Ready, Set, Shop!

I started the day with a proactive 5k walk, to help build a buffer for the mass consumption of calories which would come later in the day. Went for a wander to Angels baseball stadium and located the closest Electrify America station, which I’ll need late next week to charge the rental car.

After a quick breakfast I summoned the first Lyft of the day, headed to the nearest Costco Wholesale Center. Now, I know Costco has just opened in Auckland, and I’m obviously a member, so I have global membership. This allows me to shop at any Costco worldwide. Well it does once they spent ten minutes trying to sort out my membership.

Eventually we got that sorted and spent the next hour roaming the aircraft hangar sized store, gaping at the huge size of the products, and cheap prices. Didn’t really plan to buy anything, but on seeing the selection and pricing I thought it might cause an international incident if I left without buying anything, so I spent about $100, just to avoid harming NZ-US relations.

Next stop was the Anaheim Plaza, mainly for a nostalgic stop at the closest WalMart Supercenter. It’s Halloween-orama throughout the store, with pumpkin flavoured everything. Walmart is not really my jam, I’m strictly a Target guy, so I left Jean to it, and explored the rest of the stores, especially Ross and Old Navy. Bought a few bargains, while Jean cleaned out WalMart’s entire stock of Mickey Mouse t-shirts.

Our retail appetites appeased, for now, we caught our last Lyft of the day back to the hotel to chill, literally, in the air-con. Rejuvenated, and hungry again, we wandered through the hotel adjacent Anaheim Garden Walk outdoor mall and down South Harbour Boulevard towards Disneyland. This walk just happened to take us past Denny’s, so naturally we called in for dinner.

Now, our Disney hotel and park days don’t begin until Monday, but we wanted to ease into the Disney vibe so took a stroll through Downtown Disney after dinner. Well, it should have been a stroll, but due to the biggest crowd since free chicken day at KFC we moved at a glacial pace, that’s a pre-climate change glacier! As we edged towards World of Disney we passed a churro stand, and having never met a churro I didn’t like, I naturally purchased a caramel filled one. The first clue as to this not being my normal churro experience was when I couldn’t pay with cash, the next and most shocking development after putting my card in to pay, was the screen which popped up asking how large a tip I would like to leave. Naturally I clicked ‘No tip’ as the only work the server had done was pick up and hand me a churro. You may have guessed, I’m not a big fan of tipping, even less so now, as the average tip has grown to about 20%. Why can’t businesses here just pay their workers a decent wage, instead of guilting their customers into topping them up?

Anyway, the churro was tasty as always, and we eventually wound our way, slowly, through Downtown Disney, with a quick stop at Disney’s Grand Californian, to ask a question about our check-in on Monday.

Calorie loaded and Disney vibe warmed up nicely we wandered back to the hotel to conclude our first full day in Anaheim. Who knows what wonders tomorrow will bring? Stay tuned. 😀Read more