Theme Parks

22nd Dec 2013 Sunday

Tessa and Melissa needed bike shorts to wear underneath their dresses.  Luckily there was a Ross departmental store nearby on Lincoln Blv.  As I parked our MPV in the Ross car park, the girls emptied out before I completed putting on the handbrake.   This does not happen on non-shopping destinations, and I sometimes remote lock someone inside because they were slow getting out.

No one could decide where to go next, and we have 2 days left on our Go LA pass.  So I decided we would go to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, north of LA.  The drive from Venice took 45 mins and we arrived just after noon.  Catherine found out that you could not bring food or beverages into the park (unless you bought one of their special water bottles).  And we'd brought lunch.  It was close enough to lunchtime so we ate in the MPV, and made it to the gates at about 1 pm.

We thought the Go LA pass was supposed to speed things up but with poor customer service at the counter, queuing for park tickets and security meant another 45 mins.

Anyway Tessa and Melissa got their first ride on the Viper roller coaster quickly enough.  

The second one took a bit longer to queue for maybe 45 mins again.  This was the more popular Tatsu twisting and hanging below the rail one.

By this time, the crowds were building up, all the water rides were closed for winter and we were tired of waiting so long for everything.  So a quick walk around the rest of the park and we made our way out the the shuttle bus stop.  There were people handing out free chewing gums, which we gratefully accepted.  The car park is huge and after all that walking we needed to take the shuttle back to the car.  

Cost of car parking for the day $20.  For us, not a great experience, this Six Flag.

Then it was back to Santa Monica to exchange Tessa's Doc Martin boots which had a slight flaw.  And on to Whole Foods on Lincoln, where Catherine picked up some groceries to cook a fab dinner.  She did have reservations about paying $2 per tomato, but these are organic, not tested on animals and from a fair trade farm tomatoes.

23rd Dec 2013 Monday

Another warm day in LA, hitting a high of 23C, what a wonderful climate and this is winter.  I am looking forward to today because we are going to Universal Studio.  I promised the girls it would be their awesomest experience ever.

We made impressive time and was at the studio at 10 am after a 30 min drive.  Paid $15 for general parking and wound our way up to level 4 of the parking building.  This building is connected to the shopping mall (called City Walk).  A quick stop at the group counter to collect tickets and we were in.  

I wanted to do the Transformer ride first, so we went straight to the lower lot and after a 15 min queue we were doing the thrilling 3D ride with water, smoke and heat effects.  Catherine caught some of the water effects with her mouth while screaming.  Tessa says this ride is badass!

Next was the Mummy ride, again just a 15 min wait and we are on a small roller coaster going thru dark tunnels and scary effects.  Wang Theng and Catherine has their eyes shut all through this ride when we inspected the post ride photos.

The Jurassic Park ride was next and not a long wait either being still before 11 am.  Catherine was worried that this ride might be a wet one.  I assured her it was just a little wet.  I forgot to mention, provided we were not in the front row.

The boat had bench seats and the five of us fitted in the front row perfectly.  So you get the usual scary stuff done to you and in addition the boat takes a steep drop at the end and bow wave washes into the front row seats.  

Wang Theng and I were on the outside seats and we absorbed the bulk of the water in our pants and hair.  I almost dried myself on the towels on the racks but then noticed we were in the souvenir shop and the towels were for sale.

The crowds by this time was increasing and the Simpsons ride took 45 mins.  Then it was on to the Waterworld show where stunt people from various TV shows performed the Waterworld story in about 25 min with pyro and other effects.  Pretty cool.

Lunch took a long time.  Wang Theng and Catherine lined up for 60 mins to order and another 30 mins to collect.   By now wait time for most rides were in the 70 to 100 min range, but luckily we had done all the rides.  Shows had no waiting time apart from waiting to go in.  So we did the Animal Actors show where trained animal performed and the Special Effects show on how special effects were created.

It was time to go, and walking through the very prettily lit City Walk mall, clothes and handbags were bought.  

Then being late 7pm, we bought take out dinner from Whole Foods.