Thread: things to know about the Southern Cal area

Los Angeles is the second largest city of the U.S. but just a part of L.A. County which includes many cities including Burbank, West Hollywood, Culver City (home of Sony studios), Beverly Hills, Malibu, Whittier, Torrance, Temple City, Santa Clarita (Baseball Mom's city).

Many other "communities" are officially part of the City of L.A., including Hollywood and San Pedro (both of whom, along with the San Fernando Valley, unsuccessfully tried to secede from the city about four or five years ago).

One of the biggest things to know about Southern California is TRAFFIC. where ever you go in Los Angeles county especially, you'll run into traffic!

If you plan on flying into LAX for a cruise out of Long Beach/San Pedro, please make sure to leave yourself ample time to arrive at the pier as Long Beach/San Pedro is located about 25 miles southwest of LAX. But if there's traffic the trip between the locations could be over an hour!

Los Angeles is also a great place to spend a day or two pre or post cruise. There is so much to offer. You could go to the beach and go skiing in the mountains on the same day!

The area can be divided up into several.

One such area that would be at the top of my list of recommended places to visit here:
the Westside of Los Angeles. This area encompasses Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, Westwood, Marina Del Rey, Venice, Century City. Major streets include Santa Monica Blvd. (yes, the one Cheryl Crow sings about), Sunset Blvd. (which is known as the Strip, farther on in Hollywood), Westwood Blvd. which ends up at UCLA (the fight song is "The Sons of Westwood"), Sepulveda Blvd. (pronounced Sa-pah-va-da or something like that, not Sup-PA-vee-dah).

Fun shopping at the Promenade, an outside length of funky shops, good restaurants, street performers just a few blocks away from the beach in Santa Monica.

Another shopping center is a major sized one, the Century City Mall. Make sure you note where you park: the underground parking lot is major sized. Rand McNally has a store there, so if you want to grab another guide book about your destinations, this is a great place to find it.

There's also another mall, Westside Pavilion, in West L.A. but the parking can be a bit daunting, especially if your car isn't narrow. there's a Vons there (at least the last time I was there) for any last minute grocery shopping.

Westwood is mostly office buildings, fast food and movie theatres. Go up Westwood Blvd and hit the student store at UCLA to buy a t-shirt. If there's any budding writers in your family, go to the Writers Store on Westwood Blvd, north of Pico Blvd., and buy a book on writing or a gift certificate. That's also a good place to perhaps run into actors, writers and directors.

www.bevmo.com

Stop by one of their stores on the way to the pier for all your smuggling needs.

The section of LA I'm most familiar with is "The Valley." Featured in such films as "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (but the Galleria shopping Mall no longer exists), "Valley Girl", "Chinatown" (the beginnings of the Valley -- some of the orange trees still exist) and in song, "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty, the Valley has 1.5 million residents. In fact, if the secession vote a few years ago had been successful, the resulting city would have been in the top ten biggest U.S. cities.

It's basically suburbia, with malls galore (Topanga Plaza, one of the original indoor giant malls; Sherman Oaks Fashion Square; Northridge Mall; Panorama City Mall; Burbank Media Mall). Back in the glory days of the aerospace industry, many engineers and scientists worked on many vehicles that would fly the friendly skies or even in outer space.

The major attractions are Universal Studios, NBC Studios, Warner Brothers Studios. Some sitcoms are taped at CBS Radford Studios in Studio City. Disney is also located here in Burbank, along with NBC and WB. As you can see the film industry is big here (Samuel French Bookstore has a branch right around the corner from CBS -- any play's script you want should be found here).

A major campus of the California State College is located at Northridge.

Major streets include Ventura Blvd., Victory Blvd. (remember the Randy Newman song, "I Love LA"), Sepulveda Blvd., Topanga Canyon Blvd. If you keep traveling down west on the 118 in the North Valley, you'll reach Simi Valley where the Ronand Reagan Presidential Museum is.

Nobody mentioned that in Long Beach the one thing that any mariner would like to see is her highness The R.M.S. Queen Mary,and also there are many new things to see here in the city new resturants new shops new places to live and there is more coming stay tuned!

One of these trips down I should go to Long Beach and see her. I always seem to cruise out of SP.

Originally Posted by Blizzard

One of these trips down I should go to Long Beach and see her. I always seem to cruise out of SP.

If your going and cruising out of San Pedro then she awaits you on the other side of two bridges less than 5 minutes from San Pedro I recommend the Observation Bar on the ship facing fore if you close your eyes for a minute you would think you are on the North Atlantic on board the great ship on a eastern or western voyage night time is best they have live music on the weekends.