Our 10 year Anniversary Trip

We had such an amazing trip. We enjoyed perfect weather in the 70s and 80s the whole time and loved getting all that sun. It makes the weather here even more dreary, though! 40s today and rainy. Yuck. Sometimes I wish I could live in So. Cal full-time, that is if there wasn't all that traffic, smog, and high home prices. ;-)

We flew out Saturday and spent a great evening with my grandparents in Huntington Beach. Sunday morning we left for Catalina Island via the Catalina Flyer in Newport Beach. We spent the day there and enjoyed the city tour on the bus, walking along the boardwalk, exploring in the shops, and the casino tour.

The casino is not actually a "casino" at all. When it opened in 1929, they named it The Catalina Casino after the Italian word casino, which means gathering place. There has never been any gambling there. It was built by William Wrigley Jr., of Wrigley chewing gum fame. He owned much of the island at one time.

This is the lobby. They used black walnut for the wood paneling on the walls (which you cannot get anymore), real plated gold for the stars, and sterling silver arches along the ceiling. Beyond the lobby is an amazing theater with gorgeous murals painted on all the walls. You have to walk up several stories to get to the top floor using ramps instead of stairs. According to our tour guide, Wrigley used ramps because they were easier to transport large groups of people. On the weekends, thousands of people flocked to the Casino for dances. Dancers were hired to perform on the boat ride over (2 hours) and upon arriving would continue dancing along the boardwalk, all the way over to the casino (about 1/4 mile). The entire mass of people would go up to the ballroom together and dance the night away, leaving early the next morning for the boat ride home. Many big bands held concert here as well. They thought of everything in this place, including the huge fan that was installed underneath the chandelier. In order to keep the ballroom from becoming a sweltering oven, they opened all the doors (which encircled the ballroom) and turned the fan on, which sucked up all the dead air in the center of the room in a matter of minutes.

We got back to Newport Beach at about 5:45 pm and headed to our hotel. I got a great deal for the Hyatt through Priceline at just $75 a night. I've read reports of people getting this hotel for only $50-60 a night but after several tries I couldn't score it for that low. I'm guessing because it was the beginning of spring break season. Our room was super clean and nice. It faced Disneyland Resort and we were able to see the fireworks from our room. We opened the blinds and enjoyed the show while relaxing in bed. It was great! They also had a free shuttle that ran every half hour to and from Disneyland but charged $15 a day for parking and there was no free continental breakfast. Still, we would definitely stay here again if the price was right. :-)

We spent Monday and Tuesday at Disneyland and DCA (Disney's Cal. Adventure). The parks were not very crowded and Space Mountain still only had about a 35 min. wait in the early afternoon. The longest wait we saw was for Splash Mountain, which was 60 min in the heat of the afternoon (it was low 80s). Of course, we had fast pass so we were on it within 10 min. or so. Many of the other rides wait times never exceeded 15 min or so. It was awesome! Less crowded than even our late October trips.

We took a slower, more relaxing pace this trip because I was fighting off a cold and we wanted to experience some things that we never get to do with the kids. So besides riding our favorite rides several times, we also enjoyed people watching on the train around the park, riding Segways for the first time at Innoventions and seeing the ASIMO robot show there, watching the Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, Remember Dreams Come True fireworks show, and Disney's The First 50 Years movie. The fireworks were amazing and it was so fun to see them from in front of the castle to get all of the special effects that are a part of this show. They change the lighting on the castle and create images that pertain to the story. They play music from many of the different rides and coordinate the fireworks to it. Also, Tinkerbell flies from the Matterhorn over to the castle and across to the other side a couple times.

We really loved seeing "The First 50 Magical Years" show in a building on main street. It was really neat to see the history of Disneyland and Walt Disney and it was actually pretty funny too with Steve Martin and Donald Duck's commentary. We also spent quite a bit of time wondering around the lobby in there looking at the neat displays and photos. It was shortly after this that we lost our camera! Since it was a few days ago and it hasn't been turned into lost and found yet, we're pretty sure it was stolen. Aaarrghhh So, these pics from the web will have to do. :-)

Tuesday night was headed back to my grandparent's house and spent a few hours with them on Wednesday morning, visiting, doing a puzzle, and going out to lunch at a really yummy Chinese restaurant. I'm so glad we were able to spend this time with them. We miss them already!

After lunch we headed to the Queen Mary & The Scorpion Russian submarine. Luckily grandma had a disposable camera that she gave me to take pics. I still need to get them developed but here's a shot I found online.

We got back Wednesday evening and found our kids hadn't missed us much at all thanks to Sara! They had a great time with her and Alisha. Thanks guys!!!