Southern California October 2013

Our trip started on minus day one with us doing a full day of work before we drove down to Heathrow and checked in to a Holiday Inn Express close to the airport (we really didn't fancy battling the rush hour traffic around London on a Wednesday morning!) We had a nice Italian meal in the hotel restaurant before an early night.

So day 1 starts for real... we drove the short 20 minutes to the long stay car park (lol, long stay, five days is hardly long stay, in fact I think it is the shortest 'stay' we have have done from Heathrow). Car safely parked (quick reminder to Alan not to put the handbrake on), short bus ride to terminal 5 and we are soon checked in and heading through the security checks. We were absolutely amazed at how short the queues were and flew through in probably the quickest time ever.

We had breakfast at Giraffe again, this place has become a new favourite for us, great food with the added bonus (for Alan) that it serves beer. There was a problem with taxi-ing our plane to the gate, so we were delayed by 30 minutes and didn't start boarding the plane until its due time to take off. Once on, we quickly settled into our seats for the next 11 hours, watched lots of movies and refused to eat the disgusting slop of a meal. BA really need to do some work on their menus!

The lost time from our late take-off was made up during the flight and we arrived at LAX on time. Immigration was a breeze with the friendliest immigration officer we have ever encountered. We chatted about our trip and he gave us some restaurant recommendations, LA really knows how to welcome its visitors.

We took the transfer bus to Dollar car rental and the nightmare warnings of long queues didn't turn out to apply to us. We are Dollar Express members so we don't have to queue anyway, but the queue for the 'others' was about 20 people long with all desks open. We spoke to our check-in guy and he confirmed that it's not unusual for people to have to wait 3 plus hours for their vehicles!! Document check done we headed to collect our basic car and found there was only a pope mobile available. A family were stood near it saying they didn't want it either as they wanted their luggage to be in a secure boot (trunk). That's when one of the Dollar guys came over to us and said to just pick one of the other ones instead... great, a free double upgrade and we picked a Ford Fusion and hit the road.

Directions in hand we headed south to Dana Point using the quicker 73 toll road rather the busy I-5. For some reason Alan had decided not to print out the directions to the hotel but to the town of Dana Point itself. This meant we had a bit of fun trying to find the right road for our hotel. By chance we happened back on the road we wanted to be on and spotted the BW. We checked in and Alan was pleasantly surprised to find out that our BW Diamond membership gave us free parking for the duration of our stay. The room was a great sized suite with a separate lounge area to the bedroom. You could just about see the sea from the balcony too.

I think it was around 5 pm and I was really pleased when Alan agreed that he didn't fancy going out for a meal and we agreed to have a MacDonald’s. I sent Alan off across the road while I unpacked and settled us in.

By about 6 pm Alan was asleep

I was awake at 1am and couldn't get back to sleep and finally gave in and started playing on my iPad at 3am! We got up really slowly and contacted our friend Robert to let him know that we were up... to which he replied that we could drive on over.

Today was Alan's birthday and Robert's last day unmarried... we were to celebrate at Disney's California Adventure Park. We collected Robert from his home in Aliso Viejo at 7.20am and drove to Anaheim. The park was not due to open until 10am so we planned to eat at the Rainforest Café in Downtown Disney. Alan started his birthday like a day in Vegas with a Blood Mary and we ate and chatted until it was time to head to the Park.

It was an overcast day, so I used this as an excuse to buy a Disney hoodie, shopping done we entered the park and headed straight to the Tower of Terror. Throughout the 20 minute queue I debated whether I would go on the ride or not. The same ride in Florida travels along a track and drops only a couple of times... this evil ride just raised and dropped, raised and dropped, raised and dropped... I grabbed hold of Robert as though my life depended upon not letting him go! My stomach was not happy at all!! No more icky sicky rides for me today.

We strolled through 'a bugs land' to 'Cars Land' and collected our fast passes for Radiator Springs Racers. The landscaping in this area of the park is awesome and you could easily be fooled that the scenery was real.

Fast passes secured for 4pm we made our way to Paradise Pier where Alan and Robert went on California Screamin', a high speed coaster... I sat this one out and watched from the sidelines. Through to Grizzly Peak where the boys decided to go on the Grizzly River Run (whitewater raft)... this one I could have gone on but I didn't fancy getting my jeans wet. Alan was convinced that he wouldn't get wet... but they both did (not as bad as we did at Universal Studios in Florida, but wet enough to notice).

Somewhere during the day we had pizza for lunch, stopped for drinks, watched the Aladdin musical, did the Monsters Inc, Toy Story Midway Mania (arms a aching) and Little Mermaid rides and watched the Muppet Vision 3D (that really needs an update) before we returned for our Radiator Springs Racers ride (awesome ride, like Test Track in Epcot but much better).

We went for Alan's birthday dinner at the House of Blues before returning to the park for the World of Color show at 8:15pm. The light and water show far out does the Bellagio fountains and the three of us were in awe of the 30 minute spectacular.

We started our morning with a breakfast in Stacks and went for a stroll along the Dana Point seafront and marina. There we several surfers and a sea lion showing off for us.

The Dana Point town had their Elephant Parade, dozens of colourfully decorated life-sized baby elephants. The elephants were out on show most of the summer until 17 November, when were to then be auctioned off for charity.

11am soon came round and it was time to return to the hotel to get ready for the reason for our quick California visit, Robert & Dean's wedding. We glammed ourselves up and drove to Laguna Hills Civic Centre. Where we watched our dear friends get married.

Marriage successfully completed, we went back to Robert & Dean's home to meet their lovely cats and tour their complex (really nice!!). We finished the day with a great meal before I drove Alan & me back to our hotel (this time Alan got his left and rights the correct way around).

We packed and left Dana Point at first light and stopped at Capistrano for a great value breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe. Continued on down the I-5 to San Diego and checked-in to our lovely hotel (BW Island Palms) on Shelter Island.

Alan had arranged a meet up with Dan (an Alan buddy from Trip Advisor). A quick text and a short wait later Dan arrived in his big pick-up truck to give us a local's view of San Diego. It was big climb up for me to get into the truck, but Dan had a handy block of wood to help me out.

Dan drove us to Point Loma to the Cabrillo National Monument, where he is a volunteer. He gave us a personal guided tour of the monument. One of the war time bunkers had recently opened to the public and Alan got to go down into the living area of bunker to explore and hear about its history. The sea was in so we didn't get to do any rock pooling, maybe next time.

Dan then drove us to Downtown San Diego where we promenaded along Harbor Drive looking at the tall ships (one that featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean) and one that had been decked out with torn sails for Halloween. We dodged the noisy (inappropriately loud music) rickshaws as we took a pleasant stroll in the late afternoon sun.

We caught a ferry to Coronado where we had a nice chat over dinner at the Coronado Brewing Company pub. Alan, of course, had to try a few of the beers ;)

By the time we had finished our meal it had gone dark and we got to see the San Diego skyline nicely lit up before we returned to Downtown San Diego for a colourful truck tour of the Halloween party goers, some of the costumes were amazing.

A quick detour to see the bar where the 'Great Balls of Fire' Top Gun movie sequence was filmed and then back to our BW for a good sleep!

We had originally planned to spend another day doing some more sight seeing with Dan, however, due to the fact that Alan had booked us such a nice room in such a great location I excused us (with an apology to Dan). We took breakfast at our hotel and then slowly walked the length of Shelter Island. Stopping for herons and pelicans and people watching as they fished off the pier.

On a recommendation by Dan we grabbed a sandwich at Fuel Dock Deli and then headed back to the BW via the Marina for a nice quiet afternoon watching the football before our late afternoon flight back to the UK, landing the next day in London.

A most enjoyable quick visit!