Hollywood, CA

Good bye Vegas – though many of its inhabitants didn’t seem to mind that 4:30am is a ridiculously early morning. There were still plenty of people partying on from the night before. The poker machine floor was a little quieter than usual, but still a number people were playing along happily. Me? As with any 4:30am start, not much to be happy about. At least in this 24 hour town it was no trouble hailing a cab at the hotel, and we made it to the airport with a minimum of fuss. Despite mechanical issues and a change of aircraft, United still manages to fly us to LA only 10 minutes behind the scheduled time, which was quite a feat. Especially for all the people who had connecting flights to catch. To an extent I welcomed the delay – the normal hotel check-in time is 3pm, so the less time we have to wait for that, the better. Our shuttle bus took its time to get everyone at the airport and make its way to the hotel – another good chance for a bit of a snooze. The Magic Castle Hotel had all these great write-ups for amazing services, and from the second we walked in the door I could see why. In short, “Help yourself to free breakfast while we go get your room ready” – that is, getting the room ready four hours before the regular check-in time. Nice one. And, nice breakfast! Once the room was ready – what a room! It’s actually a one bedroom apartment. For the first time, we have a fridge! Such luxury. We eventually dragged ourselves out doors to grab some great Japanese food, and see some of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But really, that was about it. Definitely not a high-energy day. In the evening we went out for a dinner in a old-school-styled dinner, Johnny Rockets, dodging the homeless people and all the cartoon characters who want to pose with you for a photo, and a tip of course. But that was it for the whole day – OK, 4:30am, you win!