Saturday, July 15, 2006

I have to say the presentation was much more appealing than these photos ....... First is the Cajon-Spiced Salmon
Followed by the Royal Street Seafood Jambalaya the menu calls it a robust combination of king crab, jumbo gulf shrimp, mahi mahi, tasso ham andouille sausage and chicken with dirty rice!

How about a five pepper Roasted Prime rib of Beef


Or Le Special de Monte Cristo .... and you thought Disneyland was just for kids!!!

On day six, Disney rolled out the red carpet for we8there.com so we could sample the new menu of the Blue Bayou..... I will have more on that in a future Stanley's Corner. Allow me to share some of the food we experienced.............



Oh yes, they do have a little kid water park as well so no worries!!!

Friday, July 14, 2006

Day five took us to Legoland Theme park, bet you didn't know they had a waterpark, apparently neither did some of the employees. We heard about the possiblity of a water park but had no comfirmtion. When we arrived we inquired about the water park to one of the workers, she shrugged her shoulders and said "we have a water park" then another employee came to her rescue and give us directions, somewhere in this photo is our 9 year old Rebekah. This photo was shot moments before the bucket of water spilled form the top completely soaking everyone on the bottom!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Day 4 of our road trip is a day that will go down in Infamy, it started out ok we were packing and getting ready to check out, until we noticed we were missing the key to the hotel safe we have no idea where it could be. I am talking about a key that has never left the room is now missing with our stuff locked inside, we tossed the room LAPD style and found nothing! We searched all the luggage triple times, finally after several hours of searching we had to have the safe drilled, lucky me! Please don't ask how much that cost, I'm still crying if you want to send money to the save the safe fund email me and let me know... About 2pm, we got on the road and hit the border traffic which took more than an hour to pass through the checkpoint,. by then it was 4pm and rush hour was in full effect so we were stuck in traffic driving through San Diego. We will have to visit Legoland on Thursday, so it's off to Carlsbad and rest time at the local Holiday Inn... They offered free meals for kids so there is some justice.


Day three: we started out by heading north to Rosarito Beach, we were told about a little restaurant just after the Fox Mexico Studios named La Bamba, which offered a taste of good old American food. We were told that the restaurant is easy to miss so look carefully, we still missed it, so we ended up with a brief tour of downtown Rosarito. If you have never driven in Mexico let me tell you it requires 100% of your attention I have never see so many non drivers in one city in my life, any way back to what we were in Rosarito for, breakfast. La Bamba is a 50s style diner with excellent food, the only drawback is the prices are also at American levels, so forget the cheap eats you would normally be privileged to in Mexico. After breakfast we took a brief drive though Rosarito, we headed back north to an unknown destination( sometime I just like to drive and see what the world has to offer I call it my adventurous side).... We ended up driving more than 100 miles to a little town named La Bufadora about 17 miles south of Ensanada, Mexico, were we were suckered into a two dollar parking spot by some official sounding guy with a whistle, only to be told that was a scam, and that we could park for free several hundred feet ahead, oh well 22 pesos for a parking spot , and 50 cents to use their public restrooms, welcome to a third world country.

About 500 yards from the bootleg parking spot is where mother nature puts on a show. La Bufadora is famous for its natural water spout. Waves coming in a narrow path in the rock shore, force the Ocean thru a hole. The water shoots high into the air. The spray looks like a glittering fireworks display. This is my second time visiting La Bufadora the first time was on a Royal Carribean cruise, this visit is just as wonderful as the first, fresh made tacos 1 dollar, shops full of goods if you are in the mood for shopping, and plenty of restaurants. After a few hours in La Bufadora we headed back to the Puerto Nuevo for more pool time, before we check out on Wednesday and head to Legoland in Carlsbad.


Sorry for missing a day, the wireless internet that is located in the lobby of the New Port Beach Hotel in Puerto Nuevo, Mexico crashed.... Now, I could have found a internet cafe, but being a tourist would be more fun.

On the morning of the second day of the we8there.com road trip, we headed straight to the hotel buffet which according to the signage, was voted the best in Baja, for 8.95 US Dollars for adults and 4.95 for the little ones, it makes for pretty cheap eating. The all you can eat style buffet, gives you the ability to eat all the breakfast your little heart desires. After stuffing our faces we headed to the pool, where I am writing this portion of the blog enjoying easy listening Spanish style music from the Pool bar. This has to be one of my most difficult assignments but I think it will get through it.

The Pool faces the Pacific ocean, and only gets 41/2 feet deep, so it make it a great pool for the kids to play around in all day..... they have a wading pool for the very little ones, and for the adults there is the jacuzzi at a comfortable 104 degrees. we snuck away for a few hours to head back to the town of Puerto Nuevo where we were constantly approached by shop owners wanting to relieve us of our US dollars, 10 years a go this was fun, on this day it was not, since we were traveling on a budget. Some of the restaurant owners offer the classic bait and switch in an attempt to lure you into their restaurants to eat, what is I would consider to be the same food all the other restaurant are offering. gaugeage is this, if they don't accept credit cards then I don't use them because if things go horribly wrong, at least I have the power of my credit card company to get my money back. After careful consideration we chose the Puerto Nuevo II Restaurant because the restaurant I am familiar with was closed which ironically is named Puerto Nuevo Restaurant I and ordered the town speciality Puerto Neuvo style lobster, which is fried lobster in a shell.

After returning back to the hotel it was time to rest and get ready for the next day, day Five

Monday, July 10, 2006


But before we could enter Mexico we had to go to the rental company in San Diego Airport, once again to trade out into a mini-van, a Mazda MPV to be exact, because apparently Mexico has a big problem with auto thefts, according to the rental agent. Imagine what it?s like to change cars 4 times with the amount of luggage we had, lets do a re-count, we started out this a Nissan Murano which was missing the Satellite radio we requested , then we moved into a 300M, not enough trunk space, so we were put into a Lincoln Town Car, very comfortable, plenty of trunk space but we could not take the car out of the country, so we ended up in a minivan.

Day three of our road trip places us in a little town 18 miles south of Rosario Beach, Mexico, two toll roads or 52 pesos (based on the current exchange rate) past the Mexican border. The funny thing is this, when I Googled the town of Puerto Nuevo to find a map, one map placed Puerto Nuevo in central Baja, no where near the beach, when actually it is a beach front town with american style hotels dotting the coastline.

We crossed the border about 6pm on Sunday night the room we had reserved a room on-line for 80 US dollars, per night, but the room appeared to be way too small for an active family of four so we upgraded to the family room which allowed us the ability to spread out. Our first priority was to eat so we drove next door to town for dinner, then back to the hotel to rest for the night.

Our first night was interesting because most of the night was interrupted with the sounds of M-80?s going off every few minutes, if you are unaware of what an M-80 is, it is equivalent to a quarter stick of dynamite and the sound hit the courtyard of the hotel and is amplified. But soon the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore took over, very relaxing!!

Sunday, July 09, 2006


So, what are our thoughts on the Holiday Inn in Ventura...... http://www.we8there.com/bnb_detail.php?busid=6405

Room 259 is equipped with a flat panel television mounted to the wall and a large wrap around balcony, in my opinion the balcony needs just a little more furniture, the two plastic chairs just don't do it for me, yes I admit, the view is wonderful, but a table for lunch or a casual game of cards would really add to the decor. This is a good hotel but I feel that when the conversion is complete it will be a better hotel. The hotel offers free wireless internet, that reaches out on the balcony but here is the best part, the harbor also offers unsecured wireless access, so if the hotel access ever goes off line, you should be able to grab a signal from the Ventura Harbor. I could spend a few days here just looking out at the harbor, enjoying the flat panel TV or just walking around the harbor reading the names of the boats. I will have to add this hotel to the list of my favorites. Oh and beach is only a few yards away so bring the kids!