We arrived in Los Angeles, from Fiji, on 8th November. By now, our holiday was almost over and we were on our way home. As a result we only stayed in LA for two nights.

Of all the places visited, LA was perhaps the biggest disapointment, although that was really the fault of the Hotel, not the city.

Our Hotel was the Holiday Inn Select in Beverly Hills Drive (no link for this one, they don't deserve it). The first problem was that they were in the middle of converting the place for re-launch with a new name and image. the Lobby was a mess of wiring, scaffolding, plaster dust, paint and tools. There was no bar and only one restaurant, which kept running out of things. To add insult to injury, the staff kept complaining about the noise and mess, without appearing to realise that we had paid to be there and were also having to put up with it.

We might have forgiven all of this, except that they then refused point blank to provide the extra bed in the room that we had asked for when the booking was made. This had been provided by every other Hotel we had been to, without question, so that the kids didn't have to share. We were not impressed.

Anyway, enough whingeing. LA itself was exactly as expected; noisy, brash, larger than life and very exciting. We visited Universal Studios on the first day, (well worth the trip), and after check-out on the second day, we went to a new Shopping Mall in Hollywood, next door to the Chinese Theater. This had apparently cost over $650m and included shops, food hall, a multi-screen cinema and a huge new hotel. However, this proved to be somewhat half built, so we decided to go to Beverly Plaza, which is a more traditional American Shopping Mall.

We didn't take quite so many pictures here. The best are in the LA Gallery.

On 10th Nov we boarded our flight back home to London and the end of our holiday.