California Trip ideas please

One note to people who are on budget or just don't want to pay $3 dollars for small bottle of water at Universal. You are allowed to bring your own bottle of water, on their website it says it must be unopened, but I just refilled already opened bottle and took it, nobody checked.

This can easily save you $12 dollars per day for 2 people. It was hot when we went, so were very thirsty, specially when waiting 45minutes in queue for Jurassic park ride!
They also allow you to bring fruit and vegetables and baby food.

Our day at Universal Studios was real experience we will not forget, it is huge place with so much to do and see!
Movie characters are walking around so you can get grubbed by Dracula, or have photos taken with Simpson family..

That day we had dinner across the street from Hotel Renaissance (which was right next to our hotel), we found tiny Chinese restaurant called Le Oriental Bistro on N. Highland Avenue, didn’t look anything special but the meal we had was amazing and so cheap!
I had set menu for $11.99, soup, fried shrimp and spring roll starter and for the first time in my life I had Orange chicken, which was absolutely gorgeous and I had it every day of our holiday since J Portions were so huge that we could not even finish them. So this is my tip for cheap lovely meal only 3 minutes walk from Grauman’s theatre in Hollywood!



Next morning we were off to San Diego with stop for lunch at Dana Point, which was beautiful beach town.
In San Diego we stayed in Holiday Inn Express in Gaslamp area, were very impressed with the hotel which cost us £55 (incl breakfast and wi-fi) using Friends & Family link published here at MS. When in SD we visited Sunday market at Hillcrest where we had some lovely tacos($3 for 2) and cakes, then we were off to their famous Balboa park, I was surprised to learn that all park was covered by free Wi-Fi, so I could post my photos of FB, how cool is that!
Next day we drove to Old Town, which was really amazing, our favorite part of San Diego, make sure you go there and walk around Fiesta del Reyes.
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In the evening we did something in my eyes very American, we drove our comfortable hire to Drive in Cinema!! What a great experience!!Watched Scream 4 on huge screen in front of our car, the sound was received through radio, they give you the frequency when buying tickets ($7 per person). It was brilliant, and definitely recommend it. (www.southbaydrivein.com).

On Easter Monday we went to Sea World in San Diego. It was very quiet and not busy at all, it is normal working day over there. Our hotel did free shuttle to Sea World, but we were leaving to Laguna beach that night so we just checked out and drove there. The car park costs $12 per day.
Again little moneysaving me found out about discount on Sea World tickets when you show your Southwest Airline card.
It is free to join Southwest Rapid Rewards, and you can get your membership number instantly when you sign up on the Southwest web site. SeaWorld will accept a computer printout of your Rapid Rewards card. I took my print out to the booth and they have discounted both our tickets by $14 (20%), normal price is $69.99 per adult we paid 55.99.:T
Spent lovely 6 hours there, it was very hot! Had to buy hat there to keep our heads in shade.
[FONT=&quot]We saw all the shows possible, Shamu, Dolphins, Sea Lions..Went to the pool with dolphins, you can touch them if you are lucky and they come to you, that was amazing!

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[/FONT]However compared to Universal, the park was not as well organized, difficult to navigate by their map, but nothing major, think we just expected similar day to the one at Universal..

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stphnstevey wrote: »

Hi

We are doing a similiar trip in Aug - came across some of the similiar hotels - how did you find the parking at the Liberty Hotel in LA? Was it safe and off the street?

Hi, the parking was off the street, at the back of the hotel, there was no gate to close the carpark, so anybody could walk in there I guess.
But it was quite tucked away, it did not raise our concern for car's safety.

Have look at google street view:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=i0w&pwst=1&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=637&bih=464&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Hollywood+liberty+hotel&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=liberty+hotel&hnear=0x80c2bf07045279bf:0xf67a9a6797bdfae4,Hollywood,+Los+Angeles,+CA,+USA&cid=0,0,9092693156561743471&ei=ykLSTY_sAsio8AO2_cmBCw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=2&ved=0CEsQnwIwAQ

Anyway if you are staying there on budget, definatelly try the Chinese restaurant I wrote about;)
If you have any more questions, please do ask!
Lucky you, all is still ahead of you:)

Wow, totally understand how you got caught out with that one.......... guess all you can do is put it down to experience :doh:

Loving the trip reports, keep 'em coming