One of the most interesting things about the Canadian ports was how friendly they were. Getting into the country was very easy and unlike our Mexican cruise, marijuana is less of an issue because it is legal nationwide. We were barraged with signs on the cruise ship and Mexican ports around marihuana being illegal, but here you just had to declare it and it seemed like a small amount for personal use was allowed. It wasn’t an issue for me either way since I don’t partake but if you do its something to keep in mind.
Prince Rupert was our first Canadian port and I have to say I was pretty disappointed. Once again I opted for walking the town and this one was very small. I really wanted to get those crab legs but the few places that were open said they were out of stock and ultimately I just wandered around a bit looking at a few shops. I tried to get something to eat at one point but the one open restaurant just didn’t look very good so ultimately I went back to the ship and ate on the boat. Nice how you can do that if you want.
The next day though we were in Nanaimo and I really liked that town. We were only the sixth cruise ship to dock there that year and they had a wonderful shuttle with a guide who explained the town. It was raining pretty hard but I still had a lot of fun as I visited a Church thrift store, a few small shops, and a craft market they had setup just for our ship. The craft fair in particular was lovely and I spent more money there than anywhere else on the cruise as I loved what they had and wanted to support the folks who had braved the rain to sell to us.
We were the only boat on the dock and as the tide went up and down they kept changing how we got on and off the boat. It was pretty interesting.
Nanaimo is actually on the same Island as Victoria and only about 30 miles as the crow flies from that city. It is also across the bay from Vancouver and we saw sea planes taking off and landing all day along with helicopter flights to either of the two big cities. There are ferries as well, but they take longer and I was surprised by how many people were flying back and forth. The port building at Nanaimo doubled as a helipad office which was also pretty interesting.
It really is a very nice place and everyone we talked to seemed glad we were there. It isn’t super touristy yet and they were still working out the kinks of having cruise ships in their port but it was a very pleasant experience.
I bought my Mom one of these super cute
It was interesting going to two small ports back to back, but next up was Victoria and another bucket list item was checked off my list. You don’t want to miss that one!
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Our next port was in Juno, but unfortunately the rain that had been threatening starting coming down. We had been pretty lucky with rain so far, but since it rains 50% of the time in August in Alaska that couldn’t hold. It was also a work day for me and our shortest day in port and we needed to take a boat to the dock. Add all that together and I ultimately decided to skip this port which was a bummer because I still hadn’t had any crab.
We did have a lovely Alaska themed dinner on the boat, but despite the tons of Salmon options no crab at all. I didn’t actually get crab the entire trip despite numerous attempts to find a place that served it in various ports. In all fairness crab season ends around my birthday so I was a little late but I still wish I could have had some. I also really wanted to see the State capital building but ultimately had to settle for a peek of the corner of the building I could see from the boat and a google search for a picture. This is the only State Capital building without a dome and looks more like a fancy office building than anything else. Overall I was really cranky about the entire day and regretting what I felt I was missing.
JunoTons of ships in port in JunoThe boat that takes people to port. We left port at 4pm so you had to be back on the little boat by three. Since I got off work at 2pm didn’t seem like much point to going into town in the pouring rain.
Thankfully the next day we arrived at Sitka, which turned out to be my absolute favorite port. Even though we were departing at 3pm, it was much easier to get into town because we were right on the dock. The town also had wonderful shuttles which not only stopped at various places throughout town but had the best bus driver who talked about the town as he drove us.
Sitka has a really wonderful history as it started as a Russian settlement which was purchase by the US in 1867. It is only accessible by air or sea and is a working fishing town. The absolute best part is every single business (per local laws) is owned by someone who lives in the town which not only gives it a unique set of stores, but also stops outside companies from taking it over. There is pride when people talk about the town, and more than one person said they visited on a cruise ship and then decided to settle here. After visiting I see why.
Easy on and off the boat. Loved it!
The coolest thing about the town were the two churches right down town. The first one I went into was a Lutheran church and the people outside were extremely friendly and gave me a tour talking about the history of the town. I am Lutheran so I found it all very interesting including the huge organ in the church. There was a large fire of the original building in 1888 but some artifacts were at the local museum at the time and survived and I found the history fascinating and the people were so nice.
The organ
The church had a model of the old fort
Across the street is a Saint Michael’s Cathedral Russian Orthodox church and it was amazing. I love visiting churches on our travels and this one was steeped in history as well. I even lit a candle for Grandma Anna who is Catholic but I am sure she appreciates me thinking of her.
Beautiful
The churches co exist next to each other and have helped each other in the past which seems to be the spirit of Sitka. I would definitely love to go back and spend some more time there, and I mentioned to Lee that if we ever decided to live in Alaska this would definitely be high on my list. Next up we hit some Canadian ports and I was able to see the difference between Alaska and northwest Canada.
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I have wanted to go to Haines every since we visited Alaska back in 2016. Unfortunately we couldn’t make that trip work so I was excited to see the place where I heard Eagles were on the beach as numerous as seagulls. It was a great start when we pulled into port because the town was postcard perfect and I got to see an eagle fly back and forth right in front of our window. I didn’t get a picture of it but it was beautiful.
This was only one of two ports we stopped at the entire trip where we had to take a small boat to shore. That was a HUGE advantage to being on a smaller ship by the way because you lose 1/2 hour each way when you have to take a small boat in. Mom and I went together and walked around a little bit prior to her excursion then I was on my own.
You can see the small boat pulling up to the ramp
Haines had a small shuttle that went through the town, but it was on the slower side and the hills for walking were pretty steep. It also didn’t go very close to the shore unfortunately and the state park was several miles away and too far to go by foot. Basically I found that the cool stuff I wanted to see was too far for me to walk and with no other means of transportation my options were pretty limited. That was unfortunate because I had heard wonderful things about the area surrounding the town but I didn’t really get to see any of that. Instead I walked through the town area and ultimately got off when the shuttle stopped at the Natural History Museum. As small town museums go it was fine, but definitely not the experience I was hoping for.
Aside from the numerous stuffed animals they did have a few birds that were rescued. Seeing an eagle in a cage is definitely not the same as seeing them in the wild, but I do appreciate the work they are doing. They also had some wonderful information on the history of Eagles. In 1963 we were down to 417 breeding pairs now we have 316,000.
All in all it was pretty disappointing, but I cant blame that on Haines. I could have done an excursion or rented a car even, but I was trying to keep costs low. I will say as a general rule that if you want to see animals on an Alaskan cruise you are going to pay extra for an excursion. The good news is my Mom went on several of these and she saw numerous animals every time. You really do get what you pay for when it comes to Cruise stops and I learned some important lessons along the way. Oh one last thing, keep in mind Uber is not really an option. These are REALLY small towns and I am not saying they don’t have any Uber drivers, but it’s definitely not like the Mexican ports where private drivers are numerous and relatively inexpensive.
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Our next day was a day at sea but we were going to go and see a glacier! I wasn’t sure how close we would be able to get to it, but since I had been on an up close glacier tour while I was in Alaska in 2016 so I was excited about seeing it on a big cruise ship. Since we had an awesome room and free room service our plan was to stay in for most of the day, which we did but I will say it was really chilly the closer to the glacier we got. Beautiful views though there and back and I used my phone and my long lens to take some pictures.
Because it was late in the season we didn’t see waterfalls until on the way out and it was a beauty. It was hard to get good pictures because we were kind of far away but I loved it. Turns out this was the only waterfall of the journey, but I’ll talk about that later.
The water was crystal clear and the mountains were green, or snowy, or foggy the views really changed everywhere you looked and because we were on a smaller cruise ship we got surprisingly close to the Glacier. Then a small boat pulled up and actually picked up some passengers who for $440 got to take a smaller boat right up to the glacier.
Our views weren’t nearly as close of course but with my long lens I got some nice shots. I didn’t see any calving of the ice but the captain kept spinning the boat slowly so we all got really nice views.
The glacierThis was as close as I could get with the long lens …see how close the little boat was.
I thought the captain did an excellent job given the size of the boat but when I talked to him later he was disappointed he wasn’t able to get closer. A significant amount of our time was taken up by loading and unloading the smaller boat and navigating that close to the shelf is a painstaking process.
I was disappointed that we saw no animals though because on my last glacier cruise we saw tons of otters and puffins. I don’t know if they were there and we didn’t get close enough or they just weren’t there, but I was glad I had my other experience. I will say that if you get this close to a glacier spend the extra money and get right next to it or go on another trip to Alaska and take a glacier cruise there. Although it was a very nice experience you are just lightly touching the experience when you do it on a cruise ship.
My other huge disappointment was we did not see Glacier Bay. That’s my fault not the cruise lines but I was hoping we would be able to see it. I am on a mission to visit all of the National Parks, but this particular cruise (some do) went to Hubbard Glacier instead of Glacier Bay. I tried very hard to find a way to get to Gustavus where the visitors center is but with my schedule and our itinerary I just couldn’t find a way to make it work. Oh well I will just have to plan another trip to Alaska to hit the remaining National parks 🙂
Next up we check out Haines where I heard Bald Eagles were like seagulls on the beach!
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I knew there was nothing of interest for me in Icy Straits so I decided to splurge and spend $250 to join Mom in a whale watching tour. I have seen whales a few times in my travel but this was an opportunity to see humpback whales close up so off we went. The ships we traveled on were relatively small groups and there were plenty of places to be in the open air (or inside) and the three crew members were great answering all kinds of questions
Mom and I hung out on the back of the boat alot
The first thing we saw as we were heading out were some seals on a buoy. They were soaking up the sun and the captain stayed near them until we all got our pictures.
Next we saw otters and that was also really cool. We couldn’t get as close to them, but I brought my long lens camera with me and I got some pretty good shots. They are so amazingly cute I could have taken pictures of them all day.
Finally we saw some whales. And not just any but several humpbacks, a couple even had babies with them. Mom was hoping to see them crest which we never saw but there was lots of blowing and it was awesome being this close to them. What was super special was the whale tale pictures I got. We could have ended right there and I would have been super happy.
So cool
But there was more. The captains of the various boats were obviously talking to each other and we headed to another area where there were oracas!!! Seeing an Orca has been on my bucket list since I turned 50 and we went on a glacier cruise (no luck on that trip), but we saw multiple pods on this trip and even some babies!! So so cool.
Baby and Mom
Amazing. From a pure picture perspective though I got a few shots I was really proud of. One was a fish leaping out of the water and then the splash when it landed and the other was a bird with the shadow on the water. It was a really lovely trip and for me well worth the money it cost.
I even got a great shot of the boat.
Next up we visit a glacier in the big boat!
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Our first day was a sea day which was actually pretty nice because it allowed us to get acclimated to the ship. That is also when I discovered the ship had intermittent cell coverage on sea days and I was really glad that I was only working on port days. I also discovered that it can get pretty cold on the sea and I was really glad I left all my resort wear at home and had jeans and long sleeved shirts! Trust me it’s chilly.
The next day we arrived at our first port of Ketchikan and I was happy we were able to pull right up to the dock. One huge advantage of being on a smaller ship is we could visit ports that smaller ships could not and most of the ports we were able to dock. In this case it was a short walk up to a giant gift store area and then a free shuttle into town.
We were right next to another ship which showed how small we were in comparison.
Ketchikan is a cute little town and they have the tourist trade down. The initial building was full of lots of collectibles and had easy to access transportation to excursions and the town. Since Mom was on an excursion I headed out on my own.
Unfortunately there were 3 more cruise ships on another dock so when I got into downtown it was pretty crowded. There were lots of little shops to look at and some nice sculptures but the prices were a little on the high side for me. I really wanted to buy some Alaskan gold but that definitely wasn’t in the cards for me on this trip. I did end up getting a small rock totem made by an Inuit.
Another thing was despite it being a tourist area the signage was not that great. Despite having a printed map and stopping numerous times for directions it took me a long time to find Creek Street. It was cool though and I was glad when I finally did. This was the red light district in the olden days and the houses are all up on stilts to accommodate the tides. It was really pretty and I even saw a seal cruising along below the houses. The later the day got the more crowded it became though and I headed back towards the ship.
Crazy tall totem pole
Overall the visit was so-so but the best thing I bought was a new lined rain coat. I have been using one I bought at Mount Ranier for many years and it actually had a rip in it. They had the same raincoats that said Alaska on them for only $29.99 at the main gift shop by the ship and I wore the heck out of that for the rest of the cruise.
The next day we landed in Icy Straits and it was such a small town I actually signed up for a whale watching excursion with Mom. I’ll talk about that more in the next post but first we toured the little town where most everything was closed. They did have a cool (and free) sky cable to take us to the little town and another for $50 that went up to the mountain and you zip lined down. We skipped the pay version and instead wandered around a bit.
The boats we used for the whale watchingI loved this Orca statue
Next up the whale watching tour which was a highlight of the cruise and a second bucket list item gets checked off. Oh and one last thing. On of these nights I saw the most gorgeous sunset I have seen in years. There is nothing quite like a sunset from a boat. This picture isn’t altered at all just the sky and sea in all its glory.
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When I went to visit my Mom a few months ago she mentioned she was going on an Alaskan cruise and asked if I wanted to come. Two factors were big for me to answer that question and they were cost and time. Cost goes without saying although ultimately since I was tagging along on her cruise I got a great deal but time was an even bigger factor. One of the things about staying in one place is I now really need my vacation and a 12 day cruise was stretching things. Yes I have three weeks, but Lee and I want to do things also so after a ton of research I determined I could go as long as I could work four of the port days. This would reduce the vacation time I would need and I thought it would be an interesting experiment about working remotely.
Now let me stop right here and say I absolutely loved the time with my Mom and the cruise with her was great. That being said as a reader of this blog she knows how I review things so my review of the experience will be more objective. But to be clear: Mom I had a great time!!
Let’s start with the itinerary because that matters. We are lucky here in LA to have ships leaving from LA, San Diego, and Los Angeles and a flight to Seattle was definitely on the cheaper side. Plus for a change I didn’t have to lose a whole day to travel which was a definite plus. Originally I was going to fly in the same day, but after a Cyber attack hit the airports out here and caused delays I backed it up a day. That meant I got in around 1pm which left me plenty of time to visit the Chihuly Garden and Glass. On a side note I checked three major bucket list items on this trip and Chihuly was the first of them.
Anyways, I was super nervous about working on a sea day and turns out that was a good call. Despite extensive research and the fact they might have Starlink it felt too risky and man am I glad I made that call. This particular ship wasn’t on Starlink yet and although we had some level of internet most of the time, it definitely wasn’t strong enough for Microsoft Team video calls on sea days. Instead I looked at my schedule and their schedule and determined the best work days were Juno, Sitka, Nanaimo, and British Columbia. I mention this now because I will be talking about the working throughout the subsequent blog posts.
I also made the decision to go easy on the excursions. A couple of reasons. I was trying to keep my costs down and only one port had an evening excursion on my work days. Secondly after our cruise experience last Christmas I was really curious to see what it was like to visit a port on my own. I also wanted to learn about being on a smaller ship (this one has a 680 guest capacity versus 4000 on Royal). I should say that I am no means a cruise expert having only been on 4 in my life and since the first two ( Princess and Carnival) were pre Covid I can really only compare this experience to Royal.
So let’s dive in.
We set sail on the Oceania Regatta which is one of the cruise lines smaller ships. It is also the exact type of ship my Mom sailed on her around the world cruise and we were even in the exact same type of room. Getting on and off the smaller ship was definitely easier with shorter lines and easier transition. They even had us watch a safety video at home and then talk to someone briefly when we came on board so we could skip the initial briefing.
We couldn’t go to the room right away so we wandered around and toured the ship which really didn’t take that long. It was pretty and super clean but the communal spaces were certainly smaller than our last experience. Makes sense though since there were so many less people and honestly it all seemed generally proportional to the smaller group of people.
Despite the buffet being smaller there was as much variety they only put out smaller batches and refilled them quickly. The cruise had two specialty restaurants (Italian and Steak) and only a jewelry store and one small shop. Less options didn’t really bother me to be honest except for the small gift shop. Because of the small space they changed out the merchandise daily, which was fun but the sundry area for personal products and snacks was woefully small. One of the best rooms was the library which was huge and had a great selection of modern, multiple genre books.
The spa and gym although smaller were actually less crowded than on the bigger ship and they had multiple wellness classes each day which were all included in the base price. I got a massage the second day and the service and price was somewhat comparable. On of my favorite things was afternoon tea which was free (versus a cost) on Oceania and had a small string section playing everyday with yummy deserts and sandwiches. I had never done afternoon tea in my life and it was pretty fun. We went most days.
They also had a free barrista all day (versus pay Starbucks) and a poolside restaurant with burgers etc that was again free. I hated feeling nickle and dimed to death on the previous cruise and I definitely didn’t feel that way on this one. In all fairness the price point for the base cruise was much higher but it feels like a wash between things being included and paying ad hoc. It was just nice not to get hit with a huge bill at the end of the cruise.
Although everything else was smaller the rooms certainly were not. They were good sized and ours had a small table and chairs and a nice desk area for me to work at. One of the best things was room service was 24/7 and included which was awesome for me especially on work days. Our room steward Anand was absolutely fantastic, so great in fact I ended up tipping him an extra $100 at the end of the cruise and wish I could have done more. In general I would say that although the service was good on both ships I would definitely give it to Oceania. Less staff yes but with less passengers people really started to recognize you and we saw the same people over and over again. One thing about the small ship was everyone was muti tasked and your waiter one night would be your barrista in the morning. (True story). I also liked how ethnically diverse the staff was and enjoyed talking to many people from different countries.
Snacks!!Anand was so great!! He really made the cruise for me
So let’s talk about the food. I had heard the the food was Oceania’s claim to fame and in general I would say the food was better. It still wasn’t to the level I experienced with Princess in the pre-covid days but it was pretty good. In particular they had a custom homemade sorbet everyday and the bread was AWESOME. I gained 5 pounds on this vacation and I think most of it came from bread. If you think I am kidding the bread below came with EVERY meal.
My real disappointment was the specialty restaurants. Don’t get me wrong the company was great and the service was also special. But the food was just not as good as the Royal specialty restaurants and I actually had to send back my over cooked ribeye on our Polo steakhouse night. They had all the bells and whistles including table side deboning of fish which I have never seen but the food itself was just so-so. But as I said the company and service were great and I really enjoyed my birthday dinner the first night on the cruise with Mom. She even got a birthday cake sent to our room which was really nice.
Impressive!The gnocchi was good!
So the tradeoffs between a larger ship and smaller ship seemed like a wash but this particular ship the biggest disappointment was the entertainment. Royal Caribbean entertainment was fantastic and they had multiple venues and two shows a night. Oceania by contrast had a much smaller group and the show every night was at 9:30. Even if I wasn’t working in the morning 9:30 is pretty late for me and after a 6:30 dinner (the earliest seating they had) I wasn’t up for staying up that late. Since the average age on the cruise appeared to be early 70’s I was kind of surprised the entertainment was so late and unfortunately I only got to see one 5:30pm show on the next to last night. It was a fun show in an intimate venue but I really felt like I missed out on some cool stuff because of the late hours.
One last thing I will mention in this post was how old school everything was. There was no app but rather we received a printed newsletter every morning and there was a 10 minute “TV show” byt the cruise director every morning talking about the day. At first I missed the Royal app to keep me organized but honestly I found the morning talk show and newsletter charming and I enjoyed how much information was available via the TV. When they had a thank you moment for the staff I was surprised by how many people from the staff I recognized including the captain who I spoke to on several occasions.
The morning show…delightful
It’s all a matter of taste I suppose and I can certainly see the appeal. I felt totally relaxed and taken care of the entire trip in a way I never felt on Royal. I am going to leave it here and get into more details in the subsequent posts. Looking forward to sharing the adventure with you.
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Glass blowing has a special place in my heart. In a way it led to the full timing lifestyle and was the first hobby Lee and I did together as adults. Whenever I get the chance I try and see glasswork and Chihuly is definitely the best in the United States. For years visiting their Garden in Seattle has been on my bucket list but I have never made it happen until I traveled to Seattle to meet my Mom for a cruise and had the afternoon to myself.
I almost talked myself out of it, crazy how often I try to do that. It was a travel day and the Uber was too expensive, but then I gave myself a mental shake and off I went. And oh how glad I was. I couldn’t begin to capture the beauty or intricacy of the glass I saw, but I will tell you that when a small Chihuly bowl goes for a couple of grand, there is hundreds of thousands dollars worth of sculpture in this space. Plus it is at the base of the Seattle Space Needle and the views were a huge bonus. I don’t know if you will get my experience from the pictures I took, but I am so glad I checked this bucket list item.
When you walk in and pay your money, you walk from room to room. These rooms are tight and definitely not kid friendly, and the details on the individual pieces stop a continuous flow. That being said, folks were very polite and they had docents in every room to answer any questions you might have. The very first piece was all in white with crushed glass at the base that looked like snow. Really interesting. I also loved the various bowls in bowls. These pieces are incredibly difficult to do and the artistry blew me away. No pun intended 🙂
The rooms were loosely themed and the the most intricate from my perspective was a gallery with one large piece in the center and large sea themed vases all around. The scope of the center piece was huge (think town hall Christmas tree) but I probably spent the longest looking at the vases. Every time I relooked I saw something new. I actually recommend going through each room twice (that’s what I did) because looking at the pieces from a different angle was very interesting.
Loved the drawingsThe details on the main pieces were a little repetitive but gorgeous in scope
One of the galleries had large hanging pieces which completely blew me away. I was by myself so I don’t have many pictures for scale but they were enormous and I was a little nervous walking under them. It was clear all the pieces were mounted with extreme care but my mind couldn’t help picturing what a crash would look like. Not sure what that says about me 🙂
One of the small pass ways had a ceiling entirely done in pieces of glass. I would have loved to have spent more time in the room looking up but again it was a bit crowded and awkward for viewing. Beautiful though.
There was also a room with a huge boat with lots of balls in it. Aesthetically it wasn’t my favorite but I appreciated the craftsmanship.
My absolute favorite room was a huge garden. I loved this room so much both at scale and the individual details. If I had seen nothing else I would have walked away happy. I loved it so much I asked a stranger to take some pictures of me.
I didn’t think anything could compare with the garden room, but I was pretty impressed by a hug atrium with one large piece in it. Not only could you see the Space Needle through the roof, but the sculpture looked different from every angle.
Outside there was also a small garden with pieces displayed in natural dirt and with trees. Some of the scenes were great others not as much, but overall I enjoyed walking outside with the glass.
This piece was huge and impressive
My only disappointment was the kid doing a glass blowing demonstration was working on small glass work in a tiny area. They don’t have a working area you can watch which I get but it would have been VERY cool to see these artists at work. Anyways highly recommend if you are in the area. Yes the museum is pricey and its small but the level of work is off the charts. I loved it.
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One of my favorite things to do in LA is go on studio tours, so when Lee said that’s what he wanted to do for his birthday I was ok with it. The only downside was the temperatures have been hitting 100+ everyday, but we agree to go early and leave if the heat became to much for me. Unlike the other studio tours we have seen ( Paramount and Warner Bros ) the Universal Studio Tour is part of it’s theme park. They actually started the tours in the early 1900’s but did a major revamp with Steven Spielburg as the consultant.
Lee went once by himself, but they were running a special 60th anniversary of the tour where you could get off the tram and walk around, so it had to be this summer. We got up very early and drove down getting to the complex about an hour early. Turns out this was a good call because the parking garage can be time consuming to get into and in order to reach the park itself you have to walk through City Walk. I will say the walk going in was much more pleasant than the walk coming out (I was pretty tired and it was pretty hot). Cool shops though.
Had a voodoo donut on the way out Yummy!!
Once we reached the entrance to the park it was very nice with water mist sprayers everywhere and a few places to grab some shade. They also had some stores open right inside which we could shop in while we waited for the full park to open.
The misters work great!!Lee at the gift shop was so funny
Once we went inside we headed right to the studio tour and thankfully got on one of the first trams. It was already getting hot but riding on the tram was nice and I really liked the tour. The backlots were fun in particular the town where Back to The Future was filmed.
Very coolThis is parts of an airplane crash loved thisAnd houses damaged by tornado or crashOur guide was great and I loved that each tram car had TVs so you could see him even if you weren’t in front
At three stops we went into a building and had a VR type experience with 3D glasses. One was dinosaur themed, another was earthquake themed, and the newest was fast and furious. Couldn’t get good pictures but my favorite was the dinosaur.
The other two really cool areas were an old Mexican town where a rush of water comes through a gulley and of course the Jaws town. Jaws may be an oldie but still fun. They even had Steven Spielberg video talk about creating the attraction.
The most disappointing part of the tour was actually where we could get off. They had a small area setup with picture areas and although I appreciated the fact that staff took pictures for us for free it still was kind of lame. The good tour where you got to walk on the sets was actually the private tour and starting at $400+ dollars was a little pricey for us. Still it was fun and we both had a good time so when we finished we started out to see the rest of the park.
The Norman Bates guy was creepyThis was funThe Bates houseLee showing me how to be in King Kong’s fist was super silly and fun.
The most unusual thing about the park is it is split into an Upper and Lower section and they have elevators that get you between the two areas. One nice thing was there were great views of the city and the walkways did cut down on the steps 🙂
Our next stop was The Mummy (Lee’s all time favorite ride) and since we went in the single rider line we got on pretty quick. I do like how they still have the single rider line and that made it more pleasant. After the first ride I needed to eat so went and sat in a nice restaurant (I had dinosaur ribs which were yummy) while Lee rode a second time.
Next up was my absolute favorite of the day which was the Jurassic Park water ride. It was really good and had a nice splash at the end to cool down.
Lastly we walked through the Simpson town (which was quirky) and Harry Potter area but for me it was really getting hot. Lee rode a VR ride while I stayed in the shade but with temps topping 100 it was time for us to go. It was still a great experience, especially the Studio Tour portion and I do recommend it maybe not on such a hot day!
We very much appreciate your support of our blog.
You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperbackversion on Amazonor buy the Apple version on Itunes
After 1-1/2 years staying in Northridge we have finally been able to move and I couldn’t be happier. Don’t get me wrong there were benefits to being close to things in LA, but the constant REALLY loud traffic noise and the lack of green spaces was pretty miserable for me. I really tried to acclimate, but I am a small town girl at heart and at the age of almost 58 I don’t think that is ever going to change.
As I have mentioned before there are very few RV park options around LA and most of those are super utilitarian. There is one place though about 1/2 hour away in Valencia that is a true Travel Resort. Since it is near Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park it has all of the standard resort features but with limited monthly spaces available it was impossible to get into, we tried multiple times.
A few days ago I reached my breaking point and even though Lee wasn’t thrilled about the extra 1/2 drive for him we drove up to see once again if we could get on a waiting list. Turned out the universe was smiling because they had just opened an expansion and actually had 3 spaces available. Holy cow!! The only downside was we had to pay right then and there so we did knowing we might have to double pay rent for the month of August but for me it was more than worth it.
Thankfully though after talking to our current RV Park manager she was willing to let us out of our last month on our 6 month commitment as long as we left on 8/1. Moving on a workday is not optimal, but Lee packed everything up and we managed to roll out around 2:30pm. The traffic getting here was not great but once we arrived it truly felt like a haven.
We were escorted to our new site and Lee had help backing in (taking pressure off me) and in no time we were opened up and out walking the dog. At first poor Jack was a bit nonplussed by all the grass (he’s been mostly a concrete and gravel dog for the last year, but he soon perked up and loved exploring. We even saw a bunny which was awesome and the first wild creature (aside from skunks) I have seen in 6 months.
Our site. With the high walls behind us road noise is almost nonexistent, and blessedly quiet compared to where we were.Lots of puppy greenspace and big trees.Look how happy Jack is
The park has lots of amenities including multiple dog parks, an arcade, an adults only pool, hot tub, decently stocked camp store, and adults only lounge.
Two fenced in dog areas
The absolute best part though is we are surrounded by rolling hills and green space. I can see trees and hills from my windows and a short stroll takes me to beautiful views. I truly feel like I can breathe again and what a wonderful feeling that is.
I know this is not permanent and as soon as Lee is making enough to cover rent and an apartment I will happily move to Burbank (which is a small town in its own right) but for now I am truly grateful we got this spot and cant wait to explore the smallish towns in the surrounding area.
We very much appreciate your support of our blog.
You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperbackversion on Amazonor buy the Apple version on Itunes
Camper Chronicles 