Airport and Paradise Pier Hotel
Hello there! Here’s the summary for Day 1 (and I wasn’t going to write as much but for Yuki, I will)
Should I even call it day 1 since we didn’t do much but travel. Check in was smooth enough.
Here’s me playing with the check in thinger.
Mr.S fiddling with our luggage tag.
Okay, so anyone here follow basketball?? Well we were pretty hungry so we had some pizza. While eating, Mr.S commented that the guy who passed by us was a retired basketball player. And the best part? It really was him and he was riding our plane. This is the first celeb encounter I had in the airport. Rick Fox is such a nice guy to entertain pictures for his fans.
Here is Mr. Rick Fox (ex-husband of Vanessa Williams, if that makes him more relevant), towering over Mr.S. He’s actually wearing a faded Lakers t-shirt.
Duffy is all buckled up.
Anyway, during the plane ride, we pretty much just watched movies - well he watched movies while I did the crossword (which I almost finished btw!!!). I forgot to mention that we took Air Canada. Now, it’s not WOW like Porter cause I heard you get free food but hey, it goes to the west side which Porter does not do at this time. We had to purchase our own food and I believe we were too late in ordering our food so we got stuck with “chicken noodle soup” (which was actually instant cup noodle) and some cashews. The plane ride was comfortable enough. I mean, how comfy can a plane be for economy class…
We landed in glorious Los Angeles. The airport is better than what I remember. It was more run down or in the middle of construction last time I came here. We were absolutely not greeted by warm weather but it was actually not that cold either. Hooray.
I booked us a shuttle to Disney’s Paradise Pier hotel. The shuttle company name was …. Super Shuttle (more info). May I say that these shuttle services are very convenient, and affordable!! No pics. Too tired. Anyway, how this shuttle works is that there’s like a shuttle stop, kinda like a bus stop, at every terminal and it goes around the airport. It picks up all the people going to a certain location, in my case Disney grounds, and drives you there. In total, there was a set of four in our van. Four families not four people, I wish. So we were the first one dropped off. Paradise Pier isn’t what you would consider the top tier Disney hotel but I quite liked it.
Goofy welcomes you to Paradise Pier Hotel.
I’ve never had anyone spell my first name correctly while my last name incorrectly.
I had a discussion with Yuki regarding the soaps at Disney. I had hoped they had the mouse ears but I got h20 products instead.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that Paradise Pier has like a beach/pier/boat theme going on. So here’s Duffy resting next to a beach ball while we get ready for bed.
I’ll talk about the rest of the Disney trip and Southern California trip another time but I want to end this post with a picture of my other loves playing with the beach ball.
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Price summaries
Breakdown: One way ticket from Toronto YYZ to Los Angeles LAX p.p = $255.59 + tax $9.93 - Air Canada
(and you know about the whole reward thing so we paid $31.04) ordered via TDTravelRewards
Reasoning: Best deal for a flight going out at night time
Breakdown: Paradise Pier hotel $175/night + tax $59.50 / Total $409.50 ordered directly from the Disney website
Reasoning: Best deal for a Disney hotel and it was newly renovated so, why not?
Breakdown: Super Shuttle - Shared Ride van $16/pp (tip $4) / Total $36.00 booked directly from SuperShuttle.com
Reasoning: I ain’t paying $90 + tip to drive from LAX to Anaheim. And Disney was not shuttling past 7 pm.
(also, I am too lazy to post my itinerary so download it here http://pdfcast.org/download/california-2011.pdf, don’t worry it’s a safe website or ask me to email it to you)