Just some spoil-free fun.
You like your fun like I like my food.
However, the Disney part of the trip is over so if that’s all you care about then it was nice knowin ya, see ya next TR.
Bye!!!
JK, please don't leave. My fragile ego requires constant stroking.
Oh, okay... here:
I was worried it would be too loud but I put my earplugs in and didn’t hear a thing!
What?
That's nice!
Very much a 70s vibe going on there. I like it.
the only way to get into the Magic Castle unless you are invited by a member of the club. We know no such members, so a hotel reservation was needed.
oh! Thanks for the info. I'd love to go some day.
One of those perks is all the free snacks. Everything on this list can be requested, in any quantity, at any time from the front desk.
Whoa!!!
I'd be sooooo fat.
Well...
fatter.
I need this in my life.
Unfortunately we never got a chance to try the Popsicle Hotline but we for sure got our share of the snacks.
How could you not at least try it???? How????????????
It consisted of tea, peanut butter M&Ms, crackers, and a Coke.
Um... what about that bag of honey butter popcorn??
We celebrated six years of marriage by eating candy for breakfast, watching a children’s movie, and dressing up to see magicians perform in a Victorian mansion. Pretty typical Ann & Jon stuff.
Oh, yes. That's listed.
5 years is PB&J, a rerun of Mr. Rogers and a stroll down the street. 6 years is candy, children's movie and magicians. 7 years is crackers & cheese, reality TV and a ferris wheel.
So Jon ordered the tickets and said something like “Levi said to let you know he sent us here.” And the guy at the box office looked at us funny, then picked up the phone and started calling someone. Jon and I looked at each other with a small amount of fear in our eyes and we realized the guy thought we were trying to get free tickets. So Jon interrupted him and let him know that we were trying to buy tickets and thought there was a discount but it was totally fine if there wasn’t. He said he misunderstood and got us our (full price) discount.
I wanted In N Out because that’s what you do when you’re in SoCal.
There’s one a few blocks away from Hollywood Blvd so we decided to walk.
Been to that one twice now.
It's where the Summer Lovin scene from Grease was filmed.
Never seen the movie. I have no idea why not.
When we got to In N Out the lines were so far out the door it was nuts. There was barely even room to stand.
Yeah... it was busy both times I was there too, but the line moves fairly quickly.
Isn’t there a Mel’s Diner at Universal? Am I making that up in my head?
There is:
She looked at us and said, “Oh yeah, all the time! The Stranger Things kids were just in here yesterday.”
FOILED. AGAIN.
D'oh!
I ordered a short rib grilled cheese
Short rib grilled cheese??????
We had also stocked up on some of the free snacks from the hotel before we left so we were snackfully prepared.
Smart. You saved over $3,200 there.
the really great part of the experience was seeing a movie in the Chinese Theater.
That would be so cool!
The Magic Castle has an insanely strict dress code
Really! I kinda like that, actually.
ckr
You guys look great!!
And we got a first-hand account of how seriously they take the dress code. A woman checked in right before us and she was wearing slacks with a cardigan over her top. They wouldn’t let her in because the dress code states that if you wear slacks you have to wear a blazer. A cardigan is not good enough. So she had to borrow a blazer from their emergency stash for people who don’t take the dress code seriously.
Wow! Bet she was less than happy about that.
I guess if we just had to eat another delicious meal then we would take that one for the magical team.
I soon realized that we would not be seeing him because our server let us know that we were sitting in his regular booth.
Well... poop.
I guess if I couldn’t see NPH I could at least put my butt where his has been.
Did it feel any different? Talented or something?
The way the shows work is there are multiple rooms/stages around the building and there are shows going pretty much all the time.
cool!
We both waited anxiously for them to be filled and when they were it was by…a couple of normal people.
Sorry about that, though.
The one show that Jon knew he wanted to see was the close up show so we actually got in line for it as the show before was starting. Which meant we stood in line through the whole first show, then for the time in between. So like 45 minutes. But even with all that waiting we still got two of the last seats in the room.
I would do the same. Good close up magic is stunning.
right before he released the dove he whispered “Don’t freak out.”
Our waiter at dinner told us we had to get the banana cream pie at some point in the night since it was the Castle’s specialty dessert. We got some in between some shows and OH MY GOODNESS no other banana cream pie will ever compare.
Really! High praise indeed!
one was a painting of Walt and the creator of the Magic Castle with their respective castles in the background. It was really cool.
I like that! Too bad you couldn't get a photo.
We ended up spending almost 7 hours at the Magic Castle between dinner and all the shows. It was an amazing experience and we are both so glad we got to go!
I so want to do this now! Wow!
We don’t have many of those where we’re from (in fact we have zero, because I refuse to count lakes).
Really? I only count lakes. There seems to be a lot fewer sharks in them.
But as soon as we got out of the car we realized our beach day probably wouldn’t look the way we planned it in our head.
Because it was cold.
Nooooo!!
the breeze off the water was quite cool. It was also quite strong, which meant my cute sun hat was a no-go for the day.
No cute hat? This is a travesty!
Hey did you know that weekends in July are crazy busy at LA beaches? Cuz we didn’t. But oh did we find out.
uh oh...
At that point we had been trying to park for over an hour.
we decided to get lunch before going down to the water.
But then you can't swim for an hour...
oh... nevermind… it'll take you an hour to get there still since you're so far away.
I think we paid like $43 for this.
Um.... What
else did you eat, other than what's on your trays????
when he bites on your thumb, takes a chunk of your bum,
that's a moray
Doesn't look too bad. Lots of people in bathing suits.
[I almost got one of these instead. Frozen cheesecake on a popsicle stick?? Amazing]
Unless it's Key Lime... and at Disney. Yuck.
It was funny because here was Jon carrying this banana split as big as his head through the crowds of Manhattan Beach. He turned some heads, let me tell ya
(I mean he turns my head all the time but that’s just cuz he’s awesome).
We made the long trek (completely uphill, I might add) back to our car to find a very lovely surprise in the form of a parking ticket. And not just a parking ticket. A $53 parking ticket.
Oh...…. crap.
I guess we parked in a 2-hour zone. We had been gone about 3 hours and 40 minutes but the real bummer was that we only missed the ticket by 20 minutes. So if we had been 20 minutes sooner we would have been fine.
That's for stealing the use of the facilities and water at Lemonade.
I booked the latest flight possible, which left LA at 8:30pm and got us to our home airport at 1:45am. Gotta love the time change.
The best part? We both had to work the next day.
Why do we always do these things to ourselves???
And with that, this TR is officially at an end! Thank you for letting me relive this phenomenal trip with you all. It was truly one of the coolest trips of my life and I already can’t wait to do it again.
Thanks for a very entertaining and enjoyable TR!!