A 3-hour Tour?

When we first started planning our trip to California, Julian and I thought we had a lot of “down time.” We wanted to maximize our vacation. We had about 10 days to play with. We purchased a Southern California Citypass from Costco that gave us 3 days admission to Disneyland, Seaworld passes, San Diego Zoo and Universal Studios. Worried that wouldn’t fill up our time, we decided to buy Hollywood passes as well that gave us a Starline tour of celebrity homes and hot spots, Wax Museum tickets, a Red Line Tour that showed spots where famous movies scenes were filled and a tour of the famous Kodak Theater (home of the Oscars and American Idol, of course). Apparently we are vacation rookies because we had so much to do that our down time was scarce and we ended up having to drop the San Diego Zoo and the Red Line Tour from our schedule. Even so, we had a great time. Although, if I were to do it over I would check out the San Diego Zoo before Seaworld, which was not anyone’s favorite due to the upselling and crazy prices for crappy food.

Hollywood day was exciting! We started out with lunch at Phillipe’s, home of the french dip sandwich. My mom had been dying to try one and it was well worth the effort. We followed that with the wax museum and our tour of the Kodak theater. Unfortunately no picture taking is allowed in the theater. We got to hear all sorts of silly facts about the Oscar event though. The theater is actually located in a mall, down a crowded and not so attractive street, so on Oscar night everything is closed off and the red carpet rolls out. Stars then do their walk and end up going through a mall that is covered in drapes so we viewers can’t see any of the Hello Kitty and Coffee Shop store fronts. That cracked me up. The theater itself has some tricks too. Backstage areas are dressed up and as soon as stars receive their Oscar they are escorted to the freight elevator! Of course, this is lined in linens for the night and a chandelier is hung from the ceiling. We were able to walk the stage and sit in the seats, so that was fun.

One of my most anticipated events was the celebrity tour. I don’t normally follow star headlines. I don’t read People and fan sites or keep track of anything like that, which is probably why this tour seemed fun to me. We were a little disappointed to find out that the tickets we purchased were not for one of the snazzy double-decker buses being shown on the fliers. Instead, we were escorted to a backstreet and put on a shuttle bus much like the ones that escort you from the airport to the Comfort Inn. I got over this quickly though because it was hot-hot outside and the covered bus protected me. (But as a warning – maybe check what type of ride you’ll be checking into before purchasing your tickets for a Hollywood tour). The tour started out fun with a trip down Sunset Boulevard. Our driver was the Wikipedia of Hollywood and pointed out all the celebrity owned restaurants and clubs, then we entered Beverly Hills and Bel Air. We looked at house after house after house after house. This was entertaining for about the first hour and a half of our supposed two hour tour, but I guess our tour guide gets lonely and really likes doing tours because he went on for count them: 3 1/2 hours! Sylvia started to panic and whispered, “I don’t think he’s going to let us off the bus!” I was starting to wonder myself… I think an hour of house Oooing and Awwing is kind of fun, but after that you end up saying “Okay, I get it. They’re much-much wealthier than me. That’s lovely. Let me go home now.”

I am happy to add that our zoo passes didn’t go to waste. My adorable nephew Shane flew into town only a week after we left, so my parents got to take him on the zoo adventure!

(P.S. That’s Julian proudly standing on the Kodak Theater Steps with his complimentary post card from the tour. You can check out all the pics from Hollywood in all their repetitive splendor right here.)