FEATURE CALIFORNIA: NORTH & SOUTH
includes seven breakfasts, three
highlight dinners which include wine tasting aboard the Napa Valley Wine Train and lunch at Sonoma Valley. Including flights and accommodation for seven nights (May 18-June 22 2012) the cost is £2049pp.
Most of Alcatraz is still intact and the prison makes for a fascinating few hours' visit
TRAVELSPHERE – 0800 112 3313
www.travelsphere.co.uk A 14-day San Francisco to Vancouver and the Oregon Coast tour is priced from £1499. Highlights include California wine tasting and the Redwood National Park in northern California. For more details, check out the following link:
http://www.travelsphere.co.uk/ destinations/north-america/northern- america/san-francisco-to-vancouver-and- the-oregon-coast/
FUNWAY HOLIDAYS – 0844 557 0626
www.funway4agents.co.uk Four nights at the three-star Hotel Carlton in San Francisco including transfers and flights with Continental Airlines are from £629 pp (travel based on a March 10, 2012 departure).
Above: the Napa Valley wine region is the best known of California's wine areas Right: Balboa Island, Newport Beach in Orange County
30 October 2011 •
www.sellinglonghaul.com
Southern California FILM SETS AND DESERTS By Steve Hartridge UK visitors to Southern California now have a choice of flying direct into Los Angeles or, after British Airways reintroduced a service earlier this year, to San Diego. I started my road trip in the City of Angels, where the saying ‘the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts’ is certainly accurate when applied to LA’s line-up of attractions. That is, the Greater Los Angeles area
has more appeal to tourists – and offers more commission-earning potential for agents – if it is separated into its many distinct parts and sold separately. Take my first stop after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport early evening, via Air New Zealand’s daily service from Heathrow. Negotiating LA’s maze of freeways late on a Friday evening was not the ideal start after a 10-hour flight, but within an hour, courtesy of our GPS system, we had arrived at our hotel in relatively peaceful Long Beach. The Hyatt Long Beach is
conveniently located opposite Shoreline Village, an attractive on-the-waterfront, venue lined by palm trees and with a laid-back marina vibe. Attractions include an aquarium, murder mystery evenings on a Mississippi paddle steamer, several bars and restaurants and a Rat Pack dinner cruise. For the ultimate misfortune on holiday, there’s even a yacht charter offering burials at sea. Feeling very much alive we settled for watching the sun set over the harbour, sipping margaritas and nibbling on nachos and guacomole that had been freshly made at our table. Next day, back on the highways, we headed up 710, crossed onto 101 and, 45 minutes later, arrived at Universal City. Universal Studios (www.
universalstudioshollywood.com) has
long been a favourite of UK visitors, but there are usually new reasons for a return visit for anyone who has been away for a couple of years. Suggest clients on limited time and
bigger budgets upgrade their tickets to include a Front of Line VIP Pass, which will whisk them to the front of what can be substantial queues (around £80 with Attraction World). We headed straight to the studios lot
tour, which visits ‘sets’ like Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives), a plane crash scene from War of the Worlds and came ‘face to face’ with a still-demented Norman Bates from the Hitchcock thriller, Psycho. We were immersed in the impressive new 3-D King Kong Fights The Dinosaurs attraction, found ourselves on San Francisco’s subway when an earthquake hit, and survived a rather lame Mummy’s Tomb experience. After a few songs on Main Street by
The Blues Brothers and some ‘oogh, aagh’ inducing tricks by a cast of animal ‘actors’, came the highlight. Waterworld is proving much more of a success than the movie of the same name, which starred Kevin Costner. An aquatic-themed set of high drama
and fire stunts, featured high-wire fights, battling jet skis and even a to-scale plane that is catapulted over the top of a wall and lands, softly, on water in the middle of the watery version of Armageddon. While Universal Studios is an
impressive theme park, the place to actually see TV shows and movies being made is the lesser-known Warner
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