Thursday 17 September 2015

Off to California

So Monday the 17th of November 2014 we got up bright and early and had breakfast at the hotel before heading over to the airport terminal to check in:
We got through security no problem and wandered the shops for a bit to kill some time. They had started putting up the Christmas decorations in the airport:
They had a few new shops at the airport since we were there last and this dude was in one of the new sweet shops:
We stopped in Bewleys for tea and white hot chocolate before we headed to the US customs clearance area. We must have gotten the grumpiest police officer that morning, we were all giddy and excited to be heading to California and he didn't even crack a smile. Once we got through security I watch the planes come and go until our plane for New York arrived:
Soon enough they started boarding our flight and it was so long Ireland for ten days:
The in-flight entertainment had its own Disney section so I watched Planes 2 first as I hadn't seen it yet:
While I was watching that they came around with drinks and snacks. The flight attendant gave me extra peanuts as well:
I continued my Disney watching and watched Phineas and Ferb, Dog with a blog and then to break from Disney for a bit I watched Rio. At some point in between all those they came around with dinner as well. The choice was Pasta or Sweet and sour chicken. I went with the chicken:
Shortly before we landed they went around asking everyone if you wanted an egg sandwich or a turkey sandwich but there was a chicken fajita in my turkey sandwich lol:
Soon enough it was nearly time to land in New York. Look how far we travelled from that first red dot on the right hand side of the screen and we still had to go to the other side of America:
Once we landed we headed straight to the next gate but I spotted this along the way:
We didn't have assigned seats on the next flight since Delta had changed the time of our first flight two weeks before we were due to fly. Our travel agent had to change the time of our second flight in case we didn't get to New York on time but because it was so close to the flight date she couldn't book us seats. We had tickets for the flight just not assigned seats so we tried to sort that out at the gate and were told that they wouldn't be able to do it until they were starting to board. While we were waiting at the gate we had tea and a hot dog and then Delta people came around with biscuits and water for everyone. As they started boarding the plane we did get seats on the flight together in the very last row! 
    There was not alot of choice on the movies on this plane so I watched Bad Neighbours on my ipod and did some puzzles and stuff to pass the time. Eventually we got closer to Los Angeles:
 
It was dark by the time we got to Los Angeles so all we could see was Los Angeles all lit up: 
It was about 8 when we landed and by the time we figured out where the baggage claim area was our bags were some of the last on the carousel in fact they'd already taken one off as unclaimed luggage but I just went over and grabbed it while the security guy was talking. We got a bit confused looking for the super shuttle stop as well but I found another security guy and he pointed us in the right direction. We left LAX at 8.37 and by 9.14 we were stopping at the first hotel in Anaheim. Our hotel, The Castle Inn and Suites, was the second stop. The hotel reception was a lot smaller than the pictures online make it look but it was nice enough. This dude was in reception to greet us. 
We got checked in and there was some Disney stuff in the reception area as well:
 
Once check in was all sorted we headed to our room. The room was bigger than most hotel rooms we've stayed in and the beds were huge:
We got a towel animal as well:
We got all settled in and went straight to bed eager to get to Disneyland the next day.