San Francisco

     Road trip time from LA to San Francisco via Morro Bay for a night.

Morro Bay is a sleepy little fishing village.  It was halfway on the roadtrip and had some great fish & chips! 

          

        

Our motel room came complete with the 'Magic Fingers Massage Bed' which of coarse we had to try out! It was noisy & not very effective!! 

        

Wee pit stop to see the colony of elephant seals.  At this time of year there are only the juveniles hanging out.

Unfortunately our drive through the 'Big Sur' was very overcast so no great views but still a nice drive.

        

Wander to Pier 39 for a view of the Golden Gate Bridge & Alcatraz! 

              There were two cruise ships docked so it was a bit busy! 

          

         

                            

         

                           Riding the rails of the cable cars! 

              

Time for a little magic with Peter Morrison. He has a small theatre that holds only 30/35 people for some very close up magic tricks.  

        

                                    

         Time for some Raiders action.

The game was great but the weather was atrocious.  It was like watching the game in the shower! 

           

       

         And the Bridge!!!!!

           

          

         

                    

                               

          

                                

A fantastic museum with loads of artifacts & stories about the making of Walt Disney & the birth of Mickey Mouse.  Complete with a huge model of the original layout of Disneyland.

                             

            

San Francisco is one of my very favourite places to visit.  Just couldn't resist a return visit on this trip!

Disneyland California

       Good evening Los Angeles.

      

          Time for our Disney fix.....

Josh's most favourite ride was Autopia.  We lost count of how many times he went driving.  He says it is much better than the one in Disneyworld! 

        

                                   

           

          

           

              

            

Josh couldn't believe how small the castle was after being in Florida.  Disneyland is set out very much like Magic Kingdom with the exception of everything being very close together but lots of similar rides.  You can see why Walt Disney went to great lengths to ensure his next project 'Florida' would have so much more space as there is just no room to grow this park & it does feel a bit squashed in! 

                   

            

       

                         

        

         Just hanging out with a few friends for the fireworks!!! 

   

Disneys California Adventure Park is right next door to Disneyland.  It has one of the very few Ferris wheels which have swinging gondolas.  It has a great view but you really do do a lot of swinging...... It is set out very much like the original style fairground with boardwalks & a rollercoaster made to look like an old fashioned wooden one.  It has some great rides they don't have in any other Disney parks with some of our favourites thrown in too.

          Jumping Jellyfish......

      

      

                     Time for some rootin, tootin shootin fun with Woody & Buzz

               

   Our Josh flying high! 

             

The 'Cars' ride is the most popular ride by far, you get to race another car through Radiator Springs. Fast passes for the day were always sold out by 11am & the wait line was sometimes more than 2 hours! It is a great ride so we're were in early to claim our fast passes! 

            

                           

Josh took 3 days to finally build up the courage to do his very first upside down coaster!  There was only one loop which he said was fine, he just didn't like the huge drops! So we just need to find roller coasters with lots of loops but no drops........ Mmmmm, not sure how easy that'll be! 

           

Frozen stage show was great! We successfully got fast passes for the last show of the day.  When we were getting our fast passes the cast member told us fast passes for the Frozen show & the night time lights & water show could be obtained alongside ride fast passes which was great as its a tough decision to use ride fast pass opportunities for shows.  Wish we'd known it a couple of days earlier as the fast pass seating area for the night time show were fantastic! 

           Squeezing in some education, today's lesson was art! 

            

            

The 'Wonderful World of Colour' night time show at California Adventure was fantastic.  The photos really don't do it justice, there was colour, water, projections & music during a 15 minute show.  While waiting for the show you can link into a game where they use the Mickey Ferris wheel to play a game similar to Simon.  If you are the fastest you then get to decide the colour combinations for the Ferris wheel before the show starts.

            

          

              

It was a fantastic end to a great few days of Disney fun!  There are many rides that can be found in other Disney parks but some unique ones to California which makes the visit to California different & special in its own way.  It's always nice to visit the place where Walt Disney began his vision of a great family fun vacation where dreams really do come true!