4 go La La in La La Land - Day 1: This ain't no country club, this is LA

[Pumba75]

Prelude - Just a note, the titles of each day's report are either the title, or lyrics, from songs linked to where we were going, what we were doing or just what we'd heard. Some are more tenuous than others!


Wednesday 1st August 2018

The alarm went off this morning at 5am. A quick peek of the sunrise, over looking the runway.

We were all up, excited, and leaving the Premier Inn just before 6am. Honestly, I think it’s very difficult to go wrong with Premier Inn, and this one was excellent at £57 for the night. Historically we have used the one in Bath Road a lot - but if we were flying from one of the further terminals again, I’d happily come back here.

We checked out, and then took the relatively short walk by covered walkway to T4. Our flight was actually from T5, so we then used the free train transfer service to get there - this involved jumping on 1 train, and changing to another at the T2&3 station. If we’d only had reason to go to T1, we’d have had a full set! It was a straightforward journey, and we were stepping into the departures area of T5 around 6.30am.

There’s not a lot you can say about bag drop and security really - it’s one of those things that has to be done and it takes as long as it takes. It was, however, a little chaotic - we got moved from one bag drop queue to another on a couple of occasions, so that delayed things a little, but we were through it all by about 7.45 and it was time for breakfast. We didn’t want a full-on sit down meal, and the selection at Pret didn’t float everyone’s boats, so we ended up at Starbucks. Melissa and E had Sausage Baps, and M and I had the “All day breakfast” bap each. They filled a hole!

By now it was around 8.15, and our gate was showing - C57 - before getting on the transit system to take us there, the girls wanted to go to Boots - they had been speaking for months (I mean it, months!) about getting snacks from Boots to take on the plane, just in case they didn’t like the meals - it was almost like this was more exciting than the holiday itself! We went to the Boots in the downstairs area of the terminal, but they had a limited food selection, so we headed back upstairs to the larger one, after a few minutes deliberation, they decided there wasn’t really anything there that they fancied (that’s code for not enough chocolate, crisps or sweets) - so we ended up in WH Smith’s, where there was plenty!

Snacks purchased, we made our way to the gate, getting there just before 9am. Boarding had just commenced, but as were in boarding group 4, we sat down away from the madness, to wait until we were called. We sat by the window and I looked out at our plane - I was quite excited as we were flying on an A380 for the first time.

Eventually, we joined the boarding queue. Earlier in the morning, just before we left the hotel, I’d said to the girls that, given the route we were flying, I’d wondered whether we might have anyone famous on our flight - I was mocked! As we queued, the usual announcements were made about people that should report to the gate staff, including a Daniel Ricciardo - I’m a big Formula 1 fan, and M sometimes watches some of the races with me - she turned to me and said “wouldn’t it be funny if it was “the” Daniel Ricciardo” - minutes later, “the” Daniel Ricciardo came strolling to the gate - I was quite excited! I managed to get a photo (of sorts).

I did also call out to him, but he didn’t hear me (that’s the reason I’m going with!), meanwhile the girls died of embarrassment! That bit of excitement over (we didn’t see him again after boarding), we boarded and found our seats upstairs. Really liked the plane, happy with our seats and crew were professional and friendly. The BA safety video with Michael Caine, Joanna Lumley & others, really made Melissa smile.

The flight was uneventful (and long!) but the time did seem to go fairly quickly.

We were all very sociable and sat there with our headphones on watching the in-flight entertainment! I watched “Detroit”, all 6 episodes of “Save Me” (which I’d missed when it was broadcast earlier in the year) and Justice League. Amongst the rest of the family the selection included Avengers: Infinity War, I Tonya, Finding Your Feet, Moana, Friends, Modern Family and Big Bang Theory.

The food was pretty good - choice of Red Thai Chicken Curry, or Tomato Pasta. The chocolate ganache was a big hit.

About 90 mins before landing came “tea”, which was a folded pizza, either Mozzarella or Chicken & Pesto. In between we’d had a mini magnum, and the crew came round with plenty of drinks during the flight.

We were “wheels down” on the runway at LAX around 12.55pm local time. The next bit took a LONG time. With regards to immigration, baggage reclaim and collecting hire cars, this is another thing that just has to get done, and takes the time it will take - combined with the general busyness of LAX, this was pretty much 3 hours from touch down to leaving the parking lot - and every single area of LAX was just crazy!

After getting off the Shuttle Bus at the Avis Preferred Kiosk, I wandered to the board only to find my name wasn’t on there - great. I went to the desk, the lady muttered a bit and then grunted at us to give the details of the space where we’d find our vehicle. We loaded the suitcases comfortably into the boot of the car, a Toyota Camry, and after a few issues with our sat nav (our own brought from home - there was none in the hire car) we were ready to go. As an aside, I was pretty unimpressed with Avis on this trip - as well as the sparkling service we received on picking up, as a preferred customers we are supposed to get the newer, lower mileage cars. Our car already had about 37k miles on the clock, was a bit tatty, and a few scuffs around the bodywork, which we didn’t notice until the next morning. The drop off on our final day was also a palaver - so there’s something to look forward to later in the report.

The 25 mile route to The Tangerine in Burbank was plotted, with an estimated time of arrival of 30 minutes. We drove away from the airport and after a few minutes we were pulling on to the freeway. The traffic on the opposite carriage way was gridlocked, barely moving. “I’m glad we’re not going that way” I said - this turned out to be an error. A couple of minutes later we hit similar traffic, and that’s pretty much how it stayed for the rest of the journey (25 miles remember!).

We finally arrived at the hotel at approx 6.45pm. Nearly 3 hours later! It had been a tough drive if I’m honest, by now my body thought it was nearly 3am, and I was shattered.

We checked in, found our room and unloaded the car. Initial impressions of the hotel were good. Our original plan had been to have a short rest, maybe a swim and then head out for dinner at a nearby In ‘n’ Out Burger, but that had been when we’d expected we would arrive earlier. The girls had slept a bit in the car but we all now had a snooze for about an hour. We then decided to get food from the Subway across the road - Tuna subs for Melissa and M, a Chicken & Bacon Ranch for me and a cookie for E who wasn’t very hungry. We took it back to our room, ate up and then all fell into bed. Melissa must've been tired as she didn't take any more photos today!

It had been a long day, but we were here, in LA, very excited and were all looking forward to getting going tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

[mrsdjh]

Celeb spotting already! I have two teenage daughters so I can imagine how embarrassed they would have been with you trying to attract his attention!

It’s a long flight but with an extra 3 hours to get out of the airport and 3 hours to the hotel on top I’m not surprised you were all shattered.

I enjoyed following along on your trip on Instagram so Im looking forward to reading along and getting more info so I can persuade the family that California is a good idea!

[slow.jo]

Sounds like a pretty ok flight, but spoiled a bit by the painful journey out of the airport and to the hotel.But - you're there - and the fun can begin!

Looking forward to reading more

Jo

[Stewboy]

I'm disappointed (again) that you didn't peel any labels off any bottles of bud...

Talking of inflight safety videos, there’s an "interesting" article about inflight safety video here: thedrum/news/2018/08...-safety-videos

We’ve been using Avis on the last few trips, and I must say I much prefer Alamo - who we'd used for years previously, although my name did appear on the preferred board for the first time on our most recent trip.

TFR

[JoJo88]

Sounds like travel day ticked all the unwanted boxes, pain at check in, palaver at immigration, disappointment at car rental

But you’re there now, let the fun begin!

[sheluk]

3 hours to do a 25 minute journey? Oh my gosh!

Glad you got there safe and sound, seems like a verrrry long day but at least the fun could then begin

[Goldia]

Oh dear, shame about the traffic in L.A. I hope this was an anomaly and the rest of the trip was gridlock free.

[Grump$]

Nice travel day.

The congestion at LAX and SFO are the worst park of a California fly drive if we are flying BA we tend to pay a little extra and either fly into San Diego or if visiting northern California San Jose which is a lovely little airport.

I feel your pain with LA freeway driving after a long haul flight, you really need to keep alert with so many roads converging into one.

[Pumba75]

Originally Posted by mrsdjh

Celeb spotting already! I have two teenage daughters so I can imagine how embarrassed they would have been with you trying to attract his attention!

It’s a long flight but with an extra 3 hours to get out of the airport and 3 hours to the hotel on top I’m not surprised you were all shattered.

I enjoyed following along on your trip on Instagram so Im looking forward to reading along and getting more info so I can persuade the family that California is a good idea!

See more...

I know - he was the only celebrity we spotted the whole trip (well, I suspected Kirsty Young, the newsreader, was on the terminal transit with us, but that was all forgotten once Dani Ric was on the scene!)

Hope you manage to get a trip planned.

Originally Posted by slow.jo

Sounds like a pretty ok flight, but spoiled a bit by the painful journey out of the airport and to the hotel.But - you're there - and the fun can begin!

Looking forward to reading more

Jo

See more...

Yep, flight was all fine, the next bit was painful though! But it was soon forgotten.

Originally Posted by Stewboy

I'm disappointed (again) that you didn't peel any labels off any bottles of bud...

Talking of inflight safety videos, there’s an "interesting" article about inflight safety video here: thedrum/news/2018/08...-safety-videos

We’ve been using Avis on the last few trips, and I must say I much prefer Alamo - who we'd used for years previously, although my name did appear on the preferred board for the first time on our most recent trip.

TFR

See more...

Ah, but it was late on a Thursday, rather than noon on a Tuesday, and no giant car washes in sight

Interesting article - found the BA one amusing, think Melissa enjoyed more than anything else on the IFE!

Originally Posted by JoJo88

Sounds like travel day ticked all the unwanted boxes, pain at check in, palaver at immigration, disappointment at car rental

But you’re there now, let the fun begin!

See more...

Yep, it's all part of the travel day experience isn't it? But soon outweighed by all the fun!

Originally Posted by sheluk

3 hours to do a 25 minute journey? Oh my gosh!

Glad you got there safe and sound, seems like a verrrry long day but at least the fun could then begin

See more...

Yes, but on the plus side, it was the last time of the holiday that it was me that made the comment that put the jinx on thing

Originally Posted by Goldia

Oh dear, shame about the traffic in L.A. I hope this was an anomaly and the rest of the trip was gridlock free.

See more...

No spoilers, but no...

Originally Posted by Grump$

Nice travel day.

The congestion at LAX and SFO are the worst park of a California fly drive if we are flying BA we tend to pay a little extra and either fly into San Diego or if visiting northern California San Jose which is a lovely little airport.

I feel your pain with LA freeway driving after a long haul flight, you really need to keep alert with so many roads converging into one.

See more...

The general "craziness" of LAX from the moment you arrive was quite an experience. We drove past San Diego airport a few times on our stay down there and it looked a lot more genteel.

Thanks for reading all!

[Lisa_Lollipop]

Bah LA traffic, it really is just inevitable isn't it?! The drive from LAX to Anaheim for us last year took hours upon hours, how Paul managed it after that long flight is beyond me... you guys are heroes!

All worth it when you make it to your destination though... excited to read your first full day!