Huntington Beach 2024

In 2023 Oscar earned an Elite award from Comcast, and we were awarded an adult only trip to Huntington Beach, California in May 2024. They flew us there, arranged transportation to the hotel, and put us up in a very nice hotel. Mom flew in to stay with the kids while we were gone and stayed through Tyler's birthday. We flew from Colorado Springs to Denver, had a 3 hour layover there, flew to LAX, and then had a long drive in traffic from LAX to Huntington Beach. It felt really nice to get checked in and relax for a bit before the luau that evening.

We met up with Seth and Shelley, whom we'd known in Washington, before heading to dinner. After collecting some fun swag (flip flops, fanny packs, and make your own visors), we had a delicious dinner. Oddly enough I thought the kalua pork, the staple of any luau, was the worst part of the meal. It was a bit dry (though they did provide a nice sauce for it) while the rest of the meal was top notch. 

After our meal we walked along the beach and enjoyed a lovely sunset while making a phone call to the kids. 

Oscar stuck around for several minutes to get the full sunset on video as it disappeared over the horizon.

After the sun was completely down we went back over to the luau for some fun photo ops and tasty desserts. 

The next day we were given a choice of excursions. Some of the choices were a massage, a flight simulator, a catamaran ride, surfing lessons, or a day at Disneyland. Since we'd gone to Disneyland for our Honeymoon in 2006, we figured picking Disney would be like going on a 2nd honeymoon 18+ years later. We'd just been to Disney World as a family in October, so the Disneyland side wasn't super appealing to us. Too many of Disneyland's attractions are the same as Disney World. We were interested in California Adventure, though, since it has attractions like Spiderman, Mission Breakout, Radiator Springs Racers, Grizzly River Run, and the Incredicoaster that aren't available at Disney World. I also wanted to see the new San Fransokyo Square and watch the new World of Color One show.

Oscar wanted to run the local Pirate's 10K race on Saturday, and he reached out to the rest of the winners to see if anyone wanted to do it with him. The only one who responded was a guy named Nigel from Minnesota. Nigel recognized Oscar as we were walking to the shuttle for Disney on Friday. He and his fiance along with some other friends from Minnesota were going to Disney too. They also wanted to go to California Adventure, so they decided to tag along with us for the day. We all bought the Genie+, which I was mostly familiar with since it worked similarly to the DAS pass we'd used with Jenny at Disney World. They were happy to have a leader around to show them the ropes. 

Comcast didn't give us our tickets until we got on the shuttle bus, and the bus didn't leave until after a mandatory meeting for the winners, so it was almost noon by the time we arrived in the park. They'd told us we couldn't switch our tickets to California Adventure and would have to pay for park hopper, but fortunately guest services made the switch for us for free. We found out others who took their tickets to the ticket booths were told they couldn't switch and did end up paying the $50+ each for park Hopper. Thank goodness the cast members at the gate told us to go to Guest Services!

The crowd calendars had predicted this would be a super crowded day, but it really wasn't too bad. There were still plenty of people, but I'd been prepared for much worse. Not having high level crowds combined with Genie+ made our day totally doable in the 9 hours we had. We got to do all of our priority rides at least once, we found a good spot for the Pixal Pals parade, and we had an amazing view for World of Color One. 

Our first ride was "Soarin' Around the World" while we waited for our return time on Mission Breakout. Soarin' was available on Genie+, but it only had a 20 minute wait when we arrived, so we never needed to get a return time for it. We'd done Soarin' at Epcot in October, but it'd been showing Soarin' Over California there. The two shows rotate out every so often. Oddly enough we saw "Soarin' Over California" in Epcot, home of the World Showcase, and we saw "Soarin' Around the World" in California.

At Mission Breakout we got separated from our group. We'd already scanned our return times when our group left the line to use the bathroom. We decided to just go through and catch up with them later.

Next Oscar and I walked over to ride Radiator Springs Racers. Racers isn't part of Genie+, the full line was 45 minutes, and it would have been over $17 per person to use the lightning lane, so we decided to do single rider. We got through in about 10 minutes, but then there was a technical delay once I was already strapped into my car. The delay was longer than we'd waited in line, but eventually we got going. My hair was blowing in my face during the race, so I tried to pull it back for the picture. Unfortunately the picture was taken right as I was pulling it back. Oh well!

We couldn't get in touch with our group, so we just walked around having some fun photo pass photos taken. I was wearing the Donald Duck hat Tyler gave me years ago. When he was in Kindergarten they could earn prizes for good work, and the prizes were just anything parents wanted to donate. Tyler would usually bring home tiny gifts, like a plastic witch's finger or a small fake spider, but on my birthday he walked off the bus wearing an adult size Donald Duck hat. I asked him where he'd gotten it from and he said "my teacher gave it to me to give you for your birthday." It was so sweet! I verified with his teacher that it had indeed come from the prize bin and was just a lot bigger than his previous prizes had been. I'd forgotten to take it to Disney World in October, so I made sure to bring it along this time.

By the time we got over to get pictures with Cruz, Oscar needed the Donald Duck hat. The day started off super cloudy, but by then it'd warmed up and the sun was trying to come through the clouds (though it didn't fully come out for a few more hours). Oscar's head was starting to need some protection. 

We got some adorable couple's shots in front of Pixar Pier. The nice thing about Genie+ at Disney is that it includes any photo pass photos you have taken. Disney World doesn't do this, but Disney World's photo pass is much more extensive than the California parks. There are a lot more photographers around each park waiting near the scenic photo ops and with the characters, and many more rides will take your picture at Disney World than at Disneyland/CA Adventure. We saw plenty of characters at California Adventure but very few photo pass photographers compared to Disney World. I was a bit surprised that even when we met Hiro at a scheduled meet and greet, there was a cast member to take our picture, but they didn't have a camera. They just took our photos with one of our phones. 

The photographer near the San Fransokyo bridge tricked us into kissing for well over a minute while he pretended to be taking pictures.

We ate a nice lunch at San Fransokyo square. I particularly enjoyed the Baymax macaron! It had tasty buttercream and nutella inside. After we ate we got to meet Hiro. He saw my villains shirt and asked if I was a villain. He said if I was he'd have to get the rest of the Big Hero 6 members to defeat me.

By then we'd heard back from our group and learned they were in the standby line for the Incredicoaster while we were eating our lunch. We got in the single single rider line thinking we'd finish it around when they did, but we actually ended up finishing quite a bit before them. 

We then used our return times for Toy Story and booked another one for Spider-Man. We'd actually made a return time for Spider-Man earlier, but we missed our return time when it shut down for a couple hours, so we were given a free return time to another attraction of our choice. That allowed us to ride Mission Breakout for a second time later that evening. 

I wanted to ride Grizzly River Run, but Oscar didn't want to since it was still cloudy. The sun came out much later than originally predicted, but it was feeling warmer, and the sun came through the clouds fully just as I was getting on the ride. It worked out perfectly. I rode with no line, then grabbed water from our locker before heading back towards Spider-Man. The rest of our group used their return time for Toy Story, and Oscar waited for them to finish before bringing them all to meet up with me at Spider-Man. 

After Spider-Man we watched the Dr Strange show. It was alright. I don't know if I will ever associate Marvel with Disney. It's like the Marvel section of the park is its own mini Marvel theme park compared to the rest of it. I was sad I'd missed the short Spider-Man show they do throughout the day where he swings across the buildings, but most of the showings were before we arrived and we were on the other side of the park during the two shows they still had. 

From there we got a few photos then used a return time for Goofy's Sky school with Manny. 

The photo pass photographers had us pose as our favorite avengers. I was Captain Marvel. Oscar was Spider-Man. Nigel was Captain America. I can't remember who Bernice was.

We had to take a picture near this mill since this is one of the spots we have pictures of us from our honeymoon (most of our other honeymoon photos were on the Disneyland side). The four of us then rode Grizzly River Run before finding a good spot for the new Pixar Pals parade. 

It was a cute parade. At first we saw floats and characters for "Turning Red," "Up", and "Soul."

Then "Incredibles," "Inside Out," "Toy Story," Miguel from Coco," and "Luca." I liked how the boys in Luca look like sea serpents in the water and humans out of the water.  

After the parade we rode Mission Breakout with Nigel and Bernice. We tried to do Radiator Springs Racers single rider again, but the line wasn't moving nearly as fast, and we didn't want to miss our return time for Incredicoaster. Instead we went to San Fransokyo and split a loaf of Baymax bread.

We finished off the evening riding Incredicoaster in the dark before grabbing our spot for World of Color One. 

We had a fantastic view! We got there with plenty of time and were 2nd row from the front. The only people in front of us were a child and his mom who couldn't have been more than about 4 ft 8. It was amazing!!! I'd never been that close before. The last time I saw World of Color in 2014, the view was much more obstructed. We'd been close to the back and someone was filming with a large tripod. 

I personally don't think Disney shows are worth trying to film the whole thing. There's plenty of good professional footage online if you want to watch it again, and you're either going to tire out your arm and distract from your own enjoyment or you're going to use a tripod and obstruct others. If I take video of a Disney show, it's usually just short clips while I'm taking photos. 

World of Color started at 9:00pm, ended around 9:23, and we got to see Disneyland's 9:30pm firework show on our way out. California Adventure closed early for Grad Night, so we grabbed our stuff from the locker, walked out to the esplanade in between the two parks, and enjoyed the fireworks before catching the shuttle bus back.

We were hungry when we got back, and we wanted to order delivery for dinner, but Grubhub wouldn't take our credit cards. We'd been using them at Disney and used them in Huntington Beach the next day too, so I'm not sure why Grubhub wouldn't accept them. We had to get room service, which tasted alright but was entirely too expensive ($60ish for two salads). They also never cleared the tray of dirty dishes we left next to our door until after we checked out over a day later. So much for that "service fee."

The next morning Oscar, Nigel, Bernice, and two others from Comcast did the Pirate's Race.  Bernice ran the 5K and won 1st place in her age division. She was able to take a video of Oscar as he crossed the finish line after the 10K. Oscar finished a bit before Nigel and was able to get a photo of him finishing too.

I went for a walk along the beach then got yummy pizza and gelato with Oscar. They let me sample ALL the gelatos! After eating we walked and did some more exploring before going back to the room for a much needed nap. Once we were fully rested we went swimming and sat in the hot tub before going to the formal dinner and awards ceremony. 

When we were getting on the shuttle for Disney, they gave us each our Disney tickets along with a prepaid $45 American Express gift card. We talked to a few other people in the hot tub and on the way to dinner who'd done different excursions (surfing lessons and massages), and neither of them received that gift card. Disney was really the excursion to pick! Even if you minus the money we paid for Genie+, we were essentially paid $30 to go to Disney.  

The dinner was delicious, we were entertained by a recent winner of The Voice,  and Oscar and the other winners received their awards. 

The next morning we dropped our luggage off at the concierge and grabbed some yummy bagels along the walk to church. We walked along the beach on our way back then grabbed our shuttle to the airport. Unfortunately the flight was super late and we missed our flight from Denver to Colorado Springs. They offered to put us up in a hotel and fly us out the next morning, but the flight would have left at 5:45am, and we didn't want to get up that early. We're grateful that our friend Raina was willing to do some extra driving and pick us up from the Denver airport.