Day 4 - LA moving

Started the day today by packing up at The Grand Californian. Well actually I dodged the packing by having a telephone board meeting, which nicely meant that I subcontracted the suitcase bit! Once meetings and cases had been sorted out, we left our luggage with bell services and headed into the California Adventure, and for the third time in four days went to Flo's V8 cafe in Radiator Springs for their french toast breakfast. Whilst in Cars Land we were lucky enough to see Lightning McQueen himself (!), and so many photos were taken.


The wait for Radiator Springs racers was just too long, so we went over to Paradise Pier. Unfortunately Toy Story was out of commission, and so Jake and I went on California Screamin'. Now, clearly something of a role reversal has taken place since our last visit to the West Coast in 2010. Back then, Jake was too timid to come on the roller coaster, and I distinctly remember enjoying it. This time around, Jake whooped it up all the way around, and the word I would use for my experience would be more 'endure' than 'enjoy'.


Once ridden and reunited with Nicky we decided that it was just too hot for more park activity and so headed to Downtown for some shopping and relaxation, which included:

• new sunglasses for Nicky and Jake - they both look very cool now;
• a cool drink (I am developing a particular fondness for the caramel frappucino) at Starbucks;
• an Earl of Sandwich sandwich;
• some souvenir shopping at World of Disney, including much FaceTime consultation with Izzy over some big yellow slippers.

By now it was time to say farewell to Disney and to head across to the other side of LA and to hotel number two of this holiday, 'The Garland' which seems very nice. We are only here for one night, and it turns out that they have have a free shuttle bus to Universal.

We are not going to the studios park on this holiday, but we took the opportunity to take the shuttle this afternoon and go to City Walk, and have a look at the shopping and dining opportunities there. Jake got himself a couple of basketball tops, and we went to a very nice Chinese restaurant for dinner.