California & Vegas here we come..

[merkat]

nothing booked still cant decide where to stay in SD? think were after a more beachy type place! thinking coronado (spell?) or mission bay etc, got hotwire and priceline sorted out though i think so im planning to pay no more than $90 per night in SD and then in vegas i would love to stay in a big posh hotel! where have you booked? Also would like to stay at disney a night or 2? how did you go about that?Bit changing plans as of today found good flights with Virgin london to LA and Vegas to London, so thats good but only prob is i live in Manchester but found cheap BA flights for £45 each way not too bad! x

[Guest]

sounds like a fab trip. I can recomend two very goods restaurants in Vegas. Mon Ami Gambi in the Paris Hotel (reservations required) if you are lucky you may be able to get a table on the outside terrace which is directly opposite the fountains at the Belagio. Also Top of the World Restaurant at the Strat tower Hotel - revolving restaurant with the best views- great for a special occasion.

[Sarah84]

Originally Posted by merkat

nothing booked still cant decide where to stay in SD? think were after a more beachy type place! thinking coronado (spell?) or mission bay etc, got hotwire and priceline sorted out though i think so im planning to pay no more than $90 per night in SD and then in vegas i would love to stay in a big posh hotel! where have you booked? Also would like to stay at disney a night or 2? how did you go about that?Bit changing plans as of today found good flights with Virgin london to LA and Vegas to London, so thats good but only prob is i live in Manchester but found cheap BA flights for £45 each way not too bad! x

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Im going to use Hotwire or Priceline for my SD hotel too as can get a really nice 4* hotel in the downtown/Gaslamp area for about $90 too and they normally go for at least $250 a night.

In Vegas we booked the Mirage we got it for $62 per night I think it was.
For Disneyland we didn't book a Disney property hotel as we are staying 6 nights and it would of took a large chunk out of our budget but im still fussy with hotels and like the nicer ones, so we booked the Sheraton (through virgin holiday accomadation only) for £400 which was the best price I could find for it. There are loads in the area though, alot of people like the Howard Johnson which I think you can get for about $80pn, though it looks more like a motel type hotel to me which we didn't want but if you don't mind that then it looks good

We booked our flights with Virgin Atlantic and got them for £340 each which was a good price imo (I think its usally more expensive to fly into Vegas)

If you want any advice/have questions feel free to ask, I haven't been before but i've done quite a bit of research

[Sarah84]

Originally Posted by trinny

sounds like a fab trip. I can recomend two very goods restaurants in Vegas. Mon Ami Gambi in the Paris Hotel (reservations required) if you are lucky you may be able to get a table on the outside terrace which is directly opposite the fountains at the Belagio. Also Top of the World Restaurant at the Strat tower Hotel - revolving restaurant with the best views- great for a special occasion.

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Thanks for the restaurant recommendations will look into them

[Sarah84]

Where to stay?...

And that's another hotel for our trip nearly sorted out, this time its our...

Hollywood Hotel

Since I first ever flicked through the Virgin holidays brochure which contained LA a few years ago, I came across the Renaissance Hollywood and decided whenever I do get to go thats where I will be staying. However sometimes last year after finally deciding exactly where we would be staying on this upcoming trip and for how long I started to cost a few things up and noticed that it was going to cost around £450-£500 for the 3 nights we wanted to spend there. I then started to think this may be a little too much to spend on one hotel for just 3 nights, but thought I'd wait and see how much the rest of the holiday was going to cost before totally deciding i'd start to look at other option.
Then the dollar rate started to drop which meant it was going to cost even more and our 3 nights there were now going to cost in the region of £600 so I put my pratical head on (it doesn't come out very often at all ) and started looking at other hotels in the area and to be honest couldn't really find much I liked for a decent price apart from the The hollywood Magic castle this was coming in about $170pn looked clean, had a pool which i wanted and even better didn't have the dreadful floral curtains and bedding which I hate (now im not a snob or anything, far from it infact BUT I do love my hotels to have a nice modern feel to them, look all nice and updated) so it looked like this would be where we'd be staying.

Fast forward to a couple fo days ago...

I thought I'd have a quick look again at hotels in Hollywood and just to see recent prices etc...
It was then that I came across the Holiday Inn Express hotel & suites Hollywood walk of fame hiexpress/h/d/ex/1/en...lsearchresults it's pratically a brand new hotel (opended May 2008) looks nice, clean, modern, has a pool and even includes breakfast and is coming out at $140.99pn and a total of $482 for the 3 nights including tax.
So again using my pratical head I've decided we will deffenitily stay here and save about £300 on what the Renaissance would have cost us which means more money to spend on that all important shopping and funding to MAC addiction, see a girl knows where her prioritys are

So, thats that our last 3 nights of our West Coast & Vegas holiday will be spent here..

HI Express Hollywood Walk Of Fame

[Jools]

What a lovely room and a great price to boot . I'm like you I hate floral curtains and covers. I like that nice crisp white with just a splash of red. I'm not jealous, I'm not jealous... Well I am a bit

It's coming together really nicely for you now

[Sarah84]

Originally Posted by Jools

What a lovely room and a great price to boot . I'm like you I hate floral curtains and covers. I like that nice crisp white with just a splash of red. I'm not jealous, I'm not jealous... Well I am a bit

It's coming together really nicely for you now

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Thats what I thought too, what a lovely looking room for that price esp in Hollywood
Don't be jealous you have 22 days in Florida to look forward to soon, now im the jealous one
Yep everything is all getting booked and sorted shame its just months and months to go till we can go

[merkat]

oh your getting well ahead of me here sarah still can't decide on a hotel in san diego? im thinking i might prefere a hotel in SD (main part of our stay) with some sort of kitchen in it? in your hours and hours of research did you see any of those? haha, Boyfriend has decided he would like to stay in a beachy area rather than the city so thats me messed up i was planning on the city! haha

Oh but guess what think were booking the flights tomorrow then the real planning will commence, wait for me i'll catch you up haha.

That hotel looks perfect, i am totally like you hate the floral, LOVE clean and crisp without doubt! thats why i like the look of Menage in anaheim, you seen it? x

[Sarah84]

Originally Posted by merkat

oh your getting well ahead of me here sarah still can't decide on a hotel in san diego? im thinking i might prefere a hotel in SD (main part of our stay) with some sort of kitchen in it? in your hours and hours of research did you see any of those? haha, Boyfriend has decided he would like to stay in a beachy area rather than the city so thats me messed up i was planning on the city! haha

Oh but guess what think were booking the flights tomorrow then the real planning will commence, wait for me i'll catch you up haha.

That hotel looks perfect, i am totally like you hate the floral, LOVE clean and crisp without doubt! thats why i like the look of Menage in anaheim, you seen it? x

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Bet ya can't catch me

I haven't really researched hotels/areas much in SD as I knew we'd only be there for around 3 nights and would be in the Gaslamp area as we also don't plan on having a car there so easier to get around from there. Are you panning on hiring a car for your whole holiday? I'm not really doing much atm just some more research into things so I will have a look now for hotel options for you near the beach and with some sort of kitchen and hopefully no floral bedding or curtains

Thats great news you might be booking your flights tomorrow, hope you do so exciting once they are booked it just feels oh so more real

How strage for you to mention the Menage from about May last year when I first started looking into this holiday till just 2 months ago I had planned on booking the Menage, the rooms looked lovely as did the 24 hour pool area and when I looked last year at prices for september (just so I could get an idea) it was coming in around $80pn and of course the dollar rate was fab pratically $2 for £1 so I thought wow fantastic I will deffo book there for our stay, then the dollar rate dropped and I kept an eye on prices for my exact dates when they became avaliable on it was coming up no cheaper than $160pn and as we planned on spending 6 nights there we was looking at aboout $1000 which would have been about £600-£700 so it had really bumped up the cost to my original figures so I started to look elsewhere and thats when I came across the Sheraton Anaheim and found it with Virgin Holidays for 6 nights for just £400 and it even gets better reviews than the Menage, has a free shuttle to the parks, apprently the biggest rooms in Anaheim so I ended up going with that.

If you need help with researching anything just let me know I'll be more than happy to help. I love nothing more than researching things to do with holidays

[Sarah84]

...FOOD, FOOD, FOOD...

So after the all important shopping, then making sure I have a lovely bed to rest my head in a nice hotel my third priority is eating yes I love my food.

So i'm looking for recommendations on places to eat breakfast, dinner and even places to grab a nice snack (cakes, ice cream etc)

We like the usual kind of things like burgers, ribs, steak, chinese things like that for dinner and a nice tasty fry up with pancakes or waffles for breakfast. Now if I left it to Darren he would probably choose to eat Burger king for the entire holiday
Now as much as I do enjoy my food and love a nice tasty meal im not really looking for recommendations for the more expensive kind of places, as I said I do like my food BUT i'd rather spend more money on things that will last like shoes, bags & makeup than filling my belly

We like the typical chains like Hard rock cafe, Rainforest cafe, TGI fridays, Subway etc so please recommend away on places to eat (also if you have an idea on prices that would be great, that way I can get an idea of how much we are going to be needing for food)...

I have done some research on a few restaurants in the areas we are staying in, so if you have any feedback on please let me know

***Anaheim***

Breakfast -

Mimi's Cafe
Denny's
IHOP
Carnation cafe in Disneyland

Dinner -

Johnny Rockets
Tony Roma's
Jack in the box
Red Robin
Rainforest Cafe
PF Changs

***Las Vegas***

Breakfast -

Now I have heard there are lots of good buffets, so recommendations of nice ones for a reasonable price would be appriciated please

Dinner -

Rainforest Cafe
PF Changs

Again heard about the buffets that seem to be in every hotel, so again recommend away please

***San Diego***

Now I have no ideas for places to eat here, so any recommendations in San Diego would really be useful

***Hollywood***

Breakfast -

I'm guessing it won't be difficult to find the usual Dennys, IHOP etc for breakfast

Dinner -

Again I haven't done much research for here but im guessing finding somewhere to eat in Hollywood will not be difficult

I certainly want to stop for an ice cream or something in the Disney soda fountain


So as you can see I still have plenty of research to do when it comes to food, but I still have ages yet anyway.