Day 1 - It All Started With a Mouse

I got up at 4:15am after about four hours of sleep. Did some last minute packing and was out the door. We got on the plane quite excited. After 5 hours, 1/2 bottle of water and one cup of coffee later, I really had to pee. We hurried to the baggage claim, and met our driver and our first guide Quinn. I immediately felt comfortable for I believe I said something along the lines of "Hi, I have to pee.”

We chatted with Quinn while waiting for our bag and walking to our car. I loved him instantly haha. Katie and I got into the town car waiting for us (super cool, I know right?) I was in awe the 20 minute ride to our hotel. Palm trees everywhere, signs for places I knew only from the TV. It was finally happening. I was in California.

We ventured into our hotel, and met our second guide Michelle. Just like Quinn, she was full of energy and I knew we would get along. Katie and I had some free time so we decided to walk around near the hotel. We walked outside and were in awe. Pretty much everything LA is known for was right there. We went up and down the block, admiring the buildings, the walk of fame, the hand and footprints - stopping to shop along the way. We also got harassed by a collection of street performers like belligerent Spiderman who was yelling at everyone that we could take a picture with him for free. And then Scarface screaming various curse words at the top of his lungs and occasionally wondering away from the rest of the characters making it a bit awkward. After walking around for about an hour, we were ridiculously warm and the three hour time difference was starting to catch up to us, so we waiting in the hotel lobby for a little bit until our room was ready. The room was quite awesome and we were surprised with lots of goodies! We could see the Hollywood sign from our window, it was pretty unreal.

After cooling off, we headed back into the 97 degree heat (contrary to my belief that it was supposed to be lower 80s, and thus the reason I was wearing capris). We caught the subway, and while on it we witnessed a digital animation ad for Wall-E which was pretty neat. We headed for City Walk, which reminded me a lot of Beale Street with all the shops and big neon signs. We got lunch at Hard Rock Café since it had been almost 10 hours since we had last eaten and we knew we should, even if we were getting dinner in three hours. We shopped, took pictures, you know continued to be a tourist (fanny packs and all), and then we headed back to the hotel to clean up before meeting our new adventure group.

We came back to the room and realized our bags were still not there. So we wandered to the front desk and met a very nice man (and very handsome!) who's name I didn't remember since I was too busy being girly. He called up to the room later to find out more information about the bags since they were still missing. He later tracked us down in the hotel restaurant to tell us he found most of them, and came back again to tell us he found them all and they were up in our room. This all happened in 45 minutes. So thank you handsome nice man whose name I think begins with a D. You are awesome (and I wrote something along those lines on our comment card too).

As I mentioned above, we all met at the hotel's restaurant. We each got a lanyard and an awesome name tag in the shape of the ones Disney cast members where - we were quite excited. It was mingle time before the formal introductions started around the room. Soon the group headed over to this fabulous Italian restaurant in Hollywood & Highland which was right next door to our hotel (we had a door that led out into it). Katie was one of the four trivia masters who competed, but before the game we chatted it up with a few of our fellow adventurers. I could freely talk about my guilty pleasures without feeling, well guilty. The ice with everyone was instantly broken, we were all laughing together within an hour of meeting each other. This was the first time Katie was mistaken for a Junior Adventurer (which is 11 and under). The waiter tried to force her to order off of the kids menu. After the appetizers, trivia was on! The host was fantastic and Katie put up a good fight, coming in second behind Randy who was a plethora of Disney knowledge. Dinner winded down and we were all given our first pin – we ended up getting one each day representing the theme of the day. Before we knew it, Katie and I were the last ones there talking with our guides. When we parted ways with Quinn and Michelle, I said something along the lines of "we're going to be best friends."

After dinner we were quite excited, maybe we were hyper from the tiramisu or loopy from the time difference but we were filled with energy. We went back out into the mall and headed into Hot Topic (our second of the day!) and then back to the room to head to the pool. The pool at the Hollywood Renaissance is on the fifth floor, on the roof. We went around sunset and the image is just etched in my head. There is nothing like swimming right near the archway for Hollywood and Highland, and with the Hollywood sign in site. We wanted to bring out camera back up there, but it got too dark, and the pool was closed the next night do I don’t have pictures of the amazing view but it is etched in my memory. Haha sucks for you! Just kidding, I just have to go back and take picture =P

After the pool, I pulled out my laptop to unload the pictures from the day and tried to get online. Well the hotel charges $9.95 for 24 hours, and I wasn’t havin’ that. I noticed uWink Bistro kept coming up on my wireless, and I remembered seeing that out in the mall, so we took a field trip. Success! I was able to check my email, tell everyone I arrived and was having a blast. It was nice to sit outside, enjoy the atmosphere and still be connected home. It was kinda funny since I was sitting outside a club on my laptop. After our successful search for free internet we went back to the room to get ready for bed since at this point we had been up for 20 hours.