Our Remarkable Holiday to the USA. Part 2

Disney and a Tale of Two Hotels.

So we made it safely to our first hotel, in a district called Anaheim, not far from Disneyland. The hotel was a Holiday Inn with a great pool and spa and although we had just arrived and it would have been 2:30am back in the UK, we went swimming.

After a good night’s sleep, we caught the free shuttle bus from the hotel to Disneyland, to sample the delights of Disney Californian style, (we have been to the Paris one twice). Fair play, Disney know how to do theme parks. Mind you, it’s not cheap. $228 for the 3 of us, for just one park, you do the math.

It was whilst at Disney that we first discovered the outlandish portions served up at meal times. We stopped at one of the many themed restaurants, and the prices were really not too bad. I plumped for steak; Mrs Dave had the chicken, whilst Little Miss Dave tried the Bolognese.

Well, there was enough food to feed us three times over! Mrs Dave had just a leg short of a whole chicken.

Now I’m not one for wasting food, but this was one culinary challenge too far even for me, but I had a bloody good go!

Oh and don't Disney know how to do fireworks! Incredible display, set to music, with Sleeping Beauty's Castle lit up as well.

And they do it every night!

I bet the neighbours are fed up!

After two nights in Anaheim, we booked a shuttle bus to take us back to the airport, so that we could transfer to our next hotel, which apparently is quite near the airport. As we approached the airport, the driver asked which airline we were flying with, so that he could drop us at the correct location. I said that we weren’t actually flying, but using the airport shuttle to transfer to the next hotel.

He asked “which hotel”?

I said “the Radisson, over there” and pointed to the large Radisson hotel just outside the airport complex.

He said; “would you like me to drop you there”?

We said; “that would be great”.

So he drove us around and dropped us outside the Radisson hotel. One big tip lighter, we strolled into reception.

“There’s no reservation under that name, Sir”.

“Are you sure”?

“Yes Sir, would it be under a different name”?

“No, I don’t think so. Is there another Radisson hotel nearby”?

“Yes Sir, about 2 miles that way”. She said indicating with her finger in some direction totally lost on me, as I could no longer tell which direction we were facing.

I confirmed the address with her and we were definitely standing in the wrong place!

I’m not sure what made me feel worse, the fact that we had made the mistake, or the fact that I heavily tipped the shuttle driver to take us to the wrong place!

“Don’t worry Sir, I’ll give them a call and get the free hotel shuttle to pick you up”.

“Really”?

“Of course Sir, no problem, you just wait out front”.

See, back in England, you would have just got a shrug of the shoulders and a “well you cocked up matey, what do you want me to do about it” type look.

Anyway, we did have to wait quite a while for the shuttle to turn up, but it did and it delivered us safely to hotel number 2.

Once we had checked in, we spoke to the Tour Guide for the company we would be travelling with, who told us the departure times for the next morning.

So with the evening to ourselves we wandered around to the nearest Mall to peruse the shops. Now American shopping malls are big, this particular one was the size of Swansea!

After an attempt at sleeping we woke early to catch our tour bus to Las Vegas!


PART 3