New Year's Eve 2009 at Disneyland photo by andy castro

Flight Centre guest travel blogger, Brigitte Siebert joins us with the first of two blog posts while on a Contiki Tour of the western United States. Brigitte brings us vacation and holiday tips for Anaheim, San Diego and Phoenix. Over to you Brigitte –

Day One: Anaheim:
We arrived early into Los Angeles and head to the Best Western Stovall Inn. I was pleasantly surprised with how the rooms had been renovated in a contemporary chocolate brown motif and were very clean. The hotel is a short walk to Disneyland and all of a sudden I reverted back to my 12 year old self anticipating my arrival. Disneyland is exactly as I remember it and still as much fun! After hours of waiting in line for rides exhaustion kicks in and we headed to Bubba Gump’s restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality food for a chain restaurant and the service was good. This trip was definitely off to a great start!

Day Two: San Diego
It was an early morning start for the 2 hour drive to San Diego. Once we arrive we took a drive through and had a look at the Naval Ships, beaches, and historic Gas Lamp Quarter. We checked into our The Days Inn and headed off to Balboa Park. The park is breathtaking and has 3 types of spectacular Spanish architecture. After a quick stroll through the grounds we headed off to San Diego Zoo. The Zoo is huge! I couldn’t quite figure how to get it all in one day! I started with a gondola ride for a bird’s eye view of the zoo and tried scouting for the popular pandas. After hours of walking and admiring the newly born animals it was nap time. We grabbed burritos and walked back to Balboa Park to find a gorgeous patch of shade and took in an afternoon siesta. Two hours later we head back to the Days Inn and get ready for a night on the town. For dinner we headed to “Dick’s Last Resort” in the Gas Lamp Quarter for fabulous crab cakes, live music, and abuse from the waiters; but all in good fun. We headed up the street to the piano bar for a night of debauchery and rap music turned into song. It was an excellent way to end the night!

Day Three: San Diego to Phoenix

We boarded the bus early in the morning for the long but scenic drive through the Sonoran Desert en route to Phoenix. After 8 hours driving we finally arrived at the Courtyard Marriot in Scottsdale, Phoenix and I was more than excited to jump into the cool, refreshing pool. The hotel was very nice and the rooms were spacious. We had tapas at the original Tortilla Factory which has hundreds of bottles of tequila to choose from. Hot and exhausted, it was an early night for me.

San Diego Zoo is highlighted on the Flight Centre Travel Map.

Brigitte will be back with part 2 of her Contiki Tour through the western United States. Brigitte Siebert is an Assistant Manager and Sandals Resort Specialist based at the Yaletown Flight Centre in Vancouver, BC and can be reached at 604 689 3590

Categories: Tours

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Tours. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.