Day 6: Universal Studios

On day 6 of our trip, we got up early to go to Universal Studios Hollywood. Of all of the theme parks, I was most excited about this one, mainly because I LOVE movies, celebrities and everything in between. I was excited about seeing the sets, backlots and possibly a celebrity or two? It was a jam-packed day. Our tour guide kept us moving the entire time, but because we did the VIP tour (which I highly recommend), we didn't wait for a single ride. 

Our tour started off with stops to the Chelsea Lately set and the Parenthood soundstage. It was neat to see how the soundstages are set up--they may look like a normal house on television, but in fact it's a wide-open shell of a house with no roof so they can get all of the cameras and lights set up. Our guide also told us some very interesting facts, most of which I have since forgotten. The tour lasted nearly 3 hours and I loved every minute of it. Finn was not as interested in movie/tv trivia as I was but he proved to be a trouper. They have some "rides" and special effects thrown in along the way so he was definitely interested. We saw a couple of shows, rode lots of rides, played in Curious George's monkeyland and ended the day with the Waterworld Show. All in all, a great day. 

At the entrance to the park

Getting ready to walk the red carpet

This was the city center lot where they film a lot of scenes that need a town hall. It's where they filmed the clock tower scenes from the Back to the Future movies. It is basically a collection of generic looking buildings that each movie customizes with signs and decor and then adds things in digitially

Same building from Back to the Future --just altered 

The Braverman family house on Parenthood

Same room seen on tv

A shot of the prop department which resembled a 10-story Homegoods store with every possible piece/style/type/color of furniture, dish, jewelry, tsotchke

This was where they filmed some major scenes from the Pirates of the Carribbean movies

The most amazing thing being all of these buildings are fakes . . . there is nothing behind them. 

Looking out on the sets--you can see how it's really just a flat wall with nothing behind it

The real JAWS shark from the movies. So funny how fake he looked. They told us when they were filming scenes with the mechanical shark, it was always broken so they ended up inserting him digitally anyway. It's amazing to see how far technology has come.

Mechanical jaws lurking beneath the surface

Whoovile 

The Bates Motel from the movie Psycho

Set of War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise movie) 

They flew in an actual Boeing 747 to use in this scene--total destruction. It was a little surreal to see

the giant blue screen where they film a lot of the water scenes

One of the shows we saw was how they train animals to be in the movies. Very fascinating to learn that most of the pets used are rescues and see how well some of them can be trained. My dogs would not make very good movie stars. This is Finn and Kevin, the dog from the movie The Proposal.

Scene from the Waterworld show. 

My takeaway from the day was that everything looks better on tv. During our tour I kept thinking how worn out everything looked--from the furniture to the sets to the facades of the buildings themselves. But on television, they appear anything but. Note to self: get on tv! 

Days 4-5: Santa Monica and Hollywood

After our last day at Disney, we headed to Santa Monica. We planned a stopover there because Mark and I really love that area. During graduate school, we spent a month in California just moseying our way around and through southern California and up to San Francisco and wine country. It remains one of my favorite trips--we had no real plan just took it day by day. Great weather, shopping and food--what's not to love? Besides the traffic? The traffic is a nightmare, but other than that, I love LA. Turns out, five year olds do not enjoy doing the same things grown ups do, so this was a slightly different experience than our last one, but still fun, just for different reasons. We went to the Santa Monica pier, rode rides, played arcade games, drove down to Hollywood to see the Walk of Fame and Grauman's Theatre. The thing about the Walk of Fame is that there are all of these randoms who dress up in various costumes (Darth Vader, Spiderman, Batman), which just happen to be every little boys DREAM lineup. The problem is that most of these men are gross and creepy and try to pose with your child and then get you to pay them. The kids don't really notice how gross their "superheroes" really are and run to them with arms wide open. So, it was a little tricky getting down the sidewalk without getting our picture made with homeless spiderman, but we made it. They happened to be setting up for the world premiere for the OZ Great and Powerful movie. They had the entire street blocked off and were rolling out the green carpet. Now, had I been with my equally celebrity-crazed friend Kriya, I feel sure we would have camped out to see the stars, but Mark and Finn were having none of it, so we moved on. 

We did a little shopping and sightseeing, but mostly caught up on some much needed sleep, before heading to Universal Studios. 

Santa Monica Pier

Beautiful sunset on the west coast

Official end of Rte. 66, which Finn only knows about because of the movie Cars

Riding the ferris wheel with the city in the background

Finn and daddy at Pacific Park

At the end of the pier looking back

Hollywood! Finn wasn't impressed

Hollywood Blvd., setting up for the Oz premier

Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak theatre) where the Oscars take place

Day 3: California Adventure

With a successful day at Legoland under our belts, we headed back to Disneyland to visit their sister theme park, California Adventure. For those of you who have been to Disney in Orlando, I am amazed. With so many different theme parks to choose from, how do you decide and how do you cram it all in? We only had two options so that made it easy. I'm not really sure of the theme behind California Adventure--maybe they all had something to do with the state of California? At any rate, learning from my past mistakes, we got up and got there when it opened. Great call because for the first hour or so we rode pretty much everything without a wait. There was this one ride, Radiator Springs Racers, and the line just to get a Fastpass to ride the ride was an hour and a half. This is not even to ride the ride. We made the call to skip that ride all together, even though it was clearly one of the most popular ones in the park. Finn never knew it was a option. So, win-win for all of us. 

I have no problem riding rides, in fact I kind of enjoy them, except for two types: the spinning ones that go around in a circle over and over and the ones with the free fall drops. I cannot stomach them. So, somehow I ended up on the Tower of Terror, which I thought was like the haunted mansion in that you are taken through a haunted hotel with scary stuff to see. So imagine my surprise when someone in our "elevator" told me to make sure to lookout when the door opens so you can see the entire park before you drop. Pardon me? Drop? And drop we did, over and over again until I was certain my stomach was somewhere down under my feet. I couldn't even worry about Finn because I was too busy screaming my head off. Afterwards, he declared it his favorite ride ever. I had to make a run to the bathroom. If you ask him, he will tell you the tower of terror was his favorite ride but mommy didn't like it because she screamed the whole time. 

We had a great day and got to ride most of all of the big rides. We left mid-afternoon which helped us avoid a meltdown (for Finn too).

Going up in the ferris wheel

Coming down in the ferris wheel

This is as close as he wanted to get to Lightening McQueen. He took one look at the line to get a picture up close and said "I ain't got time for that." Well, not exactly--I've just

been on Pinterest too much lately :)

Carousel with daddy

Getting ready for Tow-Mater

Radiator Springs in Cars Land

Day 2: Legoland

After our less than stellar first day at Disneyland, we decided we needed a break. We figured we would go back on a weekday to see if it made any difference in the crowds (it did). Legoland is about an hour south of Anaheim, on the way to San Diego. Since Finn is in a really big Lego phase, we thought he would really enjoy it. Part of the park is a waterpark, which was closed because of cool weather, but the rest of it was rides, games, and LEGOS! The park itself isn't nearly as big as Disney which made it just the right size. It wasn't too crowded, so we were able to ride nearly all of the rides with little to no wait. Which was just what we needed. Plus, all of the rides were geared to younger children so there wasn't anything that Finn wasn't able to ride. We had a blast. The park had just enough rides, with some Lego playstations thrown in, plus several Lego themed displays, our favorite being the Star Wars miniland, where all of the pivotal battle scenes in Star Wars were recreated with Legos. It was pretty amazing to see and think that some grown people actually get paid to do this. All in all, it was a great day. I wouldn't recommended going all the way to California just for Legoland because it wasn't really big enough for that, but if you are in the area, I would definitely recommend going. Finn loved it.

That smiley face says it all

Just one of the Star wars scenes in miniland

Finn and Lego Yoda

Lego City: New York (these buildings were made entirely of Legos and were taller than me)

Lego Batman, a big hit

The US Capitol . . . in Legos

Cruising the streets of Legoland in his very own ride

In front of his favorite roller coaster, which we rode more than 5 times

Finn and Daddy on the pedal cars

Showing off his "driver's license"

Disneyland: Days 1 and 4

We started our adventure by flying from Charleston to LAX. It was a long trip, but armed with an iPad loaded with movies and plenty of snacks, Finn was a happy camper. We got in late and finally got to our hotel around midnight (3 am local time). We were wiped out. We decided to sleep in and get a late breakfast and head over to Disney late the following morning.*For those of you who have been to a Disney theme park in the past decade and/or read a book/downloaded an app about how best to plan your Disney trip know that arriving at Disney at any time less than a minute before the park opens knows that we broke Disney cardinal rule #1: Get there early!

Let me start by saying that we ended up having a great time. But it didn't really start out that way. I'm not really a "Disney" person. I mean, I like it just fine, love the movies, especially the Pixar ones, I enjoy riding rides and roller coasters, but I do NOT love crowds, and waiting in lines, bad food that costs a fortune and impossibly whiny kids, all of which I found in abundance at Disneyland. Plus, I don't have a little girl so all of the princess stuff really wasn't a big draw for us. So, no offense to those Disneyphiles out there, I can appreciate it but it's not really my thing. Different strokes for different folks. It was, however, Finn's thing. He was so excited mainly because so many of his friends at school had gone this year so he was excited about seeing what all the fuss was about. He's pretty fearless so I wasn't worried about him riding any rides. 

I have to admit that I dropped the mom ball in a big way. I did ZERO planning and researching on the park itself before we went. I know. Those of you who are experienced Disney'ers are laughing your face off right about now. But, I thought, it's a theme park, how complicated can it be? You get a map and you ride rides? Plus, it had been 25++ years since I have been. Big mistake. Huge. My friend Courtney did tell me about some book and corresponding app that had touring plans that I should follow, which I did download but never quite opened until we got there. 

So, now to the park. We got through the gates easy enough (clearly, because everyone was already IN the park) and it was like sensory overload. So many people, so many cameras, so many pins and buttons. Finn wanted to ride the Star Wars star tour ride so we headed there first. Also important to point out that I forgot to get a map of the park. So, if you are keeping tabs: we are late, have no plan and no map. We made our way to the ride only to find there was a 1:15 wait. So, onto the next one. In between, we figured out the whole fastpass deal, which I probably would have know had a read anything about Disneyland. So we decided to just bite the bullet and get in line to ride our first ride. 50 minutes + all of my snacks later, we finally got to ride the Finding Nemo ride. Then, it was past time for lunch so we did that and waited another half hour to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride before making our way to the Star Tours ride. Which was great, by the way. We then went to watch the Jedi Training camp which was hilarious. We tried to get Finn to go up there and participate as a jedi but he didn't want to, insisting that he would rather watch. After the show, we were done. Mentally and physically. Three rides and one show in nearly six hours? Are you kidding me? Finn said he had so much fun but Mark and I both were slightly disappointed. 

I vowed not to let Disneyland get the better of me and went back to the hotel and researched my little heart out. We determined that we needed a break and decided to go to Legoland the following day. Oh, did I mention we had three day passes? That meant two more days of Disney magic! My dad said that Disney is a right of passage, for both the kid and the parent, but for entirely different reasons. I totally get that now. On a positive not, it was such a joy to watch Finn in the park. He loved every ride and was thrilled about everything (except the waiting in line). We decided that it should be called "WaitDisneyland." I just couldn't get over the lines. And it wasn't even that busy, according to the park. For some reason, waiting in line for nearly an hour to ride a 5 minute ride doesn't seem worth it. I don't remember that part as a kid, which is probably the main difference going as a kid versus going as a parent. I was determined to do better, for his sake, I really wanted it to be a trip that he remembered. Here are the very few pictures of our two days in Disneyland.

Our one and only picture of the head mouse. Surprisingly, Finn was not into the characters. He didn't want to see them up close and certainly didn't want his picture taken with any of them. So, I don't have any of those quintessential Disney photos to share

Loving on his daddy

Watching the Jedi Knight Training Academy. 

Inside the Star Wars ride

Leaving the park on Day 1

Like I said, he was excited about everything, even the popcorn!

Waiting in line at Buzz Lightyear

Disneyland Day 4: Disneyland or Bust

Day 2 we went to Legoland and Day 3 we went to the other Disney park, California Adventure. We had one day where we were able to go into the park at 9 am, an hour before it "officially" opened. I say officially because there were hundreds of other people there with us. I was determined to make up for lost time and make this a good day. We hit the ground running: Space Mountain, Star Wars (again), Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Little Mermaid, and the other two roller coasters that I'm blanking on the names of and maybe another ride thrown in for good measure. We left the park a little after 11:30 am. Close to 10 rides with little to no wait, in 2.5 hours. That's the way to do Disneyland, in my book! We ended up on a high note. Obviously, I didn't take many pictures. We were too busy hoofing it around the park. As a parent, it was a great joy to watch Finn experience Disneyland for the first (possibly only) time. His enthusiasm and excitement were contagious and seeing his smile, hearing his laughter and shrieks of joy during the rides definitely made everything worth it.  Maybe it makes me a bad parent, but if the line was longer than 20 minutes, we didn't ride it. So, we skipped a lot, including some of the perennial favorites like Dumbo, Mickey's house, and It's a Small World. Plus, we skipped the fireworks spectacular. I know, worst mom of the year, right here. But in my defense, we were so exhausted by the end of the day that waiting until nearly 9:00 pm to watch fireworks only to have to fight our way home with thousands of other people just didn't seem worth it. Plus, we have a great fireworks display right here on Sullivans on July 4th. Besides, he never knew the difference and we were all happier having a few extra hours of sleep. 

As we were leaving the park, Finn put his hand in Mark's and said, "dad, when can we come back to Disneyland?" To which Mark replied, "when you bring your own little boy."