Touring with The Thomas's

Monday, 2 June 2014

Back to California July 2014

Saturday 5^th July BA1457 07:05 to Heathrow

BA0285 11:30 to San Francisco

San Francisco House

Sunday 6^th July San Francisco Town & Walt Disney Museum

Monday 7^th July Sausalito, John Muir Wood & Point Reyes

Tuesday 8^th July Jelly Belly Factory Tour & Napa Valley

Wednesday 9^th July Drive to Yosemite Valley and explore
Tenaya Lodge

Flashlight Hike 20:00

Thursday 10^th July Up for sunrise at Glacier Point 05:14

Back to Lodge breakfast.

Great Mall, Milpitas

Back to San Francisco house

Friday 11^th July Golden Gate Park & Zoo

Saturday 12^th July Drive down to Santa Cruz via PH1

Onto Monterey

Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa

Sunday 13^th July Princess Monterey Whale Watching 10:30

Afternoon in Carmel & 17 Mile Drive
Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa

Monday 14^th July Drive down PH1, McWay Waterfall

Elephant Seal Beach

Santa Barbara
Shopping at Camarillo Outlets

Hampton Inn & Suites, Camarillo

Tuesday 15^th July Reagan President Library

Onto LA via Malibu

Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel

Wednesday 16^th July Warner Bros Deluxe Tour 10:15

Anaheim House

Thursday 17^th July

Friday 18^th July

Saturday 19^th July

Sunday 20^th July

Monday 21^st July

Tuesday 22^nd July

Wednesday 23^rd July Drive up to San Jose

Staybridge Suites San Jose

Thursday 24^th July Drive to see Google, Facebook, etc.

Great Mall, Milpitas

BA0284 16:40 to Heathrow

Friday 25^th July BA1444 12:50 to Edinburgh

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Getting ready to travel to the other side of the world!!

Hopefully, WIFI permitting, the blog will be updated with our daily travels.

Basic draft itinerary is as follows.

28th June 2013 - Depart Glasgow Airport at 21:30 to Dubai.
29th June 2013 - Arrive Dubai, 2.5 hrs transit, Depart for Sydney.
30th June 2013 - Arrive Sydney at 06:05 and transfer to our accommodation for the next few days (Quay West Suites).

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Preparations for Orlando in October

Finally prepared for our wee jaunt to Orlando in October.
Away for 10 nights, 7 in a villa with the last 3 at the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal.
SUV hired. Tickets for Disney bought as well as MNSSHP tickets for Thursday 18th October.
We've also booked a day expirience at Florida Firearms Adventure where we get our hands on four types of guns!!

Universal tickets are here too.

Hopefully blog each day too.

Later.

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Day 17: Journey's End!!

Up and off to the Exploratorium again. Hopefully there won’t be a special day today at it.

Nope we’re fine and use the Citypass to get in. I love this hands’ on science place. It’s great. If they had one in Edinburgh, I would work there!

We play for with the exhibits for a few hours and as it’s getting busy we head off. Now the Exploratorium is moving in 2013 to its new home on Pier 15-17.

Playing about.

Like Alice in Wonderland!

Palace Of Fine Arts

Massive!

So iconic in San Francisco.

Drive round to Crissy Field and have a walk to the pier.

City from Crissy Fields.

Holding up the bridge.

Nice clear day.

You taking my picture!

Hello!

Playing in the water.

On the way back to collect our luggage from the hotel we stop to have lunch at Taco Bell for the last time. Much prefer this to McD’s back home. Need them back home.

We drive up and over Lombard Street and onto Coit Tower. Find a parking place up at the tower, but the queue for it was too long to go up.

Lombard St on Sally Sat-Nav.

Going down.

At the bottom.

From a distance.

Coit Tower.

Said to be modelled on a firemans hose!

The Bay Bridge.

Head off to finally get our luggage and squeeze it all into the car and depart for the airport.

Drop the girls off at the airport with the luggage before I head back to drop the car off at the returns. The car safely booked back in, I grab the monorail back to the airport to find the girls and check-in. It’s not open yet, so wait for nearly an hour. Checked in and off to the lounge to have our tea as it’s a night flight and I just sleep to try and adjust right away, plus we’re driving back from Heathrow.

On the plane we find all the weirdo’s are in our part of the cabin. Strange American lady, first time Upper Class flyers who take photos of everything and laugh and shout all night. Strange bloke next to me who appears to be having nightmares and screams out during the night. He also strips down to just his PJ bottoms! Strange American Lady exercises during the night too!

Fast forward to Heathrow where one of our bags never arrives and we find out a bag had been tagged twice, so it’s off up the motorway system to West Lothian minus a bag. The bag has arrived at Heathrow on Sunday and making its way up North soon.

Day 16: More Sightseeing.

It’s Monday and we have planned to go to the Exploratorium this morning, so get the car and drive over to the Palace Of Fine Arts. Arrive and find it’s closed to the public on Mondays.
Should have read the back of the tickets!!

Back in the car and drive off to Twin Peaks to get a view of the city.

Market Street

Golden Gate

Downtown.

After some photo’s, it’s off to Fisherman’s Wharf again to go to the Aquarium on the Bay. This is also part of the CityPass. We look at the exhibits upstairs and then off down to the tunnels, but wait, there’s a hitch. Only lifts down, so Denise can’t come, but we get a text to say staff have taken her down the stairs and we meet up with her.

We go round the two tunnels, but the moving walkway is not working :-(

It’s back up the lift for two of us and the stairs for the other.

Nice sunny wharf area.

We have really nice fish and chips for lunch down on the wharf and it's all tastes better as it's lovely and sunny.

Back to the car and off to the hotel.

Off to see The Smurfs at the cinema this afternoon. Walk down to the Embarcadero for the pictures.

Much cheaper than the UK again. Only $50 for 3 for 3D and juice and sweets.

After the moves, predictable, but all good fun we head back to base.

For tea we walk up to Chinatown again and get a take-away. Chinese in cardboard boxes!! No foil or plastic tubs for America. Nice rice and Sesame Chicken and Chow-Mein.

Watch a bit of TV after our tea and then off to bed.

Day 15: San Francisco More Sight-Seeing

Up early again and have breakfast the the room. We head off over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito.

Park the car and go for a walk along the shore. We grab a tea from a Starbucks. Whilst sitting watching the bay, we notice a father and son fishing. The son is trying to land a fish he has caught. It turns out to be a small shark! It looks like a Dogfish to me.

A bit overcast today.

Looking back over the bay.

Surf's up!!

Shark!!!

Off to the car and onto John Muir National Park. It’s heaving as it’s a Sunday. The nearest parking space is nearly two miles away, so we give this up as a bad idea and head back to San Francisco.

More of the bridge.

Just like a smaller version of the Forth Bridge, but in red!

Stop at iHop on the way back to have lunch. Yummy!

Back to the hotel and have a bit of shopping round Union Square.

Off to Alcatraz for the night tour. We were advised to be there an hour early as the marathon had been on, but arrive and find no diversions, so have ages to wait on the ferry.

The ferry does a quick tour of the island and then it docks. The boat is split into 3 groups and we are in the middle one. Our guide takes us up the hill stopping on the way to give us some information, but really it’s just to stall us for the audio tour. At the top we get our audio tour and start it. It’s busy going round the jail. Because it’s summer it’s not dark and as scary as we thought the tour would be. The audio tour has changed since our last visit. It does miss a few things out now though. The exercise yard is closed. We finish the tour and have a wander and purchase a few items in the shop before walking down to the dock to wait of the ferry home. 10 mins later we’re back on land and walk to the car and back home to the hotel.