Today was a first for both Kate and I after revisiting both Vegas and Disneyland… California Adventures! I know, I know… it’s a Disney park. We had both visited the original park much before it had been built, so whole new rides to explore! I was also looking forward as I knew it was more Pixar-centric. So to infinity and beyond!

Kate and I got there a little after opening (sleep was still a luxury and being caught up) but it was nice to see that the park was not bursting with people. A lot yeah, but not overwhelming. First impressions were that it seemed a bit of a hybrid of other Disney parks, especially Disney Sea in Tokyo, and some of the newer elements of the overseas Disneylands.

What the main difference was to me was the rich history and detail missing. Not in a bad way necessarily, but in Disneyland every nook and cranny is filled with small detail of past Disney classics. Here it all felt a touch more homogeneous, but it was still undeniably Disney.

First thing was to get Fastpasses for the Radiator Springs Racers ride, as we knew it was super difficult to get on (with massive wait times all day) and apparently the best ride in the park. Success! Not until 7pm, but if that meant not having to wait 90 minutes to get on, that was fine with us.

Next was getting the lay of the land. Alas here also a couple of the key rides were playing up. Must be the holiday season and maintenance time I guess. One ride temporarily shut was the Tower of Terror ride (based on The Twilight Zone). Man! The one I was itching to go on. But as luck would have it, the attendant let us know it was due to reopen in a few minutes, so I waited and… bingo! I was in super quick.

Kate was totally not up for it, so I flew solo for the thrills. The ride was a riff on a Twilight Zone episode, where basically we got to go up an elevator and then…. drop! Basically the same as at Disney Sea. But still great fun. Nothing toughens you up for turbulent plane rides like theme parks I say.

With that done, Kate and I then wandered around, popping to rides and amusements as we wandered. We got a taste of Monsters Inc, Bugs Life, and Radiator Springs. While Cars is one of my least favourite Pixar films, I have to say that this part of the park looks incredible. I imagine my nephew Jake going absolutely nuts here one day.

Oh and we also ran into this guy above. Some mouse…

Part of the park is also a waterfront type amusement place, complete with rollercoaster and ferris wheel.

As we were wandering down there we got caught up in some Mexican christmas celebrations which was fun. But most importantly it led me to a giant jalapeno cheese filled pretzel. How could I not eat one!

Verdict? It was OK. Probably exactly as a giant jalapeno cheese filled pretzel should taste I guess.

From there we continued to wander, jumping on rides here and there. That slowly but surely filled the day until dinner, where we had a booking at one of the restaurants in the park. We decided to go with that for two reasons. First of all to hopefully east something that wasn’t park fast food. And secondly it got us a primo spot to view the World of Colour show at the end of the night. Double win.

Dinner was at a faux Italian type place. A set menu with a bit of variation, I probably got a touch worried at how busy it was and how ragged the staff were running around. They were lovely, but in reality the dining experience was pretty average. The meals we chose were OK without being great, and they clearly were trying to get people in and out fairly quickly. Oh well. We did get our hands on the special VIP show passes though, so one out of two ain’t bad.

The speed of the meal did help one main thing though… we could get on to Radiator Springs Racers before the nighttime show! So off we ran, into the Fastpass section, and past all the suckers who had not done the same as us. 10 minutes wait instead of an hour? Ha! In we jumped to a sporty Cars-type vehicle, and off we went through Radiator Springs.

So how was it? Worth the hype? Oh yeah. The first half is cool, going through a replica Radiator Springs, meeting all the characters. But then you bump into a fellow car load of park goers and the race is on! Suddenly our cars start a race around the canyons at full tilt, way quicker than I was expecting. So much fun and best ride in the park without doubt.

Full of adreneline, we went to get settled in for the night show. Taking place on the water in the pier section of the park, it was a holiday themed water spectacular, with projections onto giant water walls. We had a spot right near the waterfront which was perfect. But how was the show? It was pretty cool. Not the greatest thing ever, maybe a touch samey as it lacked any real characters like the Disney Sea show, but we had to do it so glad we had a great spot for it.

That brought the night to a close. A casual wander back to the hotel and some mundane chores later (washing has to be done between all this theme park and casino action) and it was time to fall in a heap. Two more days of Disney to come (with some added bonus tomorrow night!).

So Wi-Fi is being a bit of a jerk here in Cancun. Will aim to put my other Disney posts up if I can but it is not liking me uploading photos. Ggrr.

We arrived about 6pm (Cancun time) and checked into our hotel. We were cactus. So much so that all we could think of was dinner and bed. So we had some food in the restaurant in our hotel. Mmmm… authentic Mexican! It was delicious! The refried beans in particular were quite different. Super tasty.

Then it was just settling in to catch up on some sleep. Time to explore tomorrow! Will post when I can but will see how I go…

Howdy! Just a quick update courtesy of free wi-fi in LAX as we wait to board our flight to Cancun for some Central American action.

Apologies for the lack of updates in the past few days, but it has been a bit of a whirlwind. The past few days has been early mornings and late nights… mostly Disneyland and California Adventures, but also some ice hockey action in there too. Oh, and I guess I should confess we a both a little hung over also right now… too much fun at the Enchanted Tiki Bar last night! Good but exhausting times.

So full updates and pics maybe later if the wi-fi gods smile on us. High fives to you all!

So, I left you all having won big in the Veneitan. That took Kate and I to about 2:30am. Given we had to leave for the airport about 8am that morning, we though we had better call it a night. Alas, by the time we got back to the room, wound down and packed it was getting closer to 4am. Oh dear.

I got to sleep fairly quickly, but even quicker did 7am roll around and I was back up. I was fairly functional thankfully (Kate a little more in struggle-town) and got us up, organised, checked out, and into a cab to the airport. Our delightful Irish ex-pat cabby spent the next 15 minutes cussing his way through stories and continually talking about the cold weather. Strange for a cabby to start dropping f-bombs from the moment you get in the cab, but it was a great surreal way to start a day when on 3 hours sleep.

An uneventful check in and flight meant we were back in LA at midday. An hour later we were checked in to our new hotel in Anaheim. Anaheim you ask? Really? Of course! What did you think we would do if in California for a few days before heading to Mexico? DISNEYLAND!

So we wasted precious little time and legged it to that most glorious and evil of empires. It is easy to poke fun or tut-tut at Disneyland, but for Kate and I, it means shenanigans. And this time of year means Christmas shenanigans no less. Good times! So we sucked up our lack of sleep and ventured into the frey.

Given we were having a few days we took it easy, mainly wandering. It was busy for a week day… and still bloomin’ cold, but we were in no hurry. We did a bit of a wander through some of the shops on Main Street. We even came across some Shag’s! Super exciting. Must… resist… buying… more… Shag… prints…

First ride stop was the Christmas-ified Haunted Mansion. Nightmare Before Christmas! Super exciting for both us given it is one of our favourite rides AND movies. And it was fun. Typical Haunted Mansion, but with lots of Jack Skellington really.

From there we wandered some more, dropping into the smaller rides. It seemed Disneyland was having a bad day as many rides were stopping temporarily due to problems. The cold? Who knows but it was getting a little frustrating.

But it didn’t matter as it was parade time, so we lined up like all the thousands of others to check out the parade, Christmas themed. It was OK, but both of us remarked it was nowhere near as impressive as the one in Tokyo Disneyland.

The next couple of hours we popped into some quite rides, like Toad Hall and also I got to get a little pride back from Hong Kong on Buzz Lightyear Blasters. A little pride, still a lot more to go.

But by now it was 8pm and we were cold and had really hit the wall. On the way out we decided to check out the Abe Lincoln anamatronic show. While the USA-isms were hard for a foreigner, I gotta say that robot Abe Lincoln must really have freaked people out back in the 60’s. I reckon he holds up well.

With robot Abe inspiring us, we legged back to our hotel to crash. In the space of 24hrs we had  done 2 Vegas shows, won in the casino, slept for 3 hrs, flown to LA, shuttled to Anaheim, then spent 6 hours at Disneyland. What did you do yesterday? 🙂

Hey everyone! This will be a two-parter, since much has happened in the last day and a half. Let’s finish with Vegas first.

So when I left you it was Sunday morning and we had settled in to Vegas pretty well, having had a fun Saturday and some good hours sleep. Now it was time to get into it, since we only had the rest of Sunday to enjoy the spoils of Las Vegas.

We didn’t have much on the agenda, so after a lazy start just headed back down the strip, soaking up the Vegas atmosphere. What atmosphere I hear you ask? Last post you were complaining about it? Well, ironically the Sunday felt much more alive which was odd. We placed quite a bit of the quiet Saturday night to the cold weather. We in fact got to be part of one of the coldest Vegas day on record. Yep, when I said it was cold, it was cold (like zero degrees cold).

So we headed down to finish the wander of the strip, heading down to some of the more classically kitschy casinos, like New York New York, Excalibur, and the Luxor. These have not aged so well I gotta say. But in a way they were nice in a nostalgic kinda way,since they were the bees knees when I first visited Vegas, 15 odd years ago. How times have changed.

We didn’t spend much time in them, just really to get all nostalgic. It was a quick fly around and then to one key destination… M&M World. Yep, why not celebrate Vegas by eating colours of M&M’s that are nowhere else to be found. It speaks volumes of Kate and I that by this point we had not gambled, but had hunted down candy. Good times.

The casual wandering took us close to our main Vegas event. As you might have guessed from yesterday’s post, we had tickets to the Beatles Cirque Du Soleil show “Love”, which was our main reason for coming to Vegas. All giddy, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and into the Mirage for the show.

First impressions were of the incredible theatre. Completely purpose built, it’s odd layout meant that I have no idea what else it could be used for and made perfect sense why this show doesn’t tour. As the crowd filtered in we were treated to all kinds of kooky folk wandering about. Then it kicked off.

What took place for the next 90 minutes was a slightly surreal mash-up of the Beatles story and post war Britain, all to a specially constructed Beatles soundtrack. There was so much going on throughout the whole show, you would need 6 viewings to capture most of it.

So how was it? Pretty great overall. I mean, hearing the music presented in that setting was incredible. The theatre part of it was a win for the most part. some bits fell a bit flat, or seemed just a bit too quirky, but overall super glad we went. And if I was in Vegas I would want to experience it all again.

Once the curtain fell on it, we had to leg it back to New York New York for another show, and another Cirque Du Soleil. Three in 2 days? Crazy huh?! But given we were in Vegas, we wanted to do a trashy Vegas burlesque type show and it happened we could score cheap tickets to Zumanity, the Cirque Du Soleil Vegas risque show. So we legged it back down the freezing strip to the warm comfort of NY NY for more.

Right from the get go with the warm up folk we knew this was going to be a different show. Language was a whole lot bluer and the costumes much more revealing. And it continued in that vein for the next 90 minutes. Thankfully Kate and I avoided any major audience participation. It was fun in a trashy Vegas way but was probably my least favourite. Although any show where you say the best part is where the dwarf was flying over the audience whilst dancing suggestively with a scantily clad lady and you can probably get the picture.

It was close to midnight before we then headed back to our digs at the Venetian. I grabbed a bite on the way back down the strip, some odd McDonalds burger that had corn chips in it. Yep, I was back in the US.

Even though we were pretty tired by the time we got back, we had pangs of guilt. How could we be in Vegas and not gamble? So off it was into the Venetian gaming floor. We had big plans… $5 each into a slot machine and then $20 on roulette. Big spenders hey?

The slot machines proved fruitless. I went with the 60’s Star Trek version and to be honest, I really only lost by $5 because I got bored. I was playing for about 10 minutes on the same $5 of credits when I just upped the ante and lost it. I have no idea how people play them so long. Kate similarly did her dough in that manner. Anyway, we wanted the big fish.

So we settled at a $10 min bet Roulette table and each grabbed $20 of chips. Bets were placed and away we went. Alas, in two rounds, Kate was out. Boo! It was quite disappointing. Me however, I kept going… and going… and going. I got down to my last $10 but then back to about $60. In the end I pulled the pin at $51 in chips.

$51 minus our investment of $20 each leaves $10. Take out our slot machine $5 each and we were left with profits of $1. So I can say I left Vegas on top. Ha!