Thanks

The big adventure is over! It was the trip of a lifetime and something our family will hopefully remember forever.

The MARS team would like to say a huge thank-you to all of those who helped make our trip extra special.

Thanks Andrew for dropping us off and picking us up from Auckland airport. Great job, you made it real easy.
Thanks John and Tanya, Fiona and Wayne and Kev and Kathy for picking us up, dropping us off, running us around, giving us your advice, feeding us and hosting us in your homes. You guys were awesome and were three special highlights in our 6 weeks away. We very much appreciate it. Cheers.

See you all when you return home for summer, and we'll catch up over a Mac's and a barbie.

Thanks too, to those who posted comments on the blog and sent emails and texts. It was great to hear from you and to keep in touch with what was going on at home. Very cool ta.

The home run

Thursday 6th Dec.
The last day of the big adventure. We raced to Disneyland at 9 to catch the early opening for "hopper pass" holders with the idea that we'd do the biggest rides without waiting in a cue. Unfortunately they only opened half of the park and it wasn't the half we wanted to go to. So we had to settle for another Space Mountain ride and another Buzz Lightyear ride. So we farewelled Disneyland and headed across the courtyard to California Adventure Park. This park is only new and has some rides more suitable for older kids. We went straight to the roller-coaster called California Screaming but unfortunately it was out of service so we had to take the ferris wheel which was a bit lame. The coaster got fixed soon after so were able to take a couple of rides and it was great. Shari and Adam also went on the tower drop ride and we all had a couple of goes on the white water rafting ride where we got soaked through.
About 4 we had to cut a track for the airport and prepare for the long flight home. It was great to hear kiwi (and Aussie) accents in the line-up to get on the plane and we knew it would be great to get home and see everyone and sleep in our own beds but we were all unanimous that if we had the choice we'd love to keep travelling for a bit longer... but 12 hours and 2 minutes later we were landing in Auckland (at sunrise) and it looked fantastic. The air is so clear you can actually see the horizon!
Andrew picked us up and took us back to Ngatea and then we drove back to Waihi. After a whole night without sleep it was just as well it was only a half hour drive!
It was a beautiful day and we had a BBQ for dinner... until it started to rain! Aaah, it's great to be home.

Disneyland and California Adventure Park

We had breakfast in Downtown Disney with the idea of getting an early start at Disneyland and not having too long a wait at the Finding Nemo ride... it seemed that so did quite a few other people... It was a lot busier today than yesterday for some reason? So today we tried to finish off the rides we missed yesterday which unfortunately included a 65 minute wait in a line for Finding Nemo, which was an OK ride but probably not worth the wait? Adam managed to get back on Space Mountain and Reid got back to Buzz Lightyear.

After we'd "done Disney" we walked straight across the courtyard, in the place here the carpark used to be to California Adventure Park. We only managed about an hour there but It looks pretty good and attractions are themed on a more current and modern set of movies and TV shows. We got to hug Sully from Monster's Inc. and see the Bug's Life 4D show.
We then raced back into Disneyland to see the Christmas Parade which was very well done. The parade was followed by the famous fireworks display, which lived up to its billing.

Sadly tomorrow is the last day of our Big Adventure... we'll be mostly at California Adventure Park for the day and finally catching a cab to the airport at 5pm for our flight home :-(
Mark

Disneyland at last

Visiting Disneyland was the original reason for our trip. We were supposed to be just spending a week in LA and then heading home....
Well we finally made it, and it wasn't a let-down. We had a great time checking out all the rides and character/movie themed attractions. The weather was great and the crowd was small. Adam and I liked Space Mountain the best, Reid like Buzz Lightyear and Shari liked Matterhorn. It's a Small World was all done up in Christmas mode and is always a winner. We got around most of the rides before we left for the day as the queues weren't too bad at all. 30 minutes was about the longest we had to wait.




We had to leave by cpm so we could make it to Medievil times for the 7pm show. They asked us to be there by 5.30 so they could "get us seated". It turns out that it's just to get you there and waiting in the gift store for an hour and a half before the show starts so you'll buy lots of goodies. The show was excellent though and the food pretty good. The kids got right into it, cheering for "our" night and following the story.
It was a very exciting day, and pretty full-on, and there'll be more of the sane tomorrow...
Mark

Universal Studios - Hollywood

Universal Studios has quite a few new rides since Shari and I were there 13 years ago. Sadly "Back to the Future" is gone, as is "ET" but they've been replaced by more current movie themed rides like "Jurassic Park" and "The Mummy". Jurassic Park was our first stop as it had been recommended to us. It lived up to its billing but the kids hated the "drop" at the end so we couldn't convince them to go around again (or go on the Mummy ride). We managed to get around all the attractions easily in a day because there was no queuing at all on any ride - fantastic! Shari and I did the Mummy ride on our own, in fact when I did it I was the only person in my "vehicle". The boys loved the Waterworld show and the Animal Actors show and were quite impressed with Shrek 4D. Shari liked Jurassic Park the most and I was most impressed with Terminator 3D! Terminator used a combination of 3D video, live special effects and live actors with great sound and lights - it was really well done.
We all like the good old Blues Brothers musical review too - an oldie but a goodie.
We met a nice English couple with two boys just a wee bit younger than ours who happen to be staying in our hotel. They live in Stevenage which is just up the road from where we used to work back in 1994 and they've been away for 6 weeks like us, visiting Australia and New Zealand. They've just come from NZ where they visited friends who live just south of Katikati. It's a small world after all...
Mark

Adam at Legoland

This morning we took a bus to a ticketing agent where we paid for our legoland tickets!!!!!! From there we took another bus to Legoland California. The ride was an hour long, once we got to Legoland our bus driver got our tickets for us. We rushed in and immediately found a life sized Lego Darth Vader with R2-D2 and a Lego light saber on a pole so that when you held it it looked like you're fighting Darth Vader with R2-D2. I then dragged Mum, Dad and Reid into miniland where major U.S cities have been reproduced into giant lego models. There were really cool rides like seats on giant mechano arms, a dragon roller coaster, a boat ride on which you squirt the audience, a roller coaster that goes around some Lego dinosaurs, a Lego technic roller coaster and a boat ride around some national icons made into Lego models like the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Mount Rushmore and the Sydney Opera House.
see ya next time,
Adam.

LegoLand California

Wow - what a blast. Today we spent all day at LegoLand California which is about an a hour south of Los Angeles. It was incredible and Adam and Reid just loved it. The Lego characters they've created are amazing. I think the highlights were the rides like the roller-coasters and Miniland which is a world (mostly American) icons created out of Lego, such as the Sydney Opera House, New York City, San Francisco, New Orleans, Mt Rushmore and Las Vegas. It's hard to describe so best to check the photos.
Mark