We Are Back From The USA

Yesterday we returned from our USA trip, right in time for the UEFA Euro 2016! We had a fantastic time in the US, met many friendly people (and one weirdo ;-)) and we can't already wait to return, hopefully next year.

Our trip inlcuded Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Palm Springs. All towns were fun to visit, but Chicago will always be my favourite city in the US.

In LA we visited both Disneyland and Universal Studios, the Hollywood Blvd, Downtown LA, Santa Monica and the Griffith Observatory. San Francisco was all about Alcatraz and the Walt Disney Family Museum.

I will write an extensive trip report over the next weeks, but I can already say, that Disneyland Paris is still my favourite Disney park. Disneyland was great, but I was surprised how much I like DCA. That park is really cool and takes the third place after DLP and EPCOT on my Disney parks list. It has great rides, Buena Vista Street looks gorgeous and it offers Californian Craft Beers. It's a very adult oriented park and I liked that. Paradise Pier with the Fun Wheel, which is really a lot of fun, and California Screamin' might be my favourite area of the park.

 

Glad you had a great trip! I can't believe it's already come and gone!

 

Time flew by so quickly. Two weeks ago we were in San Francisco and a week ago in LA.

 

Looking forward to reading your detailed report.

 

Before I will write about Disneyland Anaheim, I want to share some general thoughts about our USA trip. As you know or may not know, my wife and studied for half a year in the US and so we lived in Ohio for over six months. Since then the USA became one of our favourite vacation destinations. Unfortunately visiting is not that cheap, but once in a while we fly over to visit our friends our just for vacation.

This year it was time for our dream vacation in California. As I mentioned above our trip included Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Las Vegas again. It was a round trip by car. Since we visited Las Vegas in 2008 for the first time, I wanted to return as soon as possible. I'm not a gambler, but I just like casinos and the atmosphere. So we decided to fly to LV first, because we found some good rates from Delta Airline.

Immigration

Unlike during our last two US trips, immigration wasn't pleasant this time, because it was pure chaos in Atlanta. Since it worked so fine last year and in 2013, we decided to shorten our stayover in Atlanta to two hours. Another reason to do that was the ESTA. That's a $14 document that tourists need to obtain in the home country before the journey starts to enter the US and it is valid for two years. Without the ESTA you are not allowed on the plane towards the States.

According to the homepage of the TSA, immigration is a lot easier when the ESTA was already used in a prior trip, because we could have used the automated immigration. So we thought we might be fine with only two hours, however we got really nervous after we landed, because at first it seemed like we might not catch our connectig flight to LV due to the very long lines. The reason for the lines were conflicting informations given out by the ground personal. In the plane the crew gave us the same informations like the TSA homepage, which included that we didn't have to go to an officer, just to the computer machine, and that we didn't have to fill out costums declarations. However in Atlanta everything changed. Once we arrived we were told that we had to fill out costums declarations and had to go to an officer. So after we filled out all documents, we waited in the assigned line. Unfortunately that line wasn't moving at all, because the airport staff assigned us to the wrong officer. So after waiting in line for half an hour and not moving at all, I decided to ask a TSA officer, who was walking by, about the situation. Astonished by the procedure, he took us out of the line and showed us the automated ESTA computer immigration queue. It turned out that the airplane crew and the TSA homepage did in fact give out the right informations, but the airport staff was wrong the whole time. Within minutes and many questions from the officer we immigrated with no problems. Now we were officially in the US, but the problems didn't stop, because we had to go through security again, which meant another very long line. Luckily they opened more gates and so we still had about 30 minutes left. In the terminal there were announcements that if you are not in the plane 20 minutes prior to depature on domestic flights, or 40 minutes on international flights, the flight booking might be cancelled. I wonder how they are enforcing that, because on none of the flights we achieved that. That's a good way to scare tourists away! Since we knew that already from 2015, it didn't bother us. Since our ESTA expires at the end of the year, we have to get a new one for our vacation next year and I'm really not looking forward to the whole procedure without the automated immigration.

Driving

For our roundtrip we rented a car from AVIS. I booked the car at AVIS Austria, because that saved a lot of money due to the insurance. US car rental companies are crazy when it comes to insurance policies. Booking at home meant that my insurance from home covered my rental car as well and so we got a Ford Focus for 375 Euros for two weeks.

Driving in the US wasn't a problem at all, but it is slow and boring and I was surprised by the terrible conditions of the roads in California, especially on the Highways between Sacramento and San Francisco and in and around the major cities. Surprisingly in LA it was really bad. And 65 miles per hour on straight highways feels like you are not moving at all . Most of the drivers drove faster, but I stuck to the 65, because getting a ticket in the US was not high on my to do list . At first I was a bit terrified by the stories about driving in LA, but besides the constant traffic jam, it was totally fine. Since we got a great hotel deal, we stayed for a week in Anaheim and so we had to use LA's highway system a lot, but thanks to our Garmin navigation system, we did fine.

Since every tourist guide recommends driving down the California coast on Highway 1, we did that too. What a mistake. While the view is really beautiful, I wouldn't recommend it to any tourist. It was a traffic jam from Monterey to Santa Maria, but maybe that was because of the public holiday (Memorial Day). However I feel bad for the people living there.

General Observations And Questions

We did get carded but not as much as during our recent trips to Ohio and Florida, however it was new to us that we both had to show our ID when we bought alcohol at Wal-Mart. Once only I had my passport with me, they didn't accept other documents like a driving licence, but my wife left hers in the safe and so we didn't get beer. I found that a bit strange, because do parents don't get alcohol when the are shopping with their teenagers? At Disney and Universal or at most bars in San Francisco or Las Vegas we didn't get carded at all.

In San Francisco European Appliances must be a big thing, because we saw many stores selling only these items. I always thought that they are available everywhere in the US.

I guess the economic crisis from recent years hit some people really badly. It was depressing to see so many homeless people in the streets. In fact I have never seen so many homeless people ever. In LA some were living in tents near Downtown. We never felt unsafe, but it was a very sad observation.

Friendliness - Americans are so helpful and friendly, so please don't expect such a friendliness in Europe, because we might be polite, but not as warm and welcoming. I really love that about your country. When we looked lost, people came over and showing us the way. While at WDW the friendliness was too much, it was the right amount this time.

Disney And Hard Rock Trip

This might be the strangest part for many. We didn't visit any National Parks, except for driving through Death Valley. We are not so much into that kind of stuff. While I'm sure the parks are stunning and worth a visit, we skipped them this time. Maybe we will visit them in another year. The main reason for visiting California was Disneyland followed by San Francisco and Las Vegas. And since I'm a big Hard Rock Cafe fan, we made sure to visit as many hotels and cafes as possible. Besides Disneyland we visited Universal Studios, Alcatraz, the Walt Disney Family Museum, the Winchester Mystery House, checked out the Yoda Fountain at the Lucasfilm Headquarter and the main gate of the Pixar Animation Studios. On our way to Los Angeles we stopped at WDI in Glendale and at the Disney Headquarter in Burbank. I knew that there wasn't anything to do at WDI or in Burbank, but I just wanted to see the Seven Dwarfs Building and the famous 1401 Flower Street building.

 

I can't wait to hear more about your trip!

 

Las Vegas

We had already been to Vegas in 2008 and since then I wanted to return. As I already mentioned, I am not a gambler, but I just like the atmosphere of the huge hotels and casinos, everyone is so relaxed there. This year our trip started and ended in Vegas. For the first two nights we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and for the last two nights of our journey we chose the Tuscany Hotel and Casino. Both hotels were a bit off the Strip, but that was fine since we don't mind walking. The hotels on the Strip were just crazy expensive.

Vegas was still the crazy city as I remembered it from 2008. Only a few things changed on the strip, but unfortunately the prices increased heavily during the last eight years. There were no $3 daiquiries anymore, or $2 beers. And back then we had a fantastic exchange rate between the Euro and the Dollar. But since we didn't travel to Vegas for drinking, it was fine. We spent most of the time walking through the casinos or having drinks at the bars. The Bellagio and the Wynn are still the most beautiful resorts, while some others look already a bit trashy. Since we stayed a bit off the strip we got to see the "ugly" areas as well. Vegas definitely is an ugly and dirty city off the Strip. Trash was everywhere and unfortunately so were homeless people. None of them didn't harm us, but it is just sad looking at those broken lives.

We didn't watch any of the big shows, because "O" was sold out during our dates and we didn't want to pay nearly 100 dollars for them. At least the beautiful Bellagio Fountains were still free

This time we visited the Freemont Street Experience too, and while it was even weirder there, the booze was rather cheap. Maybe that was the reason, why Old Vegas attracts many strange people. Nonetheless we enjoyed our time there.

As you can see, Vegas was just about "being there" for us. We didn't have any special plans and just wanted to hang out in the casinos.

 

San Francisco

From Las Vegas we drove via Bishop, California, and Lake Tahoe to San Francisco. We didn't want to drive the whole distance to Lake Tahoe at once, so we decided to stay for one night in Bishop, a nice little town. Unfortunately nearly all motels and hotels hadn't any rooms available or were way too expensive, and so we ended up in a little motel called Trees Motel. From the outside it looked fine, but the room was definitely not worth the money. The landscape between Vegas and Lake Tahoe is really stunning, especially the beautiful mountain range and the incredible Death Valley.

In Lake Tahoe we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which offered a very good rate. I guess Lake Tahoe is much more interesting in winter with the ski resorts, but it still was a nice village with a beautiful scenery around the lake and cool a brewery restaurant that offers some great craft beers.

From there we were on our way to San Francisco and stopped in Berkely to see the University and in Emeryville for Pixar. I just wanted to see the famous main gate. In San Francisco we stayed in a nice motel in SoMa (South of Market). Most of the hotels were out of our price range. Traveling nearly three weeks through the US and flights needed us to watch our budget at least a little. Nevertheless the motel was fine and we only had to walk 20 minutes to Chinatown, which was cool, and a couple of minutes to a great streetfood market, where we ate several times, and to Trader Joe's. I wish Aldi would also open Trader Joe's over here, since there are already so many Aldi markets.

I had high expectations for San Francisco, but it didn't live up to them. The city is great, but not as great as Chicago or New York. Fisherman's Wharf was a little bit disappointing, it's basically a fancy restaurant mall, but the sea lions were wonderful to watch. Our highlights in the city were Alcatraz, the Winchester Mystery House and the Walt Disney Family Museum.

Alcatraz was fantastic and very interesting. The tour is worth every minute and penny. Currently they have a very interesting exhibition about old people in prisons that makes you think. While they certainly deserve their time in prison, I'm glad that my home country treats them in a better way after they reached a certain age. I don't want to turn my trip report into a political discussion, but while the US is such a wonderful country and great to visit, the politics and other things like social care, or more recent gun control, make me grateful for growing up and living here. No offense intended and I'm sure you guys see it differently and we definitely don't have the insight to get the whole picture to get the whole, but we can at least make up our opinion

The Walt Disney Family Museum was also great to visit. Located at the beautiful Presidio the museum offers a good exhibition about the life of Walt Disney. I wished it would have been more critical about him, but given the fact that the museum is run by the Disney family, you can't expect that. For example his fight against the unions or communists was hardly touched and presented him in a much better light than in all of the biography books out there. Nonetheless it's a beautiful museum and for Disney fans certainly worth a trip. On our way to the museum we also checked out the Lucasfilm Headquarter with the yoda fountain, the California Fine Arts Palace and Crissy Fields, which offered a beautiful look at the Golden Gate Bridge.

On our way to LA we stopped at the Winchester Mystery House. We wanted to see this building since Halloween 2007. Halloween is a much bigger deal in the US than it is over here, and so many US television channels have or have had these specials about haunted houses and we have seen one about the Winchester House. It's a strange building, with a cool background story. Spirits told the widow of the founder of the Winchester riffle factory that she has to keep expanding her house, because otherwise the souls of the victims of the Winchester riffles will come and haunt her. So she kept building that house for all her life. Now there are door leading nowhere or weird rooms with no windows.

Towards LA we drove down Highway #1, which offered beautiful views, but unfortunately it was basically a traffic jam from Montery to Santa Maria, where we decided to stay for one night.

 

Los Angeles

At first we wanted to seperate our stay at Disneyland from the rest of LA, but we got such a good rate for the Knights Inn near Disneyland so that we decided to stay there for six nights. The motel itself was great, because it was only a 15 minutes walk to Disneyland and we got a newly refurbished room. Although the walls were a bit thin, like everywhere in the US, we hardly heard anyone, since all were tired after a long day at Disney. As for the thin walls, in Santa Maria we stayed in a Holyday Inn and while it was the most expensive hotel during our trip, it was also the loudest and worst hotel besides the one in Bishop.

On the way to LA we stopped in Santa Monica, because I wanted to see the "Baywatch" Headquarter from the world famous TV show at Will Rogers State Beach. Unfortunately the the parking space was closed due to the foggy weather and so we drove to Glendale to Whole Foods Market. On our way there I had to stop at WDI and since Burbank was around the corner we also got to see the Michael D. Eisner building with the Seven Dwarfs. In Glendale we did some shopping at the Glendale Galleria and at the fancy outdoor shopping mall Americana. I think that was the name, it was just behind the mall. In the late afternoon we arrived in Anaheim and redeemed our ticket vouchers from Park Savers at Disneyland and spent the evening at Trader Sam's. I will write about Disneyland seperately, but all I can say already is, that we had three days at DL.

For LA itself we had only planned one day and another day for Universal Studios. In LA we had to visit the famous Hollywood Blvd, but it was not that great, but I was warned about that by @Dabob2. However we got to see the former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton at the local Trader Joe's supermarket. We also visited Downtown LA with the Disney Concert Hall and Civic Park and the Griffith Observatory for the fantastic view over LA. It turned out that we should have planned for more days in LA, because we also wanted to go to Beverly Hills and maybe to The Huntington. Since the weather was so warm, we are not used to temperatures above 35° Celcius on so many days, we decided to skip Beverly Hills and The Huntington and drove back to Anaheim. There we wanted to spend some time at the Garden Walk, but that was a disappointment. The mall was deserted, but at least we had a nice dinner at P. F. Chang's and then a couple of drinks in DTD.

 

Palm Springs

At first we were uncertain if we should visit, but I'm glad we did. Although it was really hot there, it's in the desert, so we knew that it would be very warm there, it was a nice little town, with some great architecture from the 50s and 60s. What we also liked was the relaxed atmosphere there. I guess that has something to do with the gay and lesbian community there, at least we say many gay couples. In general we noticed that California must have a huge gay and lesbian community. Very cool!

While we had planned to go to the tramway, we prefered to stay at the pool and then we ended up at a nice bar with a very friendly bartender in downtown. Sometimes it is better to spend time talking and chatting with locals instead of doing sightseeing.

 

Universal Studios Hollywood

Last year we visited Universal Studios Orlando and we were a bit underwhelmed. On Disney fansites there is a tendency now that Universal does everything better than Disney currently does and so we had very high expectations, which weren't met. So we were a little bit reluctant visiting Universal Studios in LA, since it is much smaller and offers only one park. However since they opened The Wizarding World of HP, we decided to give it a try, because my wife loves the HP books and Forbidden Journey, unlike Escape from Gringotts in Florida, is definitely a fantastic attraction. Like in Florida we only got the regular ticket without the fastpass feature and it proved again that it would not have been worth the extra cost. We were there on a Sunday and the crowds were low. We expected many more visitors, since DL, DCA not so much, was already crowded during weekdays. Maybe we were lucky, but I don't understand the fear that Universal might be a big threat for Disneyland, even with HP. The longest line was at Forbidden Journey and never exceeded 35 minutes.

The park itself is beautiful, but very light on attractions, which also contributed to our thoughts, that the waiting lines will be crazy. We got to do all the rides and attractions we wanted to do and still had plenty of time left. We did Forbidden Journey and The Mummy three times and all other rides once. Universal relies heavily on screen based attractions, and most of them aren't very entertaining. I liked Transformers better than in Florida, I don't know why since it's the same ride, but in my opinion the 3D was better. However Spider-Man at IOA and Ratatouille at DLP are still ahead in terms of story, Transformers is just a stupid movie franchise, and I feel the 3D effects are also better and sharper in the aforementioned rides.

The Simpsons, Shrek 4D, Despicable Me - Minion Mayhem were also screen based. While The Simpsons simulator was at least entertaining, Shrek was a stupid 4D show in whic even the children sitting next to us didn't laugh. Minion Mayhem was okay, but everyone likes the yellow tictacs. Near the Minion Mayhem I also saw one of the strangest items sold at Universal - artificial bananas. They looked liked bananas and should have tasted like bananas thanks to articfical flavours, but they just weren't bananas. Why not selling real bananas?

The Mummy was great, it had some very cool effects, and I think it is a little bit different compared to the one in Orlando, but I'm not entirely sure. Jurassic Park was a nice water ride and I prefered it over the Florida version, because we didn't get as wet as in Orlando. The Animatronics should, howeve,r get an upgrade, because the dinos didn't move smoothly or looked broken.

My highlight, besides HP and The Mummy, was the Studio Tram Tour. Disney's tour in Florida and especially the one in Paris look like a bad joke compared to Universal's, understandable since we drove through an actual movie studio. While there wasn't that much action going on, it was wonderful to see the backdrops, the fake cities and other interesting movie locations. The guide also talked a lot about the effects and how certain shots are achieved with certain techniques. For me it was very entertaining and interesting. The King Kong attraction was entertaining while Fast and the Furious was stupid, but that was mainly because I don't like the movie franchise.

All in all it was such a relaxing and wonderful day there, so that I would recommend Universal instead of Disneyland to every tourist who has limited time in LA. Not only were the crowds much lighter, Universal might also be more interesting for non-Disney fans. As I mentioned before we got to do everything we wanted. We also had a great lunch at Blaze Pizza, which will be a great addition to Disney Springs. My wife is vegan and they offer a tasty vegan cheese pizza and so we went there for dinner again. Universal Studios itself is very bad when it comes to the vegetarian/vegan options. We also had plenty of time to enjoy drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe and at the Hog's Pub inside the HP land.

What I also liked about Universal were the CMs and the security checks. They were quick but still thorough and I didn't mind the airport scanners they installed at the entrance. At Disneyland they were a mess. It took them forever and maybe they should also install these scanners to improve the security.

Retrospectively, the day at Universal was one of the most relaxing days during our vacation. Only the price for the ticket was too high compared to Disneyland. Universal just didn't offer enough to justify that price. We purchased the ticket online, which saved twenty dollars per ticket and granted early entrance. I also got the impression that Universal is aimed towards a more adult audience, and we really liked that. There weren't as many strollers and kids as in Disneyland. Instead there were many older couples and young adults.

Universal and LA in general seem to be a prefered destination for Asians, because we saw so many guided tours at Universal and in Hollywood, and we assume that they were Chinese. They behaved nicely, so I'm curious about the coming reports from SDL.

 

Wow!! You guys were definitely busy while you were over here, huh? I'm glad that you were able to fit in a lot of stuff other than Disney. I can't wait to hear more!

 

Indeed, we got to see a lot, but I still think we could have done more

I guess we have to return some day.

 

Yes you do. You blew off my suggestion of the Huntington!

Seriously, Southern California rewards repeat visits. There's a ton of interesting stuff beyond the obvious "biggies."

 

Next time we will do it . Hopefully We just underestimated traffic and the heat. In San Francisco it was rather cold, but in LA we just got defeated by the warm weather and the three days at Disneyland before took their toll as well.

 

I didn't realize that your trip had come up so soon! I guess that would explain why I didn't see you posting for a while! Glad you had a good time!

Sorry you had to go through customs in Atlanta. I've done it there a couple times, and it's always busy due to the massive size of the airport. It's good that you discovered that most of the "board by" warnings are just to make sure people get to the gate early; they often don't even begin boarding until after that time, especially Delta

Glad to hear you had a good trip! As others have mentioned, there's definitely a ton of stuff to see and do in southern California. There are still countless things that I haven't done, despite visiting several times a year and having lived there for nearly 6 years. The sprawling layout can make it a challenge to visit, but it has some great stuff

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" -Mark Twain

San Francisco has weird weather because of the Bay, and the average temperature in June is actually colder than December. LA can get warm, but it's nothing compared to the inland areas nearby; it sounds like Palm Springs wasn't too bad for you, but those areas can be brutal in the summer

 

If someone is interested, here are the first parts of my trip report with pictures.

Traveling: California 2016 - Part 1

Traveling: California 2016 - Part 2

Traveling: California 2016 - Part 3

Traveling: California 2016 - Part 4

 

Thanks, yes we had a fantastic time. The US are always great to visit and we can't wait to return. Since we got invited by our friends in Ohio, we might actually return next year.

It wouldn't have been any problem at all, if the airport staff would get the right informations out. When Delta is able to explain how it works on a plane, then the staff should be able to do that as well.

Since we didn't go to San Diego and still want to go there, I'm pretty sure we will return to California to see more of that beautiful state.

That explains a lot. The weather in SF was really strange. It changed from cold and windy to warm by the minute.

Palm Springs was very hot, but they had those fans with the water mists.

 

Looks like you had a great time and thanks for sharing your pictures!

I'm not surprised that in Las Vegas you found the strip hotels too much as it always seems to be going up. We wanted to try the Hard Rock, so maybe in the next few months when I go I will consider it

If you decide to go back to Las Vegas you have to try the High Roller at night! Everytime we visit we do a night time ride with a open bar. You can see the entire strip, and the Fountains at Bellagio. Plus, unlimited drinks makes it that much better.

 

Hey those are great photos! Thanks for sharing them. Makes me want to go back to Vegas (I'm a six hour drive or a 1 hr plane ride away) but then my wife and I ask why we pay so much to sit around the pool and drink all day when we can do that at home? We both enjoy it though.