Day #1: Arrive in Seattle/Alki Beach
We flew from our local airport to Seattle, WA. We arrived in Seattle around 4:00pm local time. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and checked into our hotel before meeting my brother and his family at a local beach called Alki beach. The kids enjoyed this time, especially the time spent with their cousins.
Day #2: Seattle
This was the day we saw as many Seattle sites as we could. We woke up and headed to Seattle Center, which is where the Space Needle is located. We were planning on parking in a parking garage, but we were lucky enough to find free street parking (it was free because it was a Sunday). I had pre-purchased our tickets to go to the top of the Space Needle, which saved us from waiting in a line. I chose our time to be early in the morning (8:30am) which I later learned isn't ideal because it's often foggy early in the morning. Thankfully, it was only cloudy for us, not foggy. We were able to see the entire city, but the clouds obstructed any view of Mt. Rainier. We enjoyed the main observation deck, but we enjoyed the revolving glass floor even more. Our family all agreed that going to the top of the Space Needle was worth the money. After the Space Needle, we took the monorail to the business district of Seattle. The cost of a one-way monorail ticket is $2.50 for people over the age of 12. The cost for a child's ticket is $1.25. The monorail is easy to navigate because it only has two stops: the one at the Seattle Center and the one in the business district. When we got off at the business district, it was an easy walk to Pike's Place Market. We got to experience not only the flying fish and the gum wall, but we also got to eat all sorts of good food from different vendors. From there we walked to the waterfront. We got to see Seattle's Great Wheel (Ferris wheel), but we decided not to ride it. We eventually took the monorail back to Seattle Center and the kids had a blast playing in the International Fountain. After that, we finally got in our car again and drove to Kerry Park to take in their beautiful views. We were able to meet up with some friends and eat ice cream at Molly Moon's. Day #2 was a pretty full day for my jet lagged family, but we really enjoyed the sites of Seattle.
Day #3: Oregon Coast Part 1
We woke up this morning and began the drive down to Oregon. We hopped on I-5 South and headed toward Astoria, OR. This is one of the few "educational" things we did on this trip. We first went to the Astoria Column, which is a historical monument that depicts the discovery of the Columbia River by American explorers. We climbed to the top of the tower and saw beautiful views. From there, we made the quick drive to Fort Clatsop, which is where Lewis and Clark stayed for the winter of 1805-1806 after trekking across the new Louisiana Territory. The National Historical Park did a nice job of recreating what Lewis and Clark's home would have looked like. It was a neat stop, but if you are short on time, it's an easy one to skip.
After leaving Astoria, we began heading south on the coastal highway. We ultimately stayed on the coastal highway all the way to Ventura, CA.
There are so many stops to make along the Oregon coast line. Because of time, we chose four stops to make after Astoria. The first was Ecola State Park which is about an hour south of Astoria. It gave us tremendous views of Haystack Rock and a really fun beach area with lots of wildlife. We saw starfish everywhere. We also saw some elk grazing and one of my sons found a sand dollar. We loved it here.
After we left Ecola State Park, we drove about an hour to Tillamook, OR and met some friends we hadn't seen in a while for ice cream at the famous Tillamook Creamery. What a great place to stretch your legs and eat some fantastic ice cream! After enjoying our ice cream, we drove about 1 1/2 hours to our hotel in Newport.
Day #4: Oregon Coast Part 2 and Redwood National Park
We woke up and drove about a half hour south to Thor's Well. This is a unique configuration of rocks along the Pacific Coast that appears to fill up and empty like a well. It was chilly and drizzly while we were there, so we didn't stay too long. My kids really liked it though.
From Thor's Well, we drove about 2 hours to Bandon Beach. This was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. If I thought Ecola State Park was beautiful, it didn't even compare to Bandon Beach. Of course, this is only my opinion. We stayed and played for about 90 minutes. The kids loved climbing around and looking for treasures. We also got to see some seal pups!
After leaving Bandon Beach, we drove for 3 1/2 hours, eventually leaving Oregon and arriving at our next destination, Redwood National Park in California. The drive was long and curvy and we definitely had kids who were feeling a little carsick. But, we eventually made it and it was beautiful. Our first stop was to the Paul Bunyan statue. From there we went to the Drive-Thru tree (make sure you have $5 cash) and then we went into the National Park and found "The Big Tree" and we hiked around a little. We then made the 90 minute drive to our hotel in Eureka, CA.
Day #5: Avenue of Giants and arrive in San Francisco
We woke up bright and early to begin our drive to San Francisco. We decided to take a longer route to San Fran and we drove on a route called The Avenue of Giants. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. I highly recommend it. The trees were so gorgeous. We ended up hiking around for a while and taking in the beauty. The drive to San Francisco should have taken us 5 hours, but it took us closer to 7. It was definitely worth it. We eventually arrived in San Francisco at around 4pm. We checked into our hotel which was in Mill Valley, on the north side of San Francisco. We chose Mill Valley because the prices were more reasonable and we didn't have to pay for parking. After checking into our hotel we were able to go to an overlook of the Golden Gate Bridge that was also on the north side. We didn't actually cross the bridge until the next day. After admiring the bridge, we got dinner and then relaxed at the hotel pool.
Day #6: San Francisco
This was our main day in San Francisco. We woke up early and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco before the traffic got too congested. It felt very surreal to be crossing it. Also, just to be aware, the toll to cross the bridge going southbound is $7.50. There is no toll going northbound. After crossing the bridge, we stopped at the Painted Ladies (famous victorian row houses) first thing in the morning. We were able to find free street parking (we might have gotten lucky because it was so early). From there we took our car and parked in a parking garage near Pier 33, which is the pier for Alcatraz. I purchased my Alcatraz tickets weeks ago (this is a necessity) and our boarding time was 8:40am. We loved our time on Alcatraz. It was fascinating. The audio tour is an absolute must. We learned so much. After Alcatraz we walked to Pier 39, which is a definite tourist trap, but we all really liked it. We had lunch, did some shopping and saw the seals who are known for hanging out at Pier 39. We then walked to Lombard St (the most crooked street in the world) via Fisherman's Wharf. And after that we walked to Ghirardelli Square and enjoyed some ice cream for dinner. After we finished up with all of these activities, we walked back to our car. We drove back to the Golden Gate Bridge and parked in the Visitor Center lot (free parking!!). We had debated about whether or not to ride bikes across the bridge. The idea of that made several of my kids nervous, so we ended up walking across the bridge instead. We actually just walked to the halfway point and back. We all loved it so much! It was a really neat experience and not too freaky. If you decide to ride bikes across, there are so many bike rental places near Fisherman's Wharf. No need to reserve in advance. I highly recommend going to the Visitor's Center at the Golden Gate Bridge. Not only is that the starting point for walking the bridge, but the viewing area there was the best place we found to get beautiful photos.
Painted Ladies
Alcatraz
Cell in Alcatraz
Seals at Pier 39
Pier 39
Lombard Street
Ghirardelli
Walking the Golden Gate Bridge
Day #7: San Francisco
We started our morning by driving back into San Francisco. We parked in a lot near Chinatown. From there, we walked to Coit Tower, which is a tall tower on top of a hill that gives fantastic views of the city. Unfortunately we didn't do our research. We arrived at Coit Tower at 8am and it didn't open until 10am. That was too bad, but we carried on and went to our next destination. We walked to Fisherman's Wharf and purchased tickets to ride a cable car to Chinatown. It was easy enough to figure out the cable car system when starting from Fisherman's Wharf. Simply go to the kiosk at the intersection of Beach and Hyde to purchase tickets and board. I'm glad we went early in the morning because there was already a line to get on the cable car. We had to wait for a couple of cable cars to leave before we could get on one. The cable cars leave about every 20 minutes, so we waited in line about 40 minutes. We were really lucky that we got to be on the outside of the car and get an iconic cable car picture. This particular day was our youngest daughter's "Gotcha Day". We knew we wanted to spend a good chunk of the day in Chinatown, since she was born in China. The cable car dropped us off outside of Chinatown. We were able to walk the streets and shop. We went to the Fortune Cookie Factory and we got to watch fortune cookies being made. We bought some really yummy fortune cookies with chocolate frosting on them. We also bought a super-sized fortune cookie that our daughter ate later back at our hotel. After the Fortune Cookie Factory, we were ready for lunch. We had a bit of a hard time finding a place to eat, but we stumbled upon an absolute gem of a restaurant called The Far East Cafe. The food was fantastic. Even my pickiest eater was gobbling it up. After Chinatown we walked back to our car and drove to our hotel. It was pretty early in the day (2ish) so my husband and kids enjoyed the outdoor swimming pool at our hotel while I found a laundromat (real life, laundry does accumulate on vacations). Then we ate a quick dinner and headed to Muir Woods. Muir Woods is another area of Redwood trees on the north side of San Francisco. The trails are beautiful. Be warned that you cannot just show up. You have to go online and book a parking reservation for a specific time (cost was $8). My understanding is that you won't be allowed into the park unless you can show an attendant your reservation. Once you are at Muir Woods, you can stay as long as you like (until the park closes, of course). It was great to see Redwoods one more time.
Coit Tower
Cable Car
Pandas in Chinatown
The Far East Cafe
Muir Woods
Giant fortune cookie from the Fortune Cookie Factory (Hope ate the big fortune cookie, there were 2 smaller fortune cookies inside)
Day #8: Santa Cruz
It was so nice to spend three nights in our San Francisco hotel, but it was finally time to begin journeying south again. We drove 2 hours south to Santa Cruz and we finally found warm weather!!!! Our first stop in Santa Cruz was Natural Bridges State Beach. We didn't stay long, just long enough to see the natural bridge and then we were on our way. After that, we headed to Santa Cruz's historic boardwalk. The boardwalk was so fun. It is full of different rides and food vendors. Our family agreed to choose one ride to go on together and we chose The Giant Dipper, which is the 5th oldest roller coaster in the country. It was a little jerky, but it was a fun experience. When we got off the coaster, we perused the different food options and ended up with hotdogs and shaved ice for a healthy lunch. After we left the boardwalk, we met up with a college friend of mine and spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach that is in walking distance of her condo. It was so nice to have some relaxing time. But, all good things must come to an end. We loved our time at the beach, but we needed to keep on with our trip. We finished up our day by driving an hour south to our next hotel which was in Monterey.
Natural Bridges State Park
The Santa Cruz Boardwalk
Getting ready to blast off on The Giant Dipper
Enjoying the beach and warm temps in Santa Cruz
Day #9: Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur Highway
I think I will always look back on this day as the day we drove and drove and drove! We left our hotel in Monterey at 8am and arrived at our hotel in Ventura at 7pm. Eleven hours!!!!! We made stops along the way, of course, but none of the stops were long in duration. The sites were beautiful and we felt like it was definitely worth it.
Our family tends to wake up early, so we were up and ready to go. Unfortunately, Monterey was still sleeping. So we drove through the cute town, but didn't have the chance to actually stop and do anything. We then headed to Pebble Beach to drive the "17-Mile Drive". The cost was $10, but we were given a really helpful brochure that mapped out all of the recommended stops along the beautiful coast. Our favorite stop was the Lone Cypress, which is the logo for Pebble Beach. It was very iconic. My husband and boys enjoyed stopping at the Visitor's Center where we could see some displays of famous golfers who have golfed at Pebble Beach. We went behind the first tee and saw The Wall of Champions, which my husband really enjoyed. After that, we hopped back in the car and drove about a half hour south to Garrapata State Park. This was the highlight of the day for my kids. The beach was beautiful and my kids loved climbing on all of the different rocks. The weather was chilly, so it wasn't a real "beach time" but it was a nice 45 minute stop for us.
We left Garrapata State Park, crossed the Bixby Bridge and entered The Big Sur Highway, which is a 90 mile stretch of road that hugs the California coast line. We didn't make a lot of stops because of time, but we really enjoyed our stop at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. We took a small hike to McWay Falls and the beauty was overwhelming. It is quite rare to have a waterfall that flows directly into the ocean. I'm so glad we got to see it. From there we drove about 1 1/2 hours to San Simeon and saw the amazing Elephant Seals. This is a MUST SEE. These Elephant Seals are so fun to watch. They flap around in the sand, lay on each other, bark at each other and occasionally move around. From here, we drove 3 more hours to Ventura. We grabbed a quick dinner at Chipotle and then we went to Serra Cross Park to see the beautiful cross that survived the wildfires in 2017. The views were beautiful too. After that we went to our hotel and somehow my husband and children mustered up the energy to swim in the hotel pool.
California Coast
The Lone Cypress, icon of Pebble Beach
The wall of champions at Pebble Beach golf course, including Tiger Woods
Garrapata State Park
Garrapata State Park
Garrapata State Park
McWay Falls at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park
Elephant Seals at San Simeon
Serra Cross Park in Ventura
View from Serra Cross
Day #10: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/Disneyland Resort
Per normal, we were up and out the door early. Our first stop was about a 30 minute drive to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. We knew that it didn't open until 10am and that did not work with our timeline, but we had called the day before to make sure we could still visit the gravesite even if the library was not yet open. The answer was Yes. So, even though we would have loved to tour the library, we were happy that we got to pay our respects at his gravesite.
From there we had about a 2 hour drive to our Disneyland Resort (it was supposed to be a little shorter, but LA traffic is a beast). Mike dropped the kids and I off at our resort and then he went and dropped off our rental car since we wouldn't need it for the rest of the trip. I did a lot of research on which Disneyland Resort would work best for our family and I am very happy with the one we ended up choosing. We stayed at the Marriott: Theme Park Entrance. It was reasonably priced (compared to the 3 hotels actually owned by Disneyland), it had an awesome pool area and the rooms were so practical (and cute too). Our room had 2 queen beds and a set of bunkbeds, as well as a table for eating meals. We had a small balcony and with a view of Space Mountain!!! The other advantage to this resort was that even though it only had 1 bathroom, the bathroom had 2 separate areas and they each had their own shower. It was perfect to have 2 kids shower at a time!!!! But the biggest perk to our resort was the walkability factor. It was a very easy walk to Downtown Disney, Disneyland and Disney California Adventures.
We arrived at our resort at about 11am. Our room wasn't ready yet, but we were able to change into our bathing suits and use the pool until the room was ready. We stayed at the pool for hours. We were all so happy to not be in the car anymore. After the pool, we showered up and walked to Downtown Disney to shop and eat treats. Then we went back to our resort to watch the Disneyland fireworks from the pool deck.
Ronald and Nancy Reagan's gravesite
Beautiful view from the Reagan library
Awesome pool at our Disneyland Resort
Downtown Disney
View of Space Mountain from our balcony
Watching Disneyland fireworks from the pool deck
Day #11: Disney California Adventure (DCA)
We arrived at DCA about an hour before it opened so we could be near the front of the line. We love the ride Radiator Racers (from the movie CARS), but it gets really long lines. We wanted to be able to get on the ride first thing and the only way to do that is to be at the front of the line when the park opens. Then, the most magical thing happened. Our family was asked if we wanted to be "The First Racer of the Day". We were escorted into the park before it opened. We had our picture taken at several iconic spots and then we got to ride Radiator Racers before the park had even opened. We were the only ones on the ride!!! It was so magical!. The rest of our day was wonderful too.
Our family being personally escorted through DCA
Family Photo in Cars Land with our special certificate before the park opens
Walking onto Radiator Racers and riding the ride completely by ourselves before the park opens
Forky
The talking Mr. Potato Head outside of Toy Story Mania
Classic family DCA picture
Day #12: Disneyland
We spent our final day of vacation at the original Disneyland Park. The park opened at 8am so we arrived at 6:45am so we could be first in line. We knew we wanted to see the new Star Wars land and ride the new ride, Smuggler's Run. We were nervous that there would be long waits, so we wanted to make sure we were the first people to get into the park. While we were waiting, I struck up a conversation with a Disney employee. After we chatted for a while, she asked us if we wanted to come into the park early and lead the crowd in the countdown. What????? How in the world did we get so lucky to have two magical experiences right in a row? So, they introduced our family to the crowd and then we led everyone in the countdown to the park opening. And because we were at the head of the pack, we got to be in the first pod of people to ride Smuggler's Run! It was amazing! We had such an amazing day. The park, surprisingly, did not have long lines and we were able to enjoy so many rides. We rode Thunder Mountain 8 times!!!! The firework show was amazing too. I wanted to stay until midnight, but Mike and the kids were getting tired, so we left at 10:30. We walked back to our resort. We had checked out that morning, but the resort was storing our luggage for us. We called an Uber and got a ride to our last hotel, which was right by John Wayne Airport because we had a really early flight out.
For the 2nd day in a row, our family was the first family in the park
Galaxy's Edge: Star Wars Land
Inside the Millennium Falcon about to get on the Smuggler's Run ride
Funniest Splash Mountain picture ever
Sleeping Beauty's Castle
Day #13: Fly home
After a late night, we woke up early and we arrived at the John Wayne Airport by 5:15am. Our flight took off at 6:30am. At 10:30am, a pretty big earthquake hit Southern California. We missed it by 4 hours!!!
We had a wonderful, wonderful vacation. We were tired when we got home, but our memories will last a lifetime!
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