Disneyland
From the charm of Main Street U.S.A to the whimsy of Mickey's Toontown explore eight fantastic "lands" of nostalgia color and delight. Let your imagination run free in a magic kingdom where life is a fairy tale and dreams really do come true.
No visit to Southern California would be complete without a visit to the Magic Kingdom; Disneyland has been making dreams come true for several years. Disneyland is divided into eight "lands" with different themes, such as Fantasyland, Critter Country, Mickey's Toon Town and Tomorrowland. The park is open 365 days of the year. Holidays are some of the most busy times for the park, so plan accordingly. Hours can change according to the season, so be sure to call or check the Web site before planning your trip. Admission: $41 for adults and $31 for children aged 3-11 (children under three are free). There are many different ticket or "Passport" packages available, including a Flex Pass that gives you admission to Disneyland and the newest Disney theme park, Disney's California Adventure, located adjacent to the original Disneyland.
Disneyland was built in 1 year. Construction began on July 21, 1954. Walt Disney hired a research team to find the best place to hold the vision he had for Disneyland. Anaheim California was the spot chosen to hold a mountain, rivers and the other various ideas Disneyland now contains.
Disneyland was built for a total cost of 17.5 million dollars. July 17 1955 - Disneyland opens with 18 attractions, including the Jungle Cruise, Tomorrowland, Autopia, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and the Mark Twain. The televised opening is hosted by Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings. The 11,000 invitation only tickets to opening day are so easily duplicated that first day attendance shoots to 28,154, with an ABC television audience of 90 million. One entrepreneur folds a ladder over the park's backside fence and lets people in for $5. Official general admission cost $1. Cost of attractions ranged from 10c to 35c..
Today, Disneyland, is one of the biggest tourist attractions on the globe.
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Located on Monterey Bay, the aquarium offers a unique look at the beauty of marine life in nearly 200 galleries and exhibits. Discover why Monterey Bay Aquarium is recognized as the nation's finest aquarium and No. 3 top-rated family attraction in the United States. Explore the wonders of our ocean planet in nearly 200 galleries and exhibits at one of the world's finest aquariums. Highlights include a million-gallon indoor ocean with giant bluefin tuna, sharks, sea turtles, stingrays and barracuda; plus the largest jellyfish exhibits anywhere. Other permanent exhibits include playful sea otters, a towering three-story kelp forest, the award-winning Splash Zone family gallery and the Ocean's Edge galleries, a dramatic renovation of the aquarium's original galleries that opened in 2005. Highlights include a gallery devoted to the giant Pacific octopus; an acrylic tunnel through which visitors can walk beneath crashing waves; an expanded coastal wetlands gallery and shorebird aviary; new hands-on displays and high-definition video panels; and a Living Wharf gallery to help visitors discover how to make wise seafood choices.
The new white shark seems to be making himself right at home in the Outer Bay exhibit. When he sees the sign that dinner is served a target he’s learned to recognize he generally shows up promptly. Some days he brings along a huge appetite and scarfs down as much as five pounds of salmon. Other days a bite or two seems to make for a happy meal.
Some of the white shark’s exhibit-mates seem to like his food even better than their own. If he leaves any scraps, the tunas and other sharks, especially, will clean up after him though they wait a respectful time to make sure he’s not still hungry.
But in general, the white shark and his fellow fish seem to be ignoring each other. And when some SCUBA divers dropped in to wash the window and do some other routine housekeeping, he was a little perturbed at first, but after a while he ignored them, too.
San Diego Zoo
The 100-acre Zoo is home to over 4,000 rare and endangered animals representing more than 800 species and subspecies, and a prominent botanical collection with more than 700,000 exotic plants. It is located just north of downtown San Diego in Balboa Park.
It all goes back to Dr Harry M. Wegeforth who founded the San Diego Zoological Society in 1916. He couldn’t have picked a better location. San Diego’s tropical climate is softened by breezes from the Pacific, and the hundred acres of parkland that the zoo occupies close to the centre of the city is a richly wooded series of canyons and mesas that impose a complex three dimensional geography on the park, making it delightfully confusing to explore, and frankly quite hard work to cover on foot. Thankfully the zoo has come to the aid of the visitor with moving walkways on the hardest slopes, a wonderful cable car sky ride, and best of all a continuous flow of double-decker open busses that cruise the wide roadways around the zoo, while the drivers provide a non-stop (and surprisingly well informed) commentary. The best option on the busses is the kangaroo ticket which lets you on and off as you choose, and unless you’ve come equipped for walking, this is a good way to criss-cross the zoo and then to explore at will. The canyons of the zoo are landscaped as lush tropical valleys with palms, ferns, huge bamboos, big bold flowers, and the tantalising smells of the rainforest. The mesas are open, desert-like spaces, giving the zoo a glorious mosaic of contrasts that has been used well in the design of animal enclosures. They claim to have 6,000 species of plants here, and many of them are well labelled. Its a botanist’s paradise as well as a zoologist’s.
Take a Guided Bus Tour, a 35-minute tour on a double-decked bus covering about 75 percent of the San Diego Zoo. Your bus tour ticket also includes use of the Express Bus, double- or single-decked buses with green signs on the sides that allow guests to hop on and off at five different stops throughout the Zoo. The Express buses pass by the stops every 20 minutes or less and are for quick transportation around the Zoo. Bus Tour tickets are included in the Best Value Admission price; they are not included in the General Admission price but may be purchased for $10 per adult, $5.50 per child ages 3 to 11. Members pay $8.50 per adult, $4 per child. Guided Bus Tours in Spanish and French are available for groups of 20 or more with advanced notice. There are ASL "signed" bus tours available for the hearing impaired; please call in advance to arrange for an interpreter: (619) 231-1515, ext. 4318.
SeaWorld San Diego
Seaworld is home to a plethora of fabulously talented sea creatures including the famous killer whale Shamu. SeaWorld was founded in 1964 by four graduates of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). They had originally considered the idea of building an underwater restaurant. Although this idea was not technically feasible, the concept grew into the idea of a marine zoological park on 22 acres along the shore of Mission Bay in San Diego. With an initial investment of $1.5 million, 45 employees, several dolphins, sea lions, and two seawater aquariums, SeaWorld drew more than 400,000 visitors its first year — a clear indication of the public’s curiosity and fascination for marine animals.
In the earliest years, the park was held as a private partnership. Then, in 1968, SeaWorld offered its stock publicly, enabling the company to grow. In 1970, a second SeaWorld park was built — in Aurora, Ohio, near Cleveland. It was followed by a park in Orlando, Florida in 1973, and the largest park, which opened in San Antonio, Texas in 1988. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. (HBJ), owned and operated SeaWorld from 1976 to 1989. Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. purchased the SeaWorld parks from HBJ in November 1989. The parks are owned and operated by Busch Entertainment Corporation (BEC), one of the Anheuser-Busch Companies. BEC also owns and operates Adventure Island in Tampa, Florida; Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia; Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida; Sesame Place in Langhorne, Pennsylvania; and the newest member of the BEC family — Discovery Cove in Orlando. In January 2001, BEC sold SeaWorld Cleveland to Six Flags. Over the years, SeaWorld has grown from a small collection of marine animals into one of the largest and most respected marine zoological collections in the world. Its three parks are accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) — a recognition that these facilities have achieved high levels of animal husbandry techniques; medical care; and management competence in their zoological exhibition, collections, public education, and park operations.
Yosemite National Park
Not just a great Valley...but a shrine to human foresight, the strength of granite, the power of glaciers, the persistence of life, and the tranquility of the High Sierra.Yosemite National Park, one of the first wilderness parks in the United States, is best known for its waterfalls, but within its nearly 1,200 square miles, you can find deep valleys, grand meadows, ancient giant sequoias, a vast wilderness area, and much more.
Yosemite National Park is open year-round (though some roads are closed due to snow from November through May or June). Is there a best time to visit Yosemite? It depends what you're looking for, and each season has its advantages.
Yosemite is always open, and you can enter or leave the park at any time (except for Hetch Hetchy Entrance, which is open approximately during daylight hours). No reservations are required (or available) to enter the park.Yosemite is home to countless waterfalls. The best time to see waterfalls in in the spring. Peak runoff typically occurs in May or June, with some waterfalls (including Yosemite Falls) often only a trickle or completely dry by August. Yosemite Valley, about 3,000 feet deep and just a mile or two wide, is known for its landmark rock formations. The best place to appreciate this depth is Glacier Point (late May or early June through sometime in November) or at Tunnel View, on the Wawona Road (Highway 41). Massive and ancient giant sequoias live in three groves in Yosemite National Park. The most easily accessible of these (spring through fall) is the Mariposa Grove near the park's South Entrance, off of the Wawona Road (Highway 41). Two smaller--and less visited--groves are the Tuolumne and Merced Groves near Crane Flat. Yosemite is home to a variety of animals, though they're not always easy to find. Find a quiet spot during early morning or early evening and you may catch a glimpse of wildlife in action.