recap our plan it’s as follows: Fly from Heathrow to LAX; Lyft/Uber from LAX to Anaheim for 3 days of fun in Disneyland; hire a car and drive from Anaheim to San Diego for a 2 night stay; get on board the Disney Wonder for a 7 night cruise from San Diego to Mexico and back; hire a car and drive from San Diego back to Anaheim for a final day in Disneyland; drive to LAX to fly home to Heathrow.

If you want to know more then check out the pre-trip report: https://DIBB.in/14035759.

Day 1 of our trip report begins, unusually for us, at home. Since we are flying to the West Coast of America, our flight isn’t until 4:30 this afternoon so unlike our last six trips to America we didn’t feel the need to stay on or near the airport overnight - no Day 0 this time around.

As it was a Monday we’d had the luxury of the weekend to finish packing and tie up any loose ends, so we wouldn’t be rushing around too much this morning. Despite this, we were still both awake by 7am and had tea and coffee in bed before we woke Isabella at 8:40am.

After a delicious breakfast of boiled eggs Jo finished off the packing then had a bath; I ran the hoover over and took out the rubbish; and Isabella ticked off the last day of her holiday countdown calendar.


Egg-citing start to the day




Countdown = done!

Everyone was ready, the chores were done and the car was packed and ready to go. We left home at 10:45am for the drive to Heathrow. It was a miserable wet morning and there was traffic on the A1(M) and the M25 due to a power cut which had closed the Hatfield Tunnel - the resulting detour added about 20 minutes to our journey.


Sears = ready to go!

The drive was uneventful despite this, although one highlight was that we saw a Bugatti sports car en route, which if I’ve done my research correctly was the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport World Record Edition of which only five were made and can reach almost 270mph - although not on the M25 on a cold wet Monday in October.


Bugatti

Just after 12pm we arrived at our destination - Purple Parking on Bath Road. After parking, unloading, and dropping off the car keys we boarded our bus to take us to Heathrow Terminal 2. The terminal is small but modern and quiet. We made our way to the Air New Zealand check in and made use of a kiosk. With no longer any need for strollers or car seats, check in and bag drop were straightforward and we were soon through security and on the hunt for somewhere to eat lunch.


Next stop: Terminal 2...


Yay!

As I said, Terminal 2 is fairly small, and although it’s lovely and modern looking, food options are quite limited. We decided to try The London’s Pride Pub as it seemed like the best option for us, and fortunately we weren’t disappointed; the pub was nice, and the food was good. Jo and I both opted for the All Day Breakfast; Isabella had sausage and mash. To drink I ordered an Oliver’s Island Golden Ale and Jo had a lime and soda.








The London’s Pride Pub






Cheers!


Breakfast: all day


Sausage & mash

All in all, it was a nice lunch and set us up nicely for the journey ahead. After paying (eventually! Why do servers always disappear when you want to pay?!) we popped to Boots to get Isabella a sandwich for the plane - just in case. Then on the way to WH Smith to buy Isabella a magazine we got distracted by the John Lewis and ended up buying some Hotel Chocolat ‘Gemstones’!


Hotel Chocolat Gemstones

We had a little look around the terminal, and then decided to get a coffee to take with us to the gate. With apparently no Starbucks or even a Costa in the vicinity we stopped at Ca’puccino for a nice coffee before heading to the gate.


Bob Geldof did something here


Inside the Jo Malone promo thing


These two


Coffee

As always seems to be the case, our gate was the furthest away, but that’s ok, it’d be good to get some steps in before sitting down for 11 hours!

Down at the gate we appeared to be one of the only families there, and despite Isabella’s advancing(!) age, were invited to do ‘family boarding’ before everyone else - which was a nice bonus. However, this did mean that we were in our seat by about 3:30pm and had to wait for over an hour until take off; looking on the bright side though all our luggage was within easy reach in the overhead bins directly above us.


Going under the runway to get to our gate


That's our plane


Pre-boarding selfie


Here we go!

We’d heard lots of good things about Air New Zealand, and we weren’t disappointed. The seats were comfortable, the entertainment was good, the food was nice, and the cabin crew were friendly; it’s a real shame they will no longer be flying from Heathrow to LA from October, as we would definitely have flown with them again.


In our seats


Bye bye London

Talking of food, it arrived shortly after take off and as I said it was nice. Really nice. Jo had butter chicken curry with rice, I had the beef stew with mashed potato and green beans, and Isabella had cheesy chicken pasta. As well as the lovely food, there was also a good selection of New Zealand wine to enjoy - which Jo did!

Isabella doesn’t usually eat aeroplane food, but she managed to eat a bit of this one - Jo and I finished it off for her - before moving onto her Boots sandwich.

In the months leading up to this trip we’d spent the weekends watching all of the MCU films as a family; from ‘Iron Man’ and all the way to ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’. Isabella was excited to see that ‘Avengers: Endgame’ was available to watch on board as she said it was one of her favourites, so after her sandwich she settled down to watch.




Avengers' Endgame = Excited!

Jo watched a documentary about sugar and did some last minute Disneyland research; I watched ‘Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring’ - being as we were on Air New Zealand unsurprisingly they had all of the Lord of the Rings films on board. They also let you order drinks (including alcohol) directly from the touchscreen at your seat, which Jo and I did a couple of times .


Food


Wine


Puzzles


Pens


Research


Ordered via touchscreen to my seat

After doing some of the puzzles in her magazine, Isabella eventually was tired enough to sleep for a few hours. As we approached the end of the ten and a half hour flight, Isabella woke up and as has been the case for the last few years, felt sick.

With a sick bag close to hand, we eventually landed at LAX - and at that point she was actually sick. We grabbed another sick bag just in case, and fortunately didn’t have to wait long to get off the plane.


Somewhere cold!

Local time was 7:20pm - 20 mins earlier than expected - as we headed into the terminal. As expected, getting through immigration took ages. We went to the kiosk but I got a cross through my face and we had to join the lines to go to a CBP officer. This has happened to me the last few times; Isabella said it was because I was too handsome…. Jo said it was because I was too funny-looking!

After finally making it through we were able to collect our luggage straight off of the carousel, which was no longer moving and had all the luggage from our flight scattered along it!

We had one more queue to navigate to get out of the airport, and then finally we were outside the airport looking for the Lyft pick up point - we weren’t hiring a car for this leg of the trip, so would instead be using a Lyft to get from LAX to our Anaheim hotel.


Leaving the airport

Jo had downloaded the Lyft app previously but not used it, and had subsequently been given up to 25% off her next 10 rides. Jo ordered the Lyft XL and we made our way to the pickup point at terminal B upper level. We were supposed to go to pickup point D but ended up at C - fortunately Jo was able to amend it via the app. The traffic outside the airport was crazy - although we were lucky we were even able to do this as the following week they stopped Lyft and Uber drivers from picking up there in an effort to cut down the traffic.


Lyft ordered, now all we do is wait

We had to wait for about 40 minutes for our Lyft to arrive, and when he finally did at about 9:25pm it took him about half an hour to actually get clear of the airport! The drive from the airport to Anaheim was 43 miles and took 72 minutes. It ended up costing $85.30; $82.87 plus $12 tip, minus $10 discount (that’s obviously less than 25% so we assume the discount had a limit as we got 25% off subsequent Lyfts).


Leaving LAX

It was 10:37pm when we arrived at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Anaheim Resort - Convention Center. I ended up sleeping some of the way - unfortunately about 20 minutes before we arrived Isabella was sick again! I had the sick bag to hand, but she gave us no warning and some of it went over the car interior! Fortunately she hadn't eaten anything since the last time she was sick, so it was mostly water and easy to clean up with wipes!

At the hotel, we checked in quickly and headed straight to our room on the third floor. Isabella went straight to bed, and I headed back down to the lobby to get coffee - they have free coffee available throughout the day.


Hotel lobby

First impressions of the room were great, we had a separate living area and bedroom, nice bathroom and a kitchen area, it all looked nice and clean and modern, although we couldn’t work out where the curtains were - little tip if you’re ever at a hotel in California - the curtains don’t close but they have a sort of blackout curtain behind the curtain that you’re supposed to pull across.












Our room

Once Isabella was in bed, we relaxed with our coffee, unpacked a few bits, and after a shower went to bed at about 12pm.

And so ends our travel day; we’d finally arrived in Anaheim after a long flight and Lyft ride. In the morning we’re off to Disneyland via the Toy Story parking lot shuttle bus which is less than a five minute walk from our hotel!

Thanks for reading.
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Edited at 06:16 PM.
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Old 28 Dec 19, 07:27 PM  
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ely3857
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I feel Isabella’s pain. I get motion sickness and tired sickness, the two combined and I’d have done the same!
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Old 28 Dec 19, 08:04 PM  
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Ryles
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Been waiting for this! 😁👍🏻
Poor Isabella! Both my boys suffer travel sickness always adds stress to our travel day 🙁
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Old 28 Dec 19, 08:37 PM  
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disneypars
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Great start apart from poor Isabella. Hotel looks good.
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Old 29 Dec 19, 11:18 AM  
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lizzie145
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Yay, been looking forward to this report for ages.
Jo is looking fabulous
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Old 30 Dec 19, 09:05 AM  
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magickate
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Sounds like a long travel day, sorry Isabelle was sick. That was always me as a kid, fortunately though I still get travel sick in cars I'm fine flying.

Looking forward to reading the rest of your trip, we have a near identical holiday planned for Easter 2021, just booked the Wonder doing the same itinerary so will be looking for your top tips!
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Old 30 Dec 19, 06:01 PM  
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top4
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Will be following this as we're hopefully planning this same trip next year ,any extra info about eating out would be greatly recieved xxx
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Old 31 Dec 19, 10:08 PM  
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Yay you’ve started! This trip seems to have had some fantastic highlights!

As usual, what a little star Isabelle was with such a long and late flight. Shame she was a bit ill but hope she was right as rain the next day.

Next day plllllease x
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Old 5 Jan 20, 04:54 PM  
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Pumba75
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Pumba75's Reviews
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We've been looking forward to this!

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Old 8 Jan 20, 11:58 AM  
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Tinkermom
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We flew with air new Zealand too, couldn’t fault them and would definitely recommend the couch seats!
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