A great base from which to explore (Anaheim)

Member Name: binnie

Product:	Anaheim
Date:	05/11/01 (198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: safe place to stay, central for theme parks, near to restaurants etc

Disadvantages: a bit expensive now

Last weekend, I returned from yet another trip to Anaheim, California.
Anaheim is in Orange County, and is the perfect base to stay and see the attractions. Orange County is the place where Michelle Pfeiffer won a beauty pageant. The home of The Offspring.

It's about a 1 hours drive from LAX, well that's how long it takes us. We seem to get lost everytime, and this time we got pulled up by the L.A.P.D for being in a rough area.
We didn't even know where we had ended up, it was nice for the cops to be so concerned!!
After 15 minutes of questioning we set off in the direction of our hotel, hopefully.
We were staying at the Castle Inn and Suites, which I will write about when Dooyoo put a catergory there.
It's on South Harbor Boulevard, which goes on for miles and this is like International Drive in Florida, if you know it.

Along Harbor Boulevard, is the entrance to Disneyland,and the new Californa Adventure park.
This is the place to stay, you have plenty of motels, hotels and restaurants galore.
Three I can recommend are, The Castle Inn, very spacious rooms at a decent price, Anaheim Plaza, now called Anaheim Vagabond, my parents stayed there, it's next door to the Castle Inn, and also I have stayed at The Jolly Roger.

There is a great diner/restaurant along Harbor, called Millies, one of the waitresses always remembers me and my hubbie for some reason.
Also there's a Mcdonalds, plenty of all-you-can-eat buffets, and Dennys etc.

I must warn you, that prices now are on a par with GB, but when I went two years ago, it was half the price.
Still you get a large portion with whatever you order, and free refills of coffee or coke until you end up covering up the cup with your hand, saying "Please no more".

If you want to go to Disney, there are usually free shuttle buses to the entrance, as even though it's only across the road from Anaheim P
laza etc, it can be deceiving and be a lot further.
Remember how large these parks are, the entrance starts by showing a sign for the park, then the actual entrance can be another 10 minutes walk.
Once you get to the car park, there is a little train to take you to the entrance, all free of course.

This time, we visited Disney's Downtown, this is a new shopping/entertainment complex.
You can get to it from Disney by walking, but I think it's only open at night, and they wo'nt let you park in Disneys carpark, so we had to go down Katella Avenue, which was around the corner from harbor and drive about 5 mins before we saw their own car park.
Here was a great place,it was smaller than Orlandos Downtown, but somewhere different to go at night.
The shops shut at 10.0clock when we were there.
We went for an expensive meal at The House of Blues, Hall and Oates were on that night, in another part of the building.
There are loads of places to eat out, great shops and most of all, when we went , it was quiet.

We did visit one or two shopping centres, for example, you can go to Anaheim Market Place on a free shuttle. All you do is phone them, your hotel are quite willing to do this for you, and they will send out a minibus to collect you for free. All you need to do is tip the driver a dollar or so.
The market is an indoor market, with hundreds of stalls. They range from Disney products, collectable dolls, electrical products and C.D's. There are also plenty of places to grab a snack.
My mum had a coffee and a lovely cake for 60p.
There were places where you could get Mexican and Chinese food.
A lot of these markets are run by Chinese and Mexicans, you can always barter with them. They seem to like it.

The Block, is another shopping centre. It was an outdoor centre with hundreds of shops and places to eat.
Be warned though if you go at night, it took us almost 30 mins to g
et a parking space.
We had to wait until somebody returned for their car, then punced on them for the space.
We had a meal at Wolfgang Pucks, whish was very nice, if not a bit expensive.
There were plenty of fish restaurants, and Pizzarieres.
The shops were great, some of them quite unusual. There was also a Cinema Complex which stayed open very late.

I would definetly recommend staying at Anaheim, I felt it was a safe place to stay for all the family.
It was lively at night without being too packed.

Millies was the busiest place, but once registering your name , they seem to get back to you very quickly.
After all, the Americans don't do things by halves do they?

Last but not least, get yourself a good map, if driving yourself.
My mum and dad took a taxi and it cost them $70 dollars for one way.

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