Spring Break of 2025 in SoCal was a grand time! After a few great days in San Diego, we drove up to Los Angeles.

We stayed at the Andaz Hotel in West Hollywood. With it’s legendary rock stars stories and rooftop pool, it offered a great location and cool decor.

Our first stop in L.A. was of course…. the Natural History Museum! -If you were thinking the Hollywood Walk of Fame, well, we did drive briefly by it, but we are more into dinosaurs these days 😉

We enjoyed touring the Dinosaur Hall and seeing Gnatalie the Green Dino, as well as visiting some of the other mammal and bird halls.

Afterwards we headed to La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, where we learned about the many Ice Age fossils found right in the middle of the city, buried in big tar pits, it was a really interesting and unique site.

The next day we visited Universal Hollywood Studios. The main highlight for our family was Super Nintendo World. We got there early, got the kids a couple of Power-Up Bands and off we went to enjoy everything this fun area of the park had to offer, multiple times!

After that we headed to other areas of the park. We were not much into the big rides, but we did visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter of course, where we had fun looking around and enjoyed the wand ceremony at Ollivander’s as well as riding the Flight of the Hippogriph roller coaster. We discovered Benji is a thrill seeker, but otherwise he couldn’t wait to get out of Harry Potter, meanwhile Peter was loving it, and even got to try butterbeer (a tad too sweet, if you ask me).

We enjoyed the Studio Tour, some parts I remembered from when I visited over 40 years ago, namely Jaws, the flood and the earthquake. We had a blast watching the WaterWorld show, and got the chance to see a Triceratops and a Velociraptor, Bart Simpson, a minion, and a Transformer. It was a fun-filled day and never felt overcrowded or terribly busy, which made it even better.

The next day we were off to the ball game, none other than the season opening game for the Dodgers, and they were playing the Tigers! We had a great time, but before all of the excitement, we made a stop at an In-N-Out for a tasty lunch. Tigers lost, alas, but it was still a fun time.

Most mornings we had breakfast at a Mel’s diner which was only a few blocks away from our hotel.

That next morning after breakfast we drove to Santa Monica, where I was able to reconnect with a dear friend who I hadn’t seen in 12 years! She works at the fancy Fairmont hotel in Santa Monica, and while we were chatting in the lobby I got a glimpse of Arnold Schwarzenegger leaving the hotel after breakfast, my one and only star sighting this trip 🙂 We walked to the Santa Monica Pier, and then around Third Street Promenade, enjoying the sunshine and people-watching, before heading back to San Diego the following day.