As you probably know by now, I recently got married to my lovely new hubby Chris. For our honeymoon we went to LA and Beverly Hill, did Disney and then drove to Las Vegas. I thought that today I'd share some snaps of our time away and let you in on what we got up to;
Day 1 - After an awesome flight with Virgin, and having watched American Hustle, About Time, and Hunger Games - Catching Fire on the way, we finally arrived at our awesome hotel. The Beverly Hills Hotel! Chris spotted Steven Seagal at the check in desk! We had to have a little nap because we had a big night planned, we were going to see Crystal Fighters at the Troubador! The driver of our courtesy car was awesome. His name was Chip and his son sings in a band with the guy that plays Mclovin in Superbad. They're called The Young Rapscallions if you want to check them out. Crystal Fighers were amazing, but unfortunately (and slightly embarrassingly) I kept nodding off due to major jet lag. (it was 6am at home!)
Day 2 - We grabbed some delicious breakfast at the Fountain Coffee Room, then headed into Hollywood to check out the famous spots.
This wasn't a real bed. It was not comfortable! This place had a cool vue though, can you spot the Hollywood sign in the background?
We found a Hollywood museum which turned out to be in the building Max Factor once worked. We got to see the room that Marilyn became a blonde in, which I found really fascinating, as there was lots of information about how Max Factor had to change her complexion with make up so that it matched her new hair colour! Also, there were different coloured rooms for Blondes, Brunettes and Red heads, because apparently these colours helped reflect the way that the film camera would show them on screen! There were also lots of props and costumes from films and TV series, I was particularly excited to see a Dharma suit from lost, and The Hunger Games outfits!
We found a Hollywood museum which turned out to be in the building Max Factor once worked. We got to see the room that Marilyn became a blonde in, which I found really fascinating, as there was lots of information about how Max Factor had to change her complexion with make up so that it matched her new hair colour! Also, there were different coloured rooms for Blondes, Brunettes and Red heads, because apparently these colours helped reflect the way that the film camera would show them on screen! There were also lots of props and costumes from films and TV series, I was particularly excited to see a Dharma suit from lost, and The Hunger Games outfits!
Then we hopped on a Hollywood tour, where we were taken around some filming locations, went to Mulholland drive and spotted lots of celebrity houses. This pic is of me at the top of Mulholland drive, not far at all from Ron Howard's House.
Day 3 - We just chilled out by the pool on this day. The customer service was incredible, they addressed us constantly as 'Mr and Mrs Powell, which was weird to get used to, and when they found out we were just married they brought us champagne! Later I had the most yummy frozen mojito, and studied my Disney book ready for our adventure later in the week.
Day 4 - This was the day we picked up our Ford Mustang! So with our new wheels we headed over to Venice beach. Its a really crazy place, like Brighton on acid! There was some amazing graffiti, and lots of people dancing and performing in the street which was fun! We also went to the Hotel Erwin for a cocktail, as they have a rooftop bar with fantastic views.
We have friends that live in Santa Monica, so we contacted them on the spur of the moment, and luckily they were about! We parked out car at their apartment and then walked to Santa Monica pier. I was excited to see it as they used parts of it in the film Lost Boys as Santa Carla.
Chris and I got a picture in a Photo Booth, it had to be done right!? Then we walked through Santa Monica to a restaurant, and we saw these cute parrot's amongst other weird and wonderful things! Like a sad clown at a bus stop, I think he genuinely was waiting for a bus.
Day 5 - I would say I was equally excited and nervous about going to Universal, as I am quite a scaredy cat, but it turned out to be an absolute blast! The only ride I was scared on was Jurassic Park, as I am terrified of life size dinosaurs. I will not lie, I did close my eyes at one point!
As well as the rides we also went to a Waterworld show which was mega cool! (resorting to 90s phrases now as I'm running out of complementary words) The actors were very funny and extremely talented doing all sorts of stunts. Another highlight was the Universal Studios Tour. We saw Jaws, Norman Bates house, as well as being in the middle of a massive fight between King Kong and a bunch of Dinos! A great day finished off at Bubba Gumps for dinner, where the waiter randomly did a Sponge Bob Square Pants/Forest Gump quiz for the tables he was waiting on.
Day 6 - We were going to go to Griffith Observatory and the Getty museum but it turned out that both were closed on a monday! In the end we decided it must be a sign, so we had another pool day.
Day 7 - We went on a Warner Bros Tour and saw the friends set! Look, its the Friends couch right there!
And here we are sitting on the Friends couch! Central Perk was way smaller than it looks on TV! On the tour we also got to see some Harry Potter stuff, and lots of Batman cars, as well as the Two Broke Girls set, and The Big Bang Theory Set. Although it was completely covered over, so that was kind of a waste of time. I did enjoy going through the props department, and getting to see some things that have been in movies and on TV.
Afterwards we headed over to Griffith Observatory to take in the views. We went to see a show at the planetarium, it was quite amusing because the woman narrating it had a really, really weird voice! Here's a picture of the Hollywood sign taken from Griffith Observatory.
Day 8 - We travelled to our Annaheim Hotel ready for Disney, via the Guitar Centre, and Melrose. We found a place called Lala's that did delicious food! From this point onwards I started having a very weird reoccurring dream/nightmare that Chris and I had accidentally fallen asleep in a pitch black track ride, and the seats were the shape of a bed. Because of this it took me quite a long while each time to work out that I was actually just in the pitch black in bed! I kept having this dream until after I got home! What does it all mean!?
Day 9 - We went to Disneyland! It was amazing! I loved the Buzz Lightyear 'Astroblasters' ride as well as Star Wars 'Star Tours' ride, where C3P0 takes control of a spaceship which you are a passenger in, and you end up in a high speed chase! We had lunch at The Golden Horseshoe whilst watching a funny show from the balcony, a blind date style show with members of the audience being dragged up on stage. They were all very good though. The Peter Pan ride was another favourite as you get to fly amongst the stars. I found The Pinocchio ride rather scary, since I am terrified of Whales, and of course one jumps out at you right in the middle, argh! Towards the end of the day we watched the parade, and then later saw the show 'Fantasmic',where Mickey Mouse conducts all sorts of water jets and explosions. My favourite bit was when all of the princesses and princes float by on little rowing boats, singing the songs from their movies. Chris liked the huge pirate fight Peter Pan has on the Jolly Roger, it was pretty impressive with all sorts of stunts!
Day 10 - We went to Disney California! I think we both preferred this park. For a start it had Cars Land! It was EXACTLY like the film, I felt like I was in it. The Radiator Springs Racers ride was so much fun too. It was one of our favourites along with Toystory Midway Mania and California Screamin', one of very few roller coasters I actually enjoyed! I also made sure we made time to watch the Aladdin show as I had heard it was good, and it really didn't disappoint! The World of Colour show was also ridiculously good! At the end of the day we were both thoroughly pooped!
Day 11 - We drove to Vegas! On the way we stopped off at Peggy Sues Diner. It was great! They even had a Diner-Saur park out back, with big dinosaurs, and a gorilla!
This is the kind of stuff I want to see more of in America! Id love to do a road trip and find weird quirky side of the road stuff like this!
Days 12, 13 and 14 - We spent our last few days hanging out in Vegas. We stayed at Mandalay Bay and it was enormous! There were 64 floors and our room was on the 24th, there were 24 lifts in the lobby! It had a wave pool which was pretty cool, but unfortunately there wasn't much shade to sit in and it was 40 degrees! We spent some time walking down the strip, visiting all the famous hotels like New York New York pictured below, The Bellagio, The Venetian and Caesars Palace. We also went to se the Michael Jackson Cirque De Soleil show 'One' which was showing at our hotel. It was AMAZING! There was so much going on I didn't know where to look!
On our trip home I managed to watch Frozen, Cuban Fury and Saving Mr Banks. That last one was a good choice as Emma Thompson's character stays in The Beverly Hills Hotel when she gets to LA, which, if you remember, was the first hotel we stayed at!
All in all we had a fab time, and we can't wait to get a proper American road trip under our belts now that Chris has had a bit of practise driving on the wrong side of the road!
Have you been to any of the places we went, what did you think?
Laura xXx
