Tuesday 23rd September 2008

[19:32 PDT]

We're at Anaheim now.

This morning we awoke to another glorious day. Unlike Florida where the humidity hits you as you open the door, California is warm, bordering on hot, but it's never energy sapping as the humidity is a lot lower.

We were checking out of the Renaissance today, so it was back to the tried and trusted routine of packing everything up ready to load into the car. Slowly the number of bags we're packing up is increasing. I think the last count there were 9 bags of varying sizes in the car.

My plan was to go down to the P5 level of the parking lot and collect the car, bring it up to the front door whilst Linda waited there with the bags. However, first off I couldn't find the right lift to P5 and had to travel via P2 (don't ask). Once I found the car, I drove back up towards the exit only to remember that I did not have the parking ticket to hand. I parked up again and frantically searched for it. I finally gave up (although it was later found in my wallet) and just told the girl on the door how many days I had parked up - thankfully she believed me and let me pass through.

[22:00 PDT]

So with a packed car we headed off to Universal Studios for the last time ($11 for normal parking!!) One of the first things I did was head for the Simpsons ride as I'd not done this last time. Although the wait time said only 15 minutes, it did seem longer than this.

I suppose it's because nobody moves for ages then all of a sudden, 9 groups start their ride all at the same time. As to the ride itself, it's a simulator, along the same lines as Spiderman in Florida. However, this ride is all done on a massive 180' screen, playing to multiple groups at the same time. This gives you a much more enhanced feeling of movement. I'd rate it above Spiderman, personally. It wipes the floor with Back to the Future as you don't walk awway with whiplash or a feeling of nausia!

Aside from the Simpsons ride, we caught the wild animal show that we'd missed first time.

Then I did some repeats of Mummy and Jurassic Park whilst Linda slowly burnt in the warm sun. She's getting fairly tanned now.

Finally, at around 15:30 we left the park. I'd originally though to visit Griffith Park in the afternoon, but time was getting on and we needed to get to our final hotel.

In hindsight, it was lucky we did leave when we did, as the 101 freeway was jam packed this afternoon. TomTom had estimated 50 minutes travelling time - in the end it too 1h 40m.

On arrival in Anaheim, we suddenly realised just how many hotels had the work Anaheim and Main Gate in their titles. Sadly, we couldn't pick out which was ours and we had to stop and find the correct address before finding our actual hotel. :)

Room is quite nice - Linda likes the big fridge-freezer and we've already been out to stock it full of stuff for the next few days.

Just an update on the cold situation - Mine has pretty much gone now. It only lasted a couple of days thankfully. Linda has the sniffles for a day or so, but seems to be over it too. This weather must be good for fighting colds is all I can say.