Thursday 6th September, 2012
LAS VEGAS... the city that never sleeps!! WOW, what a place!!
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| New York New York |
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| Excalibur and The Statue of Liberty from NY NY |
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| The Strip |
Friday 7th September, 2012
We took it pretty easy on this day, the kids didn't wake up until about 10am so we kept the pace at a minimum! We had dinner planned with everyone at the Fremont Street Experience where Rob and the kids got to meet Viv & Jeff!! Fremont Street use to be the 'old' strip but they've now converted it into a mall where they show a laser light music performance every hour. It's kinda like a big covered in Bourke Street Mall with casinos down each side, people everywhere, characters everywhere and a laser light show. AND GET THIS... the laser light show is done to music and it just so happened that the music of choice was Bon Jovi - they must have known I was coming!
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| Smurfette |
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| Mario & Luigi |
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| Us with Viv, Jeff, Gill & Ray |
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| Not sure what the go is with Coops' pose |
Today we headed off to Hoover Dam, pretty impressive... for the grown ups anyway, but the kids did OK. Our first stop on the way out of Las Vegas was the FAMOUS Welcome sign, how could you not stop for a photo opportunity!!
It was about 40 degrees in the shade on this day so we quite enjoyed the Power Plant Tour which was underground and much cooler!!
From Hoover Dam we got our tour bus driver to drop us off at Mandalay Bay where we checked out the Shark Reef Aquarium. Again, a nice cool place to get out of the heat. The Komodo Dragon was pretty impressive and the kids enjoyed it too!
From here we headed back to the Strip to check out the BEST PLACE ON THE PLANET... M&M WORLD!!
We went a little crazy in here... well who wouldn't with 4 storey's of everything M&M. The kids got bags of M&M's and I pigged out on the peanut butter M&M's... it was hard to leave!!!
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| The great wall of M&Ms |
Our jam packed day came to an end after a front row viewing of the amazing Bellagio Fountains. I could watch these over and over again and the kids got a real buzz out of them too!
Sunday 9th September, 2012
Another pretty cruisy day. We were expecting the kids to suffer from some jetlag so didn't really plan too much but they got into the swing of Las Vegas time pretty easily. Today we headed to The Mirage to see Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden. They had lions and cheetahs as well as gorgeous dolphins.
Monday 10th September, 2012
We spent Monday driving from Las Vegas to Tusayan, the town we stayed at for our Grand Canyon visit. It only took 4 and a half hours to get there and the views were quite amazing. It was much cooler here and we even had some refreshing rain! Tusayan is about a 5 minute drive to the Grand Canyon National Park... so perfect!
Tuesday 11th September, 2012
Today was spent checking out Grand Canyon National Park... or the South Rim. The 'purists' will tell you that the South Rim is the REAL Grand Canyon and much better than the West Rim which is the one most people visit from Vegas. We can't tell you which is better because we haven't done the West Rim, but what we saw was out of this world, and unfortunately we couldn't possibly begin to share the experience. It's one of those things in life and in the world that you just have to see to believe!
We spent the whole day here and either walked on walking tracks or jumped on one of the tourist buses that would take you from look out to look out. Depending on how the weather was would depend on what you could see. Often you would be standing taking in the scenery only to watch the weather roll in and completely obstruct your view within minutes. That's when you'd move on to the next lookout. The kids were pretty impressed, not sure if it was with the big hole in the ground or the multitude of squirrels they got to chase!!
Wednesday 12th September, 2012
We left the awe inspiring Canyon today... so glad we took the two days to explore this amazing site and the surrounding areas. We headed back to Las Vegas... via California... we missed our turn off while driving through a huge storm!! I would have paid money to see Robs and my face when we came upon the WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA sign on the highway! As it turned out we were only about 80kms past the turn off so headed back to where we came from. Nothing wrong with taking the scenic route!
Thursday 13th September, 2012
Today we jumped on a plane and headed to Los Angeles... or Anaheim to be more precise. We got to our hotel which was directly across the road from the Happiest Place on Earth... Disneyland!! We checked out Downtown Disney which is just a mall that runs between Disneyland & Disney California Adventure, but it has shops and restaurants so it was nice to get a feel for the place before heading in the next day!
Friday 14th September, 2012
DISNEY CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE PARK
We were up bright, early and ready to hit the park with the rest of the crowds. We needed to get into the park early so that we could get our FastPass for the Radiator Springs Racers ride in Cars Land. We only had to line up for about 20mins but we had our pass to the newest and best ride in DCA - WooHoo!! Our scheduled ride time was between 11.05am & 12.05pm!
Now that we had our prized FastPass we could relax and enjoy the scenery! We met our hosts for the day... Walt & Mickey!!
We moved onto Cars Land so that we could check it out before going on THE ride. We met some characters, hopped on some rides and enjoyed the atmosphere, it was so exciting seeing all the places that we'd come to know in the movie.
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| Mater |
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| Lightning & his entourage! |
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| Mater's Junkyard Jamboree |
It was another scorcher, 39 degrees, but that didn't hold us back and none of us complained about the heat. Why would we when there were heaps of fountains and squirters to cool us down! So every opportunity we had we'd dunk our hats and put them on our heads or run through squirters like we were running through sprinklers on our lawns, lots of fun!!
Another fun ride we went on was It's Tough to be a Bug! It was a 4D extravaganza where it looked like bugs were flying at you and felt like they were crawling under your bums or spraying venom at you or poking you in the back with their stingers. It was an overload on the senses and the kids were OHHHH K, but it was a little full on! You can't go all that way without experiencing (almost) everything... surely!!
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| Jorja in her buggy 3D glasses |
There were characters scattered throughout the park and we took every opportunity to meet them. They were all very chirpy and happy and often played around with the kids before photos were taken.
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| Chip & Dale |
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| Mr Incredible & Elastigirl from The Incredibles! |
It was a BIG DAY at DCA only to be followed by a big evening. We had a very special dinner reservation with some princesses at Ariel's Grotto. CJK blew our host a kiss which she caught, so he declared that Ariel was his favourite princess!
During dinner we were visited by a few of the princesses who stopped to have a chat and were very nice to us.
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| Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty) |
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| Snow White |
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| Belle - JMK's favourite |
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| Mulan |
After dinner we found ourselves a spot to sit so that we could take in World of Color. What a spectacle this was. Basically, it's projected pictures on jets of coloured water... truly amazing! I wish I could upload the video we took but it's like 900MEG, so you'll just have to get the gist from the photo!
And just when we thought our day was over... as we were heading out of DCA we walked past Cars Land again. It looked completely different at night with all the neon signs lit up, so of course we had to have another look!
So with tired feet, tired legs and tired eyes we headed back to the hotel. Luckily it was only across the road because we all fell in a heap when we got back and were asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. We needed a good night's sleep... we were hitting LA the next morning!!
Saturday 15th September, 2012
It was a relatively early start and another hot day, seriously about 40 degrees today! Thank goodness our tour bus had air conditioning!! We headed to LA and surrounds, checked out Olvera St, Beverly Hills, Chinese Manns Theatre, Hollywood sign, the Walk of Fame, some celebrity homes and of course Rodeo Drive. To be honest, LA didn't do much for us... it was pretty drab and it really was too hot to get off the air conditioned bus!
We did enjoy Santa Monica though. We got a cool ocean breeze and it was just more picturesque than all the above.
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| Santa Monica |
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| Santa Monica Pier |
From Santa Monica we headed a little further down to Venice Beach. What an eye opener!! I was expecting something between Bondi and Portsea I think but this was very different to that. Lots of people, lots of groups of people and a real bohemian feel to the place. We weren't all that comfortable, especially with the kids so we made a quick purchase of fresh fruit cups and headed back to the bus. I could see me enjoying it 15yrs ago, but not so much now. I'm just showing my age I think!!
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| Venice Beach |
Sunday 16th September, 2012
This was our relax day which we chose to spend wandering around Downtown Disney. I had told JMK & CJK that they could get a Build-a-Bear from DTD as a memento of their holiday, provided it was USA or Disney related.
Here's JMK with the beautiful, strawberry scented Belle all dressed up in her Disney gear!
We came across another shop in DTD called RideMakerz which has the same concept as Build-a-Bear but you build your own car! So of course this really hit the spot with CJK. Not sure he came out with a USA or Disney themed car but it was a Spiderman Monster Truck of sorts that he and Rob put together!! CJK was rather chuffed with it and I guess that's all that really matters!
Monday 17th September, 2012
Today we had a breakfast reservation with someone very special. She was quite the host and had lots of friends for us to meet... can you guess who it is...???
Minnie Mouse of course! She was a wonderful host. We had our Minnie & Friends breakfast booked for 9.40am at the Plaza Inn which gave us plenty of time for mingling with plenty of characters before heading into Disneyland!
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| Tigger |
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| Captain Hook |
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| Eeyore |
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| Max |
After a very yummy and very big breakfast we headed into Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth!
The weather was pleasant, not as hot as it had been - thank goodness! We spent the day wandering around checking out all the sights, the rides and the characters. I have to admit though, I think we all like DCA just a smidge more than DL.
This young lady is Perriwinkle. JMK and I spent about 45 minutes queuing up to meet Tinkerbell (this was the longest wait we had across both parks) and we got Perriwinkle! Yeah, who the hell is she??? A little disappointing but she was nice enough and as it turns out she's a new character in Pixie Hollow.
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| JMK & Perriwinkle |
Next it was on to see our host... Mickey Mouse! We were all very excited about meeting him and getting a photo with him. After all, this is who you come to Disneyland to see!!
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| Mickey's car in Toon Town |
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| Goofy |
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| Pluto |
JMK's favourite ride at Disneyland was probably 'It's a small world'. It's not dark, it's not jolty and it's not scary in the slightest... the only thing that does your head in is the song... over & over & over again! It's still stuck in my head NOW!
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| The entrance into Its a Small World |
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| Ireland - for Nana |
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| New Zealand - for Poppy |
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| Australia |
After another big day of walking, sightseeing and hopping on and off rides it was time to plonk down and get ready for Mickey's Soundsational Parade! We got ourselves a prime spot and just waited for the fun to begin. While waiting, we couldn't resist getting a photo with the big Pumpkin... DL was all set up for Halloween too!!
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| Waiting and watching for the parade to come our way! |
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| Mickey & Minnie groovin away |
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| The Disney Princess float - very pretty! |
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| The Lion King - a big hit with CJK |
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| Peter Pan |
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| Mary Poppins |
Another HUGE day full of fun, adventure and out of this world sights!! We headed home high on the day we had and happy once our heads hit our pillows!!
Tuesday 18th September, 2012
Our last day in Anaheim and it was spent at both Disneyland AND Disney California Adventure, going back to the rides and attractions we liked the most! Today was our Magic Morning, this is where you get to enter DL an hour earlier than everyone else - woohoo!
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| Cinderella's Castle |
You can't go to DL without riding Splash Mountain. So when we were walking past and saw that there was no line we bit the bullet and jumped on. WE LOVED IT!! Rob lost his hat and JMK & I lost our lungs screaming but it was sooooo much fun!! Here's the Disney pic, again, a little blurry but you get the idea!!
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| AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!! |
Check out Rob's face... he could see exactly what was coming and he got absolutely soaked!! So much fun! It was another warm day so we all dried off relatively quickly.
The rest of the day was pretty cruisy, just meeting characters and hopping on rides. It was a nice way to spend our last day at Disney, no rushing, no lining up... just being there and enjoying the atmosphere.
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| CJK & Rob on the Dumbo ride |
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| Winnie the Pooh |
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| Woody |
So that's it... Disney done and dusted! We had such an amazing time, it was really a great place to visit as a family, there was something for all of us to do!
Now, time for some R&R... bring on the sun, the sand and the island bliss of Hawaii!!
Wednesday 19th September, 2012
Cooper's 5th Birthday!!
We arrived in Waikiki at about 1pm. Again, the kids flew really well, it was only a 5hr flight but they still did a great job. Our shuttle bus was there to meet us and took us to our hotel whilst giving us tourist information on what to see and do during our stay.
I was pleasantly surprised and relatively impressed with our room. It was a typical hotel room but we had a great view of Waikiki Beach... just what we needed... some serenity!
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| Waikiki Beach from our balcony |
We thought that CJK would enjoy going to the Hard Rock Cafe for his birthday dinner, we were sure there'd be a guitar or two for him to have a look at... or even maybe a drum set! WELL... little did we know that Hard Rock Cafe - Waikiki has a ceiling wave of guitars... right up CJK's alley. He sat at the table drawing all the different guitars - he was in his element!
Our waiter was a great guy who found out that we were celebrating CJK's 5th birthday. He organised a HUGE chocolate Sunday and got all the other waiters over to our table to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
I think it's safe to say that CJK had a great birthday... but then who wouldn't in sunny Waikiki!!
Thursday 20th September, 2012
This was just a lazy bum around day! We didn't do much at all other than check out the International Market Place and some other shops. We just wandered down the streets taking in all the sights.
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| CJK couldn't resist streaking on the balcony! |
Friday 21st September, 2012
This was a HUGE day! We jumped on a tour bus and headed out to Pearl Harbour. I had spoken to the kids and explained to them what this place was about and how they had to be respectful and quiet. They were soooooo well behaved, I was so proud of them, especially at the Arizona Memorial.
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| Arizona Memorial |
From the Missouri we hopped on another bus and headed over to the Pacific Aviation Museum... another interesting and historical place full of aeroplanes. The kids really enjoyed this. JMK and I got our photo taken by this machine which sent it straight home to our email address... pretty clever huh?! Here it is...
It was a long and hot day at Pearl Harbour, but we survived. We headed back to Waikiki for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. I know it doesn't sound like a place for dinner, but it is and it was YUMMY!!! After dinner we headed back to our hotel via Waikiki Beach, it was a perfect night for a stroll on this iconic beach.
Saturday 22nd September, 2012
We spent today at Ala Moana shopping mall topping up with some bargains!!
Sunday 23rd September, 2012
Today we spent the day down at Waikiki Beach splashing in the waves and having some fun and relaxing on the warm sand - how perfect!
After our frolic in the waves it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready... we were off to a Luau!! The Paradise Cove Luau was about a 30 minute drive from Waikiki. It had heaps of activities there that everyone could do. Rob participated in the spear throwing, JMK got herself a tribal tattoo, CJK watched intently as some guy climbed a palm tree to collect coconuts and I watched the lovely hula dancing.
We had a very yummy dinner at Paradise Cove, the pork was cooked under the ground, much the same way as a hangi - YUMMY!
There was a show after dinner where they did dances from all the pacific islands. Of course, we liked the Maori Haka the best!
Our last night in Hawaii... the last night of our holiday!
Monday 24th September, 2012
Our flight wasn't until 11pm so we still had the day to do some last minute shopping and just take it easy. The hotel allowed us to keep our room at half rate which was nice. It meant we could go and have dinner and then head back for a shower before catching our flight.
The kids travelled really well on the way home, it was about a 10hr flight which CJK slept for most of it. JMK didn't sleep as well but she was OK.
It was a GREAT holiday! Don't get me wrong, the kids drove us NUTS at times but I'd have to say the good times outweighed the bad ones. As a family we really enjoyed our time away together... just us... it was nice for a change.
Oh, and by the way. We're heading back to Vegas in a couple of years... WITHOUT THE KIDS... anyone willing to babysit for a week... or two!!!
2 comments:
ok - it was worth the wait... great holidays... great pics... and unfortunately not available for babysitting duty!!
Wow! What an adventure!
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