Col, Ren, Charli & Kobe's USA Holiday

Today Kobe was awake about 5:30am so it was better than yesterday. He woke up next to me and i just ignored him. I hoped if he didn't think i was awake he would go back to sleep. While i dont think he went back to sleep, he was so quiet that Renee thought he had slept until 6:30am. We got up around 7ish, had breakfast and went to the other Anaheim Disneyland Park, California Adventure Park.

I downloaded an app for my phone yesterday which gave you the approximate wait times for all the rides. Very early in the morning I could see the Cars Racer ride already had huge waiting times of about 2 hours. We had what we thought was a really good plan for the morning. Walk into the park, head straight to the ride and get a fastpass.

We walked into the park and there was a massive line already and for a while we were struggling to work out what the line was. After a minute, we realised the long line was actually the line to get a fastpass for the Cars ride. Wow! Renee queued up for the passes, while i took the kids on a small Mater ride. In the end, Renee had to queue for about 30 minutes just to get the fastpass tickets.

We went on the Ferris wheel as Kobe liked the look of it. In short, you get on the ride, do 2 full loops and then you get off. It gets everyone on, does the 2 loops, then 3 gondolas at a time drops the people off. We had done our 2 loops and were the next set of gondolas to get off, when we noticed that all the people queued up were starting to walk off. The ride didn't move and there was an announcement but we couldn't hear what it was saying. 10 minutes later the ride continued, and we were able to get off. For our troubles we were given a ticket that gave us priority entrance into nearly any ride in the park, with the Cars Racer ride being one of the exceptions.

We went to a 45 minute Aladdin show at 12:40 thinking Kobe would fall asleep on mine or Renee's lap. Instead, he wanted to sit and enjoy the show. I could understand that, he must want to go down after the show. The show finished and we lay him back and he didn't really seem to want to go to sleep. Our fast pass tickets were for 3:10 so we were starting to think he would miss out on that ride as he wouldn't be awake by then.

In the end, he wasn't going to sleep so we got him up. We used our priority entrance pass to do a Toy Story ride. It didn't have fast pass and the wait would have been about 80 minutes. Worked out well for us in the end :-)

From there, we walked back to the Cars Racer line and got on that. We weren't exactly sure how fast it was as we could see a small portion of the ride and that seemed to be not too bad, but wasn't sure what the rest was like. In the end, it was a perfect ride for Kobe. It was slow, and you saw all the characters as you sped around, and it finished with a small race with another car that went a little quick, but still good enough that it didn't bother Kobe. Charli was very excited that our car won!!

After the cars ride, we were planning to go on a ride that we had been on at Seaworld. The height restriction was the same (42 inches) and we had passes for that so lined up. Just before we got through to a point where it would have been hard to exit, Renee thought she would quickly measure Kobe. He was a touch short. His hair was 42 inches, but not his head. At that point, we walked away from the line, left the park and returned to our hotel.

We had checked out in the morning and they were holding our luggage. We picked up the luggage and got on the Disneyland Resort Express bus at 5:30pm. It would get us to the airport at 7pm so we could check in and be super organised for our flight home.

We checked into our flight, and then while eating tea realised we had 4 seats, that weren't actually all next to each other. The A380 has the following seat configuration: 3 seats, aisle, 4 seats, aisle, 3 seats. We had the 3 seats in the section with the 4, and then one of the aisle seats from the 3. We thought that was a bit silly so we went back and spoke to them. They advised the flight wasn't full so they did this so hopefully that seat we don't have in the 4 section, remains empty and we get extra room. Hopefully, otherwise someone could be a little annoyed at the end of the flight. Annoyed, and if sitting next to Charli know our whole life story.

As i write this, its 9:13pm. Still over 2 hours until we board our plane. Both the kids are sitting on seats here watching 'My Little Pony' and 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates' on our mobile phones with the headphones as a way to pass the time and keep them awake. We are hoping we can get on the plane and they will instantly fall asleep. Wish us luck :-) 

Today we were Kobe waking at his usual 7:15am. Only problem was, he was still on Miami time, so that 7:15am was now 4:15am LA time. Doh! He kept fairly quiet and Charli was awake about 6:30am. We all got dressed, headed down to breakfast, and then made our way to Disneyland.

It was about a 1 mile walk from our hotel, or you could catch the local transport which was $3 a day, and I had read some people had problems with strollers and never even used their paid for tickets. So... after researching a little found that a couple of hundred metres down the road was the Toy Story parking lot for Disneyland. We could walk to the lot and catch a bus straight away straight to the front of the park. Better than all the other methods, and it was free :-)

The one thing to take away from our day at Disneyland was that Charli loved Space Mountain. She had said she likes rides etc but i was still skeptical of this rollercoaster that runs in darkness. The ride finished and i asked her how she liked it "I loved it, can we do it again?". We didn't really have time to do it again as Kobe needed to sleep, and we wanted to go on Splash Mountain before he dozed off. We did that, and again I think Charli really enjoyed it, while Kobe... not as much. He wasn't too bad, but i dont think he quite understands whats going on yet.

We came home from the park around 5pm as it was really really busy. I think it had something to do with Spring Break :-)

We had tea at the hotel as they had buy an adult meal, get a kids meal free. It was a better meal than we had had for a while so that was nice. We had a flatbread to start that had apple and walnuts and spinach on it which was also a little different.

We went back to the room and the kids were able to speak to both sets of Grandparents on Skype. They had their baths and went to bed. We all lay down just so the kids would relax and go easily off the sleep. The went off easily, but the problem was so did Renee and I. We ended up waking a couple of hours later, deciding we really needed to get up and pack. After that, it was time for bed. Tomorrow, our last day here is going to be just like all the others. Jammed pack and not much wasted time :-)

Today was an early start. Our alarm was set for 6am, and both Renee and I got up and showered and got ready. We were out the door at 6:30am with the kids on the way to the airport. We arrived at the airport at shortly around 7:45am. Handing the keys over for the car, we were able to see that start and end mileage and see that in the 3 weeks we had driven 2904 miles. Converting that to kilometers, thats 4673km. Just to give that some perspective, if i was to drive from Perth, to Melbourne and then onto Sydney that would be 4294km, which is less than what i drove by 379km.

We were flying to LA, but our flight had a short stopover at Atlanta. The first flight had seating of 3 seats, aisle, and another 3 seats. We had 2 seats on either side of the aisle. Renee sat next to Charli, and I sat next to Kobe. As the plane took off i could hear a young girl yell out 'It's all ok Charli, It's all ok'. Obviously Charli had been chatting to the girl sitting behind her. The girl did a drawing and gave it to Charli. This flight was just over 90 minutes from take off to landing, so it went fairly quickly. We landed and we had about 45 minutes to get to a different terminal, and get something for lunch.

In the end we got to the new terminal, and i got some quick takeaway lunch that the kids could eat on the plane. We got on the plane and the kids ate their lunch. Kobe finished his and literally within about 15 seconds had fallen asleep, all before the plane even took off. The pilot announced that on the flight there was a military officer, who was there to transport the body home to Los Angeles of a soldier. On hearing this, a girl sitting behind Renee got fairly emotional. It's amazing here the respect they have for the armed services. When we saw the whale show at Seaworld, before the show they had anyone who had served stand, and they were applauded. At the basketball, they honoured someone who had just returned and all people in the arena cheered and clapped him prior to the starting of the game. Kobe slept about 3 hours which made the flight fairly easy. When he awake he was very well behaved and sat there quietly and happily watched either the screen on the plane, or something on my phone.

Once the plane landed and it pulled up to the terminal, we could see out the plane window that at the terminal where numerous police and fire engines, and policeman and other officers who were all standing straight saluting the plane as it rolled in. Once the plane stopped, the pilot announced that he and the military officer would be disembarking first to do whatever they needed to do, and there would be a delay in everyone else getting off the plane. Kobe knew at this point the plane had stopped and he was ready to go, while the seatbelt light was still on and we needed to stay still. So for a few minutes Kobe wasn't too happy, but overall it was a good flight.

We got off the flight eventually, and went to get our luggage. It took a while to come, so i'm assuming that delay is for to do with the soldier as well. I tried to google but couldn't find anything out. Would be interesting to know who it was and what happened etc. Once we had our bags, we walked out the door and walked about 10 metres and waited for a bus.

We were staying in Anaheim so were able to catch the Disneyland Resort Express bus. Normally an adult was $32, and a child above 3 was $26. I had coupons to save $3, but they didn't charge for Charli so it worked out cheaper than we were expecting. We got our transport to the Doubletree Hotel just down the road from Disneyland, and were able to check into our room. Upon check-in we received the doubletree cookies that everyone receives and they were all eaten :-)

As the timezone had change, what would have been 8pm in Miami yesterday, was now 5pm. So shortly after 5pm we crossed the road and had tea at Dennys. We were back shortly after 6pm and the kids were able to have a bath, watch some Peppa Pig and Jake and the Neverland Pirates and get a good chance to relax before having an early night (on LA time :-) ).

We are here for 2 nights (Tuesday and Wednesday), and fly out at 11:30pm on Thursday night. Our plan is to go to Disneyland on both Wednesday and Thursday, with us leaving the park about 5pm on Thursday and get transport to LAX to catch our flight home.

Its getting close to coming home and I think Charli is getting excited. Charli mentioned a while ago about having crunchy chicken for tea and we said it can be our first meal back. Today she was saying she was excited to be going home so she could have crunchy chicken. Sorry Grandparents, Cousins, pets, friends, you are second to crunchy chicken and mashed potato :-)

Last night I found something that would be of interest to Renee, and this morning we were able to book a tour of the place. It was a private wildlife place, where you can get closer and interact with some of the animals.

The morning we spent a small amount of time organising the tour. We needed to send a copy of the credit card and ID etc, and that was a little more interesting considering we didn't have scanners etc. All the hotels here have had free to use business centers so we could easily print anything we needed on our trip.

Once organised, we then left and went to a shopping center. It was close to the where the wildlife place was, so we had lunch there and put Kobe to sleep in the stroller. The kids had a nice ham and cheese roll from Subway, and Renee and I shared a Chicken Cordon Bleu Crepe. Something a little bit different but tasty.

Once done there, we left and went for our 3:30pm appointment at the Zoological Wildlife Foundation. We were having a 1 hour tour, followed by 5-10 interaction with a Tiger Cub.

As soon as we arrived, we signed our waiver forms to make sure if we were killed it was effectively our own fault :-) As soon as that was signed, a baby Gibbon monkey was handed to us. That was just the start of things.

We were able to feed a Toucan, touch an anteater, cuddle a timberwolf, go into a monkey cage and get jumped on and attacked by the monkeys, interact with and play with the Tiger Cub, and i'm sure there is something else i'm forgetting :-) I'm sure some photos will refresh my memory.

A baby gibbon
Who can? Toucan.
A bearcat
A Liger
Baby anteater
The 4 week old Timberwolf
	I want that headband!!
I got it.. hahaha!
Took a liking to Charli's hair tie
	Down by back he goes...
and again	"The Boy.. how much for the boy?"
	The 4 month old Tiger Cub...
	"Come on... Let me at em!"

After that tour, we drove back to the hotel, and then caught the monorail down the road to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Its a restaurant that is named after Forrest Gump. We had seen it the other day, and it seemed like a good place for the kids. The meals for the kids seemed good, and it would be a good feed for us too. It worked out really well as it was probably one of the easiest teas we have had the whole time with the kids. When the kids meals came out, they were actually on a folded cardboard pirate ship. A little bit of a novelty, but the kids seemed to like it. After tea we shared a Key Lime Pie, and the kids got a make it yourself Sundae. In short, you get a bowl of ice cream, and with it comes a few little bowls with sprinkles, crushed oreos etc. They seemed to enjoy that. After tea, directly next to us was a merry-go-round. The kids had a ride, and then we went back to the hotel.


The kids went off to sleep, and Renee and I organised and packed all our bags. Tomorrow we return the rental car and fly out at 9am. Only 3 sleeps left in America before we have to come home. Tonight here in Miami, then 2 nights in Anaheim. We should be back in the country on Saturday morning.