It's been less than 24 hours since we landed. We had a wonderful (and smooth) trip to Disneyland as well as the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, and Universal Studios.

We stayed at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel on Harbor Blvd. It's about a 7 minute walk from the hotel to the main plaza of the DLR. The hotel itself is decent. We were in building 1, the high-rise at the back which is closest to the freeway. It got a bit loud at night, but didn't really bother us because we were worn out. The bedding and valence could use an refresh (they were bright yellow with flowers).

Because we're from Louisiana, it was usually 7:00 AM when we woke up without even trying because our bodies thought it was 9:00 AM.

May 27: Arrival and Steakhouse 55
We got to John Wayne Airport right around 2:00pm PST, got our rental car (with GPS) and drove to the hotel. We arrived, relaxed for a little while, then got dressed for dinner and headed to the Disneyland Hotel. We got to Downtown Disney a bit early, so we walked around at our leisure and took our time getting down to the steakhouse. I also noticed that the hotel hadn't bothered to change one of the directional signs to reflect the name change from Granville's to Steakhouse 55. Once we sat down, we had a very nice waitress, but the service was quite slow. I ordered the prime rib, and DW ordered the filet mignon. We were there for an hour before our food came out, however. Because of this (and because we were on our honeymoon), the waitress gave us a free creme brulee and 20% off the bill. We were originally planning to go to Haggen-Daas a bit later after our stomachs had room, but once the creme brulee was in front of us, we found a bit of room for it. After dinner, we walked around Downtown Disney a bit more and learned that it gets chilly enough for a jacket at night in Southern California, then went back to the hotel for the night.

May 28: San Diego
Being the early risers we are (but only on the west coast), we were up and on our way to San Diego around 8:30. The GPS was great for this trip (as well as the trip to Los Angeles) because we just punched in the address and the GPS told us where to go. No reading maps and no getting lost involved. We arrived at the San Diego Zoo right when it opened at 10:00 AM. We first ate breakfast and looked at the Zoo map. Afterward, we took the guided tour around the zoo. This tour covers a good deal of the zoo, so I felt we had seen most of it in the hour we spent on the double-decker bus. After the tour, we went looking for the polar bears and the pandas, rode the "Skyfari" (the Zoo's Skyway) and roamed around the monkey trails and aviary before heading out for Sea World.

When we got to Sea World, we started to notice the Memorial Day crowds. Even with those crowds, we managed to do just about everything in the park. We especially liked the dolphin show and "Shamu Rocks", which is the evening Shamu show. We didn't end up riding Atlantis because it was getting cool and we didn't want to get wet. After the Shamu show, we headed back for the hotel because it would be at least an hour before we got there.

May 29: Hollywood
Another early start to the day. We ate at Mimi's cafe, which is "New Orleans inspired". I'm not sure they've ever been to New Orleans, however, because the buildings don't look like a country shack. From where we were sitting, it looked more like a Cracker Barrel than New Orleans. The food was decent, though not really New Orleans inspired either, but then again it was breakfast. We headed out to Universal and got there for the 10:00 AM opening time and immediately jumped on the Studio Tour. This tour is great; not only is it a tour of the studio's backlot, but also includes what would be three separate rides at Universal Orlando: King Kong, Earthquake, and Jaws. We saw all the backlot facades where many movies were filmed including Back to the Future, Bruce Almighty, and (shock!) Pirates of the Carribbean. Apparently many other studios use the building facades in their movies as well.

After the studio tour, which was nearly an hour long, we rode Back to the Future and then we went down and rode The Mummy. This is a good rollercoaster ride that's similar to Rock 'n Rollercoaster, except it goes backwards for about half the ride. We also saw Shrek 4-D, but we were just about done with Universal by 1:00 pm. In my opinion, with the exception of the Studio Tour, the park leaves something to be desired. Also, some of the attractions weren't operating because it wasn't a "busy day". The park was only open from 10am - 6pm. We ate lunch in CityWalk, checked out the Hard Rock Cafe, then left the park.

Once back in the car, we checked the GPS' attractions button and saw that the Hollywood sign wasn't far away. We followed the directions, which brought us into a neighborhood where we were able to get some pretty good pictures. Then, we clicked the Hollywood Walk of Fame which brought us right to the fabled Hollywood and Vine intersection. Unfortunately, the Hollywood and Vine area has become a bit run down, but we took a few pictures of the stars on the sidewalk as we walked around before we left. We headed back to the hotel, but had to sit through the Los Angeles traffic at 3:30pm.

After relaxing in the hotel a while, we walked to Downtown Disney for dinner. We decided on ESPN Zone, which had good food. I had the buffalo wings, and DW had a burger. We also watched the end of the Cleveland/Detroit NBA game as well as the Braves game. After ESPN Zone, we spent some time in the shops in Downtown before getting the Haggen-Daas that we planned on getting the first night after Steakhouse 55, then it was back to the hotel for the night.