LA siteseeing must dos?

[GrazingGoat1966]

For what it's worth, The Getty Museum is hands down the best FREE attraction in LA. It costs I believe $8 to park your car, but admission is the big doughnut..... and you could spend a day there with ease.

 

[ehsmum]

Seeming as we only have one day in LA, we won't be visiting the Getty Museum. I think we'll get enough culture at all the museums in NYC and DC.

 

[aussietravellers]

Another great restaurant at the Garden Walk is PF Changs. YUMMMMM. I also recommend the Cheesecake Factory. OMG, they have pieces of cake that are SO big I have never seen a piece of cake that big. We would get take away and one piece of cake would last for days If you do go there the Godiva cheesecake is out of this world.
Next to The Grove is the farmers markets, make sure you have a look at them. We had a pizza from there, it was an odd shape, sort of a rectangle for one or two and it was AMAZING. One of the best pizzas I've ever eaten.

In and Out burger is so yummy. I don't know that I'd make a special trip as we don't usually have a car. But last time we were at a big Toysrus store and there was one next door so we went in and YUM, they do have great burgers and one of the table clearing staff was so friendly he stayed and chatted with us about Australia for almost our whole meal, LOL

OMG, the Mahi Mahi fish at Bubba gumps, my mouth is watering .

If you are going to New York you MUST MUST MUST go to Ellen's Startdust Diner. There is a website i think. Only about a block off Times Square. Get the burgers, the other food not so hot but it's the entertainment that is amazing. Get there early though. We got there at 5.30 and within about 10 minutes there was a line out the door. The wait staff take it in turns singing songs, and they are fabulous singers. I can't tell you how COOOOOOOLLLLL it is. Please do yourself a favour and go, it's like being in Arnolds in Happy Days. One of my fave things about NY.

I second Ellens Stardust Diner, whilst the foods definately not the best we had, it was good (desserts were great), the singing definately was good. Best of all for Miss 9 she got another pressed penny, with Ellens Stardust Diner on it. It's very central to times square, we watched the police group and disperse on NYE. The crowds were already huge when we finished eating at approx. 2pm.

Oh I am going to look at Ellens Stardust Diner when we go to NY Thanks so much for mentioning that. (just under 5 months to go ) we are staying at the Doubletree Times Square so that looks like it's just up the road.

 

[ehsmum]

We have 4 nights in Anaheim but I'm not sure if we'll eat there on our first night as we're driving up from San Diego after a day at Sea World. So I'm really only planning 3 nights of dinners. If we do Rainforest Cafe and ESPN Zone in DTD, then the 3rd night we might go down to Garden Walk and seek out the Cheesecake Factory!

 

[PrincessInOz]

We have 4 nights in Anaheim but I'm not sure if we'll eat there on our first night as we're driving up from San Diego after a day at Sea World. So I'm really only planning 3 nights of dinners. If we do Rainforest Cafe and ESPN Zone in DTD, then the 3rd night we might go down to Garden Walk and seek out the Cheesecake Factory!

Highly recommend the Cheesecake Factory! If you see in anywhere along your travels, check them out.

I'm going to back to the Farmer's Market/Grove this trip to check out the Pizza.

 

[Kalice]

I have to add our families absolute favourite place was a diner/cafe called Cafe Duke on west 51st. They made pasta fresh, you chose the type of pasta, the sauce and the ingredients, you paid by wait. Everything was by weight pizza, salads, hot foods, the works, and the food was wonderful. Similar to this and just as good was the whole foods market under Time Warner building, on Columbus Circle, right near Central Park. The worst thing here was choosing what to eat. They had Indian, pizza, pasta, salads. Make sure you check out all the cakes. The supermarket here is great too, grabbed a huge bags of those fab baby carrots, kept them in the fridge in our apartment for the kids to munch on.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Ehsmum, my family and I totally loved the stars tour we did via private limo, a real highlight and the first thing we did in Hollywood was the walk of fame, I remember thinking how surreal it was. And the kids love it when something comes on the television now and it is filmed there. They get a real kick out of it. The Farmers Market/Grove thing was part of our limo tour and to be honest we'd never really heard about it and weren't keen but we ended up really loving it. We would definitely go back there.

The Disney Soda Fountain Store was sweet too. We ate there on our first night in the US. The food wasn't anything special but we didn't care

 

[aussietravellers]

We have 4 nights in Anaheim but I'm not sure if we'll eat there on our first night as we're driving up from San Diego after a day at Sea World. So I'm really only planning 3 nights of dinners. If we do Rainforest Cafe and ESPN Zone in DTD, then the 3rd night we might go down to Garden Walk and seek out the Cheesecake Factory!

Oh that Cheesecake Factory is SO good. The godiva cheescake (which doesn't taste like cheescake) is absolutely heaven!

 

[aussietravellers]

Highly recommend the Cheesecake Factory! If you see in anywhere along your travels, check them out.

I'm going to back to the Farmer's Market/Grove this trip to check out the Pizza.

Oh the Farmers Market is delicious. We were on a tour when we went and it was our lunch stop and we wandered around trying to choose what to eat when we stumbled across this pizza place that made the individual rectangular pizzas (there were several pizza places) where they made it to order and it was different to the others (the others were the massive slice of already made pizza). They must have made their own pizza dough too, it was just so delicious and not really greasy and fatty like some pizzas can be. Oh I am hungry now thinking about it

 

[PrincessInOz]

Oh the Farmers Market is delicious. We were on a tour when we went and it was our lunch stop and we wandered around trying to choose what to eat when we stumbled across this pizza place that made the individual rectangular pizzas (there were several pizza places) where they made it to order and it was different to the others (the others were the massive slice of already made pizza). They must have made their own pizza dough too, it was just so delicious and not really greasy and fatty like some pizzas can be. Oh I am hungry now thinking about it

I'll try to remember to grab a photo on the pizza before I sink my teeth in and post on this board...just for you

 

[Oz-kateer]

There is a Cheesecake Factory at The Grove - you can kill 2 birds with one stone on that.

Highly recommend the La Brea Tar Pits as well.

 

[queenie82]

I was just reading how a Legoland Water Park is opening in California in June!
For anyone else who didn't know -

http://www.legolandwaterpark.com/

 

[ehsmum]

Thanks for that, Queenie! It looks great but I see 2 problems with it. I was hoping to only spend half a day at Legoland (5 hours-ish) and now my kids will want to spend all day and go to the the water park too :lol:. And the other problem is we won't have any towels with us. I wonder if you can hire towels there?

 

[queenie82]

Thanks for that, Queenie! It looks great but I see 2 problems with it. I was hoping to only spend half a day at Legoland (5 hours-ish) and now my kids will want to spend all day and go to the the water park too :lol:. And the other problem is we won't have any towels with us. I wonder if you can hire towels there?

It was more of a Forewarned is forearmed so you can steer the kids away from the water park. Because we actually have very good ones now...although not as good as Disney is in the toddler department!
I suspect you could hire towels though. You can at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon.