San Diego & LA Experience

Graham Parker on 06 April 2015
After having had such a great experience on my FAM trip in September 2013, my wife had been constantly reminding me that I had promised to take her to California to as she puts it "do all the things I experienced". So, not that I resisted much, we found ourselves at Easter winging our way across the Pacific to LAX, to cross the International Date Line, and to arrive in LA half an hour before we left Hong Kong.

Los Angeles airport was a much better experience than my last visit, procedures only taking 30 minutes. We also had to report a missing bag, which for those of you who know us, this news would come as no surprise. Really simple, easy to follow procedure for car pickup. I had booked an SUV, and were met with a choice of a Nissan or Jeep, we plumped for the Nissan as it had more boot space, and Jane intended to overdose on the shopping.

We headed north to Topanga Canyon, just north of Los Angeles. We stayed in Topanga Canyon B&B, a family run establishment recommended to me by one of my business clients. It consisted of 2 large houses with rooms in each. We had picked the Fred and Ginger room, but in reality any room would have been ideal. The breakfast consisted of a tasty bacon, French toast, fruit toast and pots of coffee.

The first day we just had a drive, we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go, a large circle ending up back in Topanga, driving up through the canyon and down onto the Pacific Coast Highway (though not as romantic as I imagined, being mostly a 4 or 6 (in places) lane highway.

It was good to see all the places I'd only seen on TV shows, like Malibu, Santa Monica and Venice Beaches. We parked up at Venice, and walked the beach boardwalk, and hired cycles to venture a little further.

Next morning we said our goodbyes and thanks to our hosts and drove the short distance along Ventura to Studio City, where we were to spend the following 3 nights.

We arrived at Sportsmens Lodge just outside studio city, decided to go straight to Universal Studios. We hadn't done the park thing in a while, and being the second biggest Minion fan on the planet, we had to go to the Studios. We also managed to get tickets for a 'one night only' showing of a new Led Zeppelin film. so the afternoon and evening was spent looking around and enjoying the rides, and all Universal had to offer.

Longest we waited was around 20 minutes, but an afternoon was enough to take in most of the attractions . Next day we took the hotel shuttle back to Universal, to link up with the hop on/off bus, even worth the extra few dollars for a 48hr pass.

Final day we had decided was to be a park day, so back Universal, this time with a plan, to do the lower level rides first, which was a great idea, almost walking straight onto The Mummy and Transformer rides, and a short wait on Jurassic Park.

We also took the studio tour, best bit for me was the 'crashed' aircraft from The Tom Cruise version from "War of the Worlds". and the 3D King Kong ride.

I had to queue for Minion Mayhem (not again I can hear Jane say) and we stayed until we had exhausted all the rides.

That was it for the LA area, our next stop was to drive to San Diego for 6 nights. We stopped of at Huntington Beach to take a paddleboard lesson , during which I'm happy to say neither of us fell in.

We then drove the rest of the PCH until we had to join the interstate to San Diego. For the first 2 nights we stayed at The Del Coronado, a beautiful wooden built colonial hotel with heaps of history.

One of the other reasons to visit California was 'retail therapy' so we drove to the Mexican Border, for a mammoth endurance test of shopping at the Mall of the Americas. The time was a new personal best of around 9hrs, but we got what we came for, and thankfully we had a weight allowance of 2 bags each for the flights home.

Next day, before checking out, we spent a very pleasant morning walking the beach, and lazing by the pool. I think the locals thought it cold, but at a temperature around the mid 70's it wasn't cool to us. We drove on down to Mission Bay to our final hotel, the Dana. I remember being well impressed with this hotel on my FAM trip. Our first morning was taken up driving speedboats around San Diego Harbour, which is incredible. We then drove to the centre of San Diego for the evening for a wander around Gaslamp, and we had planned a visit to the House of Blues to see a band.

Next morning we drove to the Old Town San Diego, and again boarded the hop on/off bus. We had planned to visit the Midway museum, and this was probably the only thing we'd change, do not do the Midway museum as part of the hop on/off buses. You need at least 3 hours to fully appreciate the ship, which leaves little time to see the rest of what the bus tour offers. Thankfully the centre of town is relatively small, especially for a US city. so we sat on the bus for the rest of the sites and got off in Little Italy and walked back through the streets to Gaslamp, which had a totally different feel in daylight.

We caught the local tram back up to Old Town to collect the car and drive back the short distance to the hotel.

Last day, Jane had wanted to try jumping off a cliff, and who was I to stop her.We had to drive out to Miramar (or Fightertown from Top Gun) to the Flying Leathernecks museum, which was a free attraction and well worth a couple of hours of anyone's time. We then drove to La Jolla Gliderport, where Jane would have herself strapped to a strange man, and as I said, jump off a cliff. Fortunately they came back safely around 25 minutes later, and even if you dont want to go flying, the gliderport is a great place to hang out, have a drink and some lunch, and watch everyone else jump off the said cliff.

Last afternoon was spent by the pool at the Dana relaxing and gearing ourselves up for the journey home (hopefully with suitcases in tow)

Nothing to report on the flight home, the cases came with us all the way home, and in an instant Wednesday morning, became Thursday night.

There was so much more we could have done, just Balboa Park, Aquatica and Sea World at San Diego, could have taken at least a day each, it always gives us a good excuse to come back.