How to take the kids to Disney and sort of not hate it
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Stay in a budget motel and don’t apologize for it
Just because you’re going to Disneyland doesn’t mean you have to splash out on a $500-a-night room at the Disneyland Hotel. We stayed at the Kings Inn Anaheim about a 15-minute walk from the park, and it was clean, nice and had a pool and breakfast, for an average of $139 Cdn a night (rates changed by day of the week).
If your kids point to fancier hotels in the neighbourhood and ask why you’re not staying there, tell them they’re lucky to be there at all — that your idea of a fun vacation does not include extortionate mice, jostling crowds of people in fake-mouse-ear headbands or a never-ending overhead soundtrack.
Tell them to suck it up, or the next family vacation will be a road trip to the Yukon. In November.
Take a day off in the middle Absence makes the heart grow fonder, which is why it’s a good idea to set aside a day to appreciate other attractions in the LA area, preferably smack in the middle of your theme-park schedule.
Since our time away from the resorts had been whittled from two days to one, I was determined that we make the most of it. We were with another family, so we crammed two agendas into one, and somehow did almost everything we wanted to over two nights and one day while staying at the 1950s-vintage Saga motel in Pasadena. All our activities were free, incidentally.
• Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park on Mount Hollywood to see the Hollywood sign on the hillside. You can park your car for free and climb up to the observatory, where the views are stunning. (It’s also the site of the dancing in the stars scene in the movie La La Land.) The sign originally said Hollywoodland, which was — not surprisingly — a real estate development that began in 1923. It wasn’t all fancy, then, either — they sold small lots and large, to modest families and movie stars. Eventually, the sign, falling into disrepair, was taken over by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1949 and the “land” part was removed.
• The Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame, which turned out to be a seedy and crowded strip rife with hucksters selling pictures of you with your own facsimile star (the ultimate selfie-generation souvenir), as costumed superheroes inexplicably capered around. For kicks, I stomped on Donald Trump’s star. I certainly wasn’t the first — it was by far the grungiest-looking star I saw. The movie stars’ handprints and messages in concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre were pretty cool, though.
• We picked up a picnic lunch at Trader Joe’s near Hollywood and Vine and headed to the Getty Centre, the hilltop art museum, architectural marvel and gardens built from the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty’s estate and unveiled in 1997.
We ate our picnic in a grape arbour before boarding the shuttle train up the hill to the centre, a palace of dazzling white walls set against a blue sky, surrounded by rows of cacti and succulents, with a panoramic view of surrounding hills and downtown. It’s one of the most popular spots in L.A. to take a selfie, judging by the number of young women in flowing gowns.
Oh, and there’s art inside — as in, European masterpieces and stuff like that. Van Gogh, Manet, Degas, Rembrandt and ... OMG, you look gorgeous in that dress !!!!
One thing that is critical to the success of a day in Los Angeles is renting a car. This is not a city for transit — it was developed by real estate speculators not master planners, leaving a spidery network of highway-connected neighbourhoods.
It seems like everywhere you want to go, you have to take a 10-lane freeway (unless it’s the corner store — then it’s only eight lanes). On the bright side, u-turns are legal. In summation
Did I enjoy my enforced stay at the Happiest Place on Earth? Actually, I did, more or less. Would I go back? Not a chance. This is a one-and-done operation. Next stop, the Yukon.
Patricia Coppard is a journalist with the Victoria Times Colonist. All amenities from this trip (flight, admissions, food hotel) were paid for by the author.