Southern California Trip: February 2020 - Part I

For the kids' midwinter break we planned a trip to southern California. SoCal is a great choice for February because we can get relatively inexpensive flights to a warm place with year round theme parks. This year we finally got to take our first flight out of the Paine Field airport, which was wonderfully convenient. It was an 8 minute drive to the airport, we went through security very quickly, we used the bathroom, and then we went right on the plane. It left at 7pm, which would normally be Allison's bedtime, but I had somehow managed to coax her down for a nice 2.5 hour nap, so she was just fine.

The first flight went pretty much perfectly. The kids were well behaved and played their tablets. Allison gave hers back to me on the descent saying she was tired, but she didn't fall asleep. Tyler had a hard time with ear pressure on the descent, but eating hi-chews and gummies helped a lot. We had a quick layover in San Francisco where we were able to get on our next flight almost immediately, and they let us check our carry ons suitcases. I wasn't able to sit with the rest of the family on the next flight, but fortunately kids both fell asleep next to Oscar soon after takeoff.
Everything went well until Tyler woke up with painful ear pressure again on the descent. We gave him candy, but he was so tired that he ate it grudgingly and wasn't happy about not being able to fall back asleep immediately. The flight arrived after 11pm, which Allison handled fairly well thanks to the big nap she'd had earlier. Tyler, though, whined constantly from the plane to the baggage claim. After we got our stuff he whined even more now that he had to drag a suitcase and carry a backpack on our way over to the arrivals area where we needed to catch our Lyft. He was okay in the car sleeping on me, but then the whining started up again while we checked in at our hotel until we got the kids in and down around 12:30am. He'd whined so much that evening he was hoarse all of the next day. Fortunately he zonked out hard that night and didn't wake up until 8:00am.

The next morning Oscar took a Lyft back to get our rental car (we'd arrived too late to get one the night before), we had breakfast at the hotel, then we started our long drive up to Universal Studios (or as Allison likes to call it, "Aroosti Studios"). Oscar now gets a free ticket to any Universal Theme Park for him and 3 other guests once every calendar year, which works out perfectly for our little family. We knew that day would be more crowded than others since it was President's Day, but it was also the only day the Jurassic World ride was going to be open during our entire trip. I'd recently read that they were closing it from Tuesday on, but for months I'd been telling Allison all about how she was going to go on a dinosaur ride. Monday was the only day we could possibly ride it, so we did what we needed to do to make it happen. Instead of a relaxed day to drive up to Santa Clarita at our leisure, we had to rush to get to Universal Studios as quickly as possible and be there on a busy, crowded day.

Here's Tyler posing at the City walk and at the spinning Universal Studios fountain. 

Fortunately Tyler qualifies for DAS (disability access services), which allows us to board the rides without needing to wait in line. At Universal you still have to go to the ride you want to go on to get your return time, so our first item of business was to get down to the Jurassic World ride as soon as possible. Our return time was about 50 minutes, so we let the kids run around in the dinosaur play area nearby. It was nice but nowhere near as large or interesting as the play areas at Universal Studios in Florida.

And finally we got on the ride. We even got to sit in the front. Fortunately the kids loved it enough to make our extra sacrifices worth it. Allison still talks about how she went on the dinosaur water ride where we were almost eaten by a T-Rex.

After that it was back to the upper area of the park to get a return time for the Harry Potter ride. I'd been reading Harry Potter to Tyler for several months in anticipation of him being able to ride the Forbidden Journey ride and see the Hogwarts Castle. This is the view I had while walking up the 4 enormous escalators.

We knew there'd be a return time before we could ride the ride, so Oscar and the kids waited in line for the raptor encounter, which scared Allison. She ran out of line just as they were getting to the front of it. She did eventually calm down and pose for photos in daddy's arms, and later she excitedly told me about how she'd met two scary dinosaurs.

Tyler and I rode Forbidden Journey, then the whole family rode Flight of the Hippogriff, then Oscar and Tyler took the parent swap for Forbidden Journey (Allison was too short to ride). While we were waiting for them I took Allison into the little splashpad in the minions area. Usually she just splashes in puddles and plays with water at splashpads, but she was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got completely drenched when the large bucket overflowed and dumped water all over her. The sun was getting lower in the sky at that point, so she was pretty cold from there on out. I had brought a coat for her, but the problem was she was still wet anytime we went indoors or in the shade, so she got very clingy the rest of the day. The park was open until 8, which was way past her bedtime for a day without nap, so it was a very long day for her. Fun, for sure, but long. I had plenty of extra clothes back in the car, but it would have taken at least 40 minutes for me to get there and back, and we didn't want to lose any of our limited time there. I took her over to the dry playground, but she was so sticky from being wet that she couldn't slide down the slides. Poor girl :(

Oscar and Tyler came over around when the Animal Actors show was starting, so we got a return time for Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem then headed over there. The kids both loved it! Here is an actual owl from the Harry Potter movies.

Minion Mayhem! Allison got a bit upset when they said they were going to turn her into a minion until we explained to her that it was just pretend.

From there we got two giant donuts at Lard Lad Donut's, saw the stunt show, rode the Simpsons ride, saw the waterworld show, and watched the kung fu panda show in the DreamWorks theater before braving those million escalators again to go back down to the lower lot where we'd started. There wasn't a lot of time left before closing, but Tyler really wanted to ride the mummy roller coaster. We parent swapped that with him while Allison watched a few minutes of Secret Life of Pets 2 in the child swap area. There was just enough time for us to walk over and ride Transformers too. I thought Allison would be scared by it since she was already tired and emotional, but she loved it and wanted to do it again. After our first ride she said "this is a fun robot ride!" We did do it again with the 2 remaining minutes the park was open, but that was a mistake for me. I can handle motion simulator stuff once, but I wanted to hurl the second time.

After our long walk back to the car the kids crashed hard on our drive up to our airbnb in Santa Clarita. We picked up some pizza along our way, but they just wanted to sleep and went right to bed. We'd rented a spacious master bedroom suite that had bunk beds next to a California King bed.

The next morning we were still exhausted from the previous day, so we vedged out and relaxed for several hours before going to Six Flags. We didn't even get there until around 1:30pm after we'd picked up lunch.

Our hostess has grandkids so she actually had several toys for the kids to play with in our giant walk in closet. Tyler had a lot of fun with this interactive talking Elmo.

We decided to get Six Flags memberships since it's relatively inexpensive and you can use them at any Six Flags in the country. That gave us 3 days there to take the park at our own leisure. It was also the off-season, so our lines were short. We swapped around doing 54+ inch rides alone while the other took the kids on kids and family rides or took Tyler on 48+ inch rides while the other went with Allison. Oscar and Tyler rode the Revolution Ride while I took Allison on the Carousel, then I took Tyler on X2. X2 should not be a 48 inch ride! It's intense! I was terrified for him the entire time. Normally I enjoy going on rides with him, but my concern for him on that one made it impossible for me to enjoy it at all.

After that I took the kids over to Justice League and the bumper cars while Oscar rode a few 54+ inch rides. Allison was barely big enough to be a passenger, and Tyler was barely big enough to drive on his own. Unfortunately he wasn't mature enough to drive on his own and couldn't figure out how to do anything but spin. He broke down in tears, took his seatbelt off, and tried to get out! I had to yell at him to stay in the car with his seatbelt on until the ride was over. After Oscar finished his rides we all rode it as a family and this time Tyler had much more fun with daddy to help him figure it out.

After that I went with Allison while Tyler and Oscar rode Superman twice. It's super cool! That was one of the few thrill rides Oscar and I hadn't been able to ride on our last visit here on a busy summer day in 2012.

Allison and I rode the Flash, the Swashbuckler (which she was just tall enough for), and the Buccaneer pirate ship. I shouldn't have taken her on the highest part of the ship. She was having fun until it got to max height when she melted down from fright. I convinced her to go again a couple days later and sit in the very middle seat. She was scared, but afterwards she said it was much better.

From there Oscar took the kids over to the Loony tunes rides while I rode a few more thrill rides and we met up in the Loony Tunes Lodge for the last 20 minutes the park was open.

The next morning I took the kids over to the kids' area while Oscar hit up a few thrill rides.

Both of them loved this canyon coaster and any of the other kid coasters.

I showed Allison Sylvester's pounce and bounce online before we left. Since then she's called it the Animal Hopper.

 The kids also loved the Road Runner and Ninja roller coasters. Ninja is the biggest coaster Allison's ever done. It's a 42+ inch, so she was just tall enough for it. She really wanted to do it again the next day, but it was closed :(

The Twisted Collossus was my favorite by far. I liked it even more than their new racing coaster, which is a similar concept but with multiple launches. Fortunately it's 48+ inch, so Tyler got to do it with us.

We ended up purchasing season pass meal plans. The food was pretty good, definitely better than when we ate at Knott's Berry Farm. Two meal plans is a little small for our whole family, but three would definitely be too much food. Oscar and I would each eat about 2/3rds of a meal and the kids would each eat 1/3rd.

Here are the kids on the Flash ride, which both Oscar and I thought was AWFUL. It's crazy fast, long, and the seatbelt digs into you the whole time. The kids loved it though, at least when they rode alone. Tyler wasn't a big fan of Allison squishing him when they rode it together the next day.

The kids also loved Wonder Woman, which I could only handle doing once. Tyler found it so relaxing that he slept on it! Allison was scared at first and didn't think she wanted to go. She changed her mind, then changed it again once she was on the ride, but I convinced her to stay and said I'd go with her. She liked it so much she rode it again without me and rode it again the next day. 

The Goliath coaster is another good 48+ inch ride we had fun doing with Tyler. Allison refused to do the Buccaneer again, so Tyler rode it alone and Oscar stayed with her while I was off doing thrill rides.

We ate dinner and weren't planning on doing any more rides, but the kids were thrilled to see the teacups were open our way back to the Loony Tunes Lodge. Allison got pretty upset at first that hers wouldn't spin, but then she got the hang of it.

The next morning we relaxed and got packed up since we'd be heading down to Carlsbad after going to Six Flags that day. Here are the kids hanging out at the AirBnB. They played with daddy and with our hostess's grandkids. Their mom basically babysat our kids while Oscar and I packed up.

At one point Allison got frustrated with something she was playing with and put herself in timeout under the coffee table.

By Thursday we'd done pretty much every ride we wanted to do so we were able to spend our time just repeating our favorites. We had a bit more of a crowd and lots of temporary ride closures that day. We think they must do a lot of maintenance on Thursday to prepare for weekend crowds. The kids rode their kiddie coasters over and over and over.

We had another fun day then started our long drive to Carlsbad. Allison zonked hard on the drive and voluntarily gave up her Kindle for sleep. Tired girl! The next morning she got frustrated with something and put herself in timeout under this side table. She attends a preschool with special needs kids, so she's figured out techniques to remove herself from a situation when she's overwhelmed.

The next morning we went to Sea World. We'd decided to get annual passes since we only had to go twice to make it worth it. We went swimming in the morning in the hotel pool then drove down around 11. Here we are on the Octopus Swing and the Sea Dragon Drop.

And here we are again on AquaScout and Tentacle Twirl. We also rode Journey to Atlantis, which Allison was terrified of but then couldn't stop talking about afterwards. "I went on a water roller coaster!"

 

We then saw the orca show. We sat in the splash zone, which I didn't think the kids would mind since we were already wet from Journey to Atlantis, and I had plenty of extra clothes for them (I'd learned my lesson from Universal Studios). The kids still didn't want to get wet, Tyler really didn't like the salt water in his mouth, and when Allison got splashed directly in the face by the whale's tail she cried "I don't like orcas anymore!"

Here we are at the Sea Lion Show. We'd missed it on our previous trip in 2019.

Here's cute Allison dancing with the sea lions. Once they started dancing she got up and got moving too. She'd already danced for a good 30 seconds before we started filming.

We'd completely missed touring any of the aquariums during our previous trip, so we took them in to see the sea turtles. This was close to Riptide Rescue which I rode with Tyler (it's a 46+ inch ride).

After that Oscar and Tyler went to ride the Manta coaster and I took Allison on Elmo's Flying Fish and Abby's Seastar Spin before letting her play in the adorable Sesame Street play zone. Unfortunately for Tyler and Oscar, Manta closed just as they got to the front of the line.

Allison was overstimulated by that point and couldn't handle the bounce pillow, which she normally loves when we play on ones at the farms in Snohomish.

She kept saying she wanted to jump, but after giving her multiple chances that all ended in meltdowns, I moved her over to the musical instruments, which I knew she would enjoy. 10 minutes before closing she requested going on the swing again, so we ran back as fast as we could and got in one last ride.