California Ride Share Experience

My ride share experience in California!

Upon arrival, we took a taxi from the John Wayne Airport to Candy Cane Inn. The taxi driver was old, and it was the least enjoyable ride we took. With a tip, it cost $70USD($98.05CAD). I believe I only tipped $10.

When we took Lyft from Candy Cane Inn to John Wayne Airport $35.22USD($47.37CAD), big difference…

We went to Universal Studios Hollywood for one of the days. The day before I checked the approximate cost on Lyft and on Uber. Lyft was roughly $50USD and Uber was roughly $60USD.

We were picked up at 8:30am and got there at 9:47am. The fee including a $20 tip was $69.68. I tipped high as they drove for over an hour!

On the way back from Universal Studios Hollywood, I tried to order a ride at 6:30pm(on a Friday) and it was rush hour!! I checked Lyft and almost had a heart attack with the insane prices. 

I switched to Uber and found one for slightly cheaper and jumped on it. $89.96USD with a $25 tip as we were in the car for closer to 2 hours!

As someone who lives where they don't have these ride share options, my tip if you find yourself in that situation is to find something to do for an hour and wait.

Super Nintendo World - Universal Studios Hollywood

 

Friday, January 13, 2023

This is the day all my dreams came true! The funny thing is, had we not missed our flight and rescheduled our trip by a day we would not have come to Universal Studios Hollywood and been a part of Super Nintendo World’s opening!!

The land opened for technical rehearsal on January 12, 2023, without any notice!

The land is amazing. It’s small but there is so much detail that it is absolutely perfect.

We got a picture with Mario and Luigi, who talk unlike normal characters. Princess Peach also makes appearances. I haven’t heard of any other characters yet; however, I hope they have a Yoshi.

Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge ride… I have mixed feelings about it. If it was just me riding it, it was amazing! However, my daughter was just barely over 40” and there were a number of problems…   

1. When they measure the children’s height they have a piece of the castle sticking out right under the line so that they can’t lean against it. It makes it extremely hard to tell which kids are actually 40”.
   
   
2.  The ride probably should be for 42”+… not because it is a crazy ride but because it is very hard to see over the steering wheel to enjoy the ride and the headpiece!
   
   
3. The headpiece… it was fine for me, but I was there with my 11-year-old twins and my 3-year-old. One of my twins has a very small head and my 3-year-old has a decent size head. Neither of them could keep it on during the ride. My 11-year-old was in the row in front of me losing her S*** the whole ride.

All that aside, it was an amazing ride and 2/3 of my children wanted to go again(not the 11-year-old that had issues).

We didn’t try any food, but it looked pretty cute.

Review of Candy Cane Inn

Welcome to my blog! Today I am reviewing the hotel we stayed at while visiting Disneyland.

I’m a single mom of three girls who were 11, 11 and 3 years old during this trip. We stayed at this hotel from January 8, 2023, until January 14, 2023.

We were supposed to check in on January 7, however, there was a printer issue at our local airport (Comox Airport), and we missed our flight! I made sure we were there early… but the line was very long when we got there and did not move for a long time. We had our bags on the belt to get checked in when they announced they were closing the gate. I guess you can never be TOO early.

I called Candy Cane Inn in a panic while the west jet worker tried to find us a new flight. Unfortunately, we live on a small island (Vancouver Island) and it wasn’t possible to leave later that day. Thankfully, Candy Cane Inn was able to adjust our stay by one day and I didn’t have to pay any extra fees.

We arrived at approximately 2:00pm. Our room was available early and we were able to drop out stuff in the room and run off to the park… and by run, I mean walk two seconds to their trolley!

They have a trolley that runs every hour. It leaves the hotel on the hour and leaves the park 15 minutes after the hour. The first trolley leaves at 7:30am which gives enough time to rope drop. The last trolley leaves the park at 45 after the hours on the last hour the park is open.

We were at the park for four days and we only walked to the hotel one time. Every other time we were able to coordinate our plans easily with this schedule. The walk took less than 10 minutes. It was really quick, and we probably could have walked more but we were saving our feet for the parks.

The hotel had just opened from an extensive renovation. The rooms were brand new, very modern, with a tiny hint of Mickey.

They provide a free extended continental breakfast. Fresh delicious donuts, croissant sandwiches, bagels, apples, oranges, bananas, yogurt, cereal, hard-boiled eggs, cheese and more. Since then I've seen they got a waffle maker!

The staff were super friendly.

There is a hot tub and a kiddy pool the same size as the hot tub. There is also a decent size pool which I did not use because even though we are from British Columbia, it was a little too chilly.

The price though!!!!! Our room was $ 199 USD a night. That is one of the cheapest in the area and it has way more perks than most of the hotels around there.

I will most definitely stay there again.

https://www.candycaneinn.net/

1747 S Harbor Blvd, Anaheim, CA 92802, United States