Getting Married in LA

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Brainwrong

Brainwrong

Spaktacuradge
Private Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
No, not me! My Canadian cousin is getting hitched end of May 2014. Well excited. Excellent excuse for a solo trip to the land of the free.

So, any recommendations? Best flight route from Edinburgh? Which is best; Paris, London, Scipol? I'm thinking of not going economy, which airlines are best? I've heard great stuff about Virgin but I think they only fly from Londinium (well, obv other English cities but not from Ed is my point). There's just the one airport LAX in LA, eh?

I've not been given area details yet, just the high level date / invite.

Where's cool to hang out? Music, clubs, bands, good bars, record shops etc. I have never been to LA.

Don't start suggesting Compton. Unless it's all yuppiefied now...

South Central, ya bas.
 
Brainwrong said:
No, not me! My Canadian cousin is getting hitched end of May 2014. Well excited. Excellent excuse for a solo trip to the land of the free.

So, any recommendations? Best flight route from Edinburgh? Which is best; Paris, London, Scipol? I'm thinking of not going economy, which airlines are best? I've heard great stuff about Virgin but I think they only fly from Londinium (well, obv other English cities but not from Ed is my point). There's just the one airport LAX in LA, eh?

I've not been given area details yet, just the high level date / invite.

Where's cool to hang out? Music, clubs, bands, good bars, record shops etc. I have never been to LA.

Don't start suggesting Compton. Unless it's all yuppiefied now...

South Central, ya bas.
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When we went we travelled via Chicago with Continental. EDI- OHARE then OHARE to LAX.

There were only direct flights to LA from London (about 11 hours IIRC) but the thing about going into one of the "gateway" airports on the East Coast is it's a cheap way to do a two centre holiday.

Be prepared for way worse jet lag going to and coming back from LA than you would on the East coast of the US (for obvious reasons). Felt like I'd been hit with a hammer for about 10 days after we came back and really struggled to sleep at night for a while.

Other than that California was one of the best holidays I've ever had. Used LA as a base for visiting LV, San Diego and the Grand Canyon amongst other mind blowing places :thumbgrin
 
Good info re jet lag. Hopefully the worst will be on my way back. Went to Peru which oddly is a similar flight time, exactly the same actually 11hrs, and didn't feel the jet lag at all. But when I came home 3 weeks later I was falling asleep at my desk at work. Abysmal.

The wedding is on the Sunday, re jet lag, I was thinking of going on the Thurs or Fri to give me enough time to get some sleep but do you reckon i might be just as well to get there on the Saturday and forget about trying to acclimatise?
 
Id suggest hanging around Elm/Cedar/Piru Street in Compton, wearing blue, youll have a blast.

Club wise you have to do Low End Theory. Check their podcasts.

VIP Records in Long Beach, Warren G shopped there and it was in a Snoop vid. Shame Fat Beats closed down.
 
Brainwrong said:
Good info re jet lag. Hopefully the worst will be on my way back. Went to Peru which oddly is a similar flight time, exactly the same actually 11hrs, and didn't feel the jet lag at all. But when I came home 3 weeks later I was falling asleep at my desk at work. Abysmal.

The wedding is on the Sunday, re jet lag, I was thinking of going on the Thurs or Fri to give me enough time to get some sleep but do you reckon i might be just as well to get there on the Saturday and forget about trying to acclimatise?
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From experience our first day or so was a blur. We hired a car at LAX and the first day proper drove up Hollywood Boulevard and around Beverly Hills. Could barely remember a thing and cut the day short because it felt unsafe driving on the RHS when so tired. The kids slept the entire day and can't to this day remember being outside the Oscars venue or the Hollywood sign. We were okayish by 48 hours in.
 
Chester Perry said:
Id suggest hanging around Elm/Cedar/Piru Street in Compton, wearing blue, youll have a blast.

Club wise you have to do Low End Theory. Check their podcasts.

VIP Records in Long Beach, Warren G shopped there and it was in a Snoop vid. Shame Fat Beats closed down.
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Cheers, man. Does KRS1 not have a shop somewhere in LA?
 
SKII said:
From experience our first day or so was a blur. We hired a car at LAX and the first day proper drove up Hollywood Boulevard and around Beverly Hills. Could barely remember a thing and cut the day short because it felt unsafe driving on the RHS when so tired. The kids slept the entire day and can't to this day remember being outside the Oscars venue or the Hollywood sign. We were okayish by 48 hours in.
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Cool. I'll try a Thursday flight then :)
 
BW, my dad lives in Houston, Texas, which is only about 500m short of the 5,000m you're going.

I, after many years of testing routes, now always go Edinburgh-Newark (NY), Newark-Houston.

Reason being is that on the way out, it's a 9ish in the morning flight, which with layover in Newark of usually an hour and a half means I arrive in Houston about six in the evening. It fells natural then to have a bite to eat, a couple of beers, stay up till eleven/twelve-ish, crash, and wake up next day in pretty much normal shape. You'd arrive in LA about nine by my estimation, so could do much the same thing.

Going home, we fly in the mid-afternoon, which gives us a) time to get our shit together in the morning (11am for you?), but crucially gets us to Newark to fly back to Edinburgh on the flight around 9.30pm. Getting on that flight, if you get up really early that morning, feels much more like (after your first flight and layover) getting on your "bedtime flight", meaning I can have a drink and a light bite and try and get about five hours in. It's a shorter flight coming back, so you arrive in Edina about nine in the morning.

Following that, I generally nap for two or three hours or so in the late afternoon that day, bed at 11/12 again. While you're not completely over it immediately, in my experience this has proved the best strategy for me to mitigate the effects of jetlag on this journey.
 
aggie said:
BW, my dad lives in Houston, Texas, which is only about 500m short of the 5,000m you're going.

I, after many years of testing routes, now always go Edinburgh-Newark (NY), Newark-Houston.

Reason being is that on the way out, it's a 9ish in the morning flight, which with layover in Newark of usually an hour and a half means I arrive in Houston about six in the evening. It fells natural then to have a bite to eat, a couple of beers, stay up till eleven/twelve-ish, crash, and wake up next day in pretty much normal shape. You'd arrive in LA about nine by my estimation, so could do much the same thing.

Going home, we fly in the mid-afternoon, which gives us a) time to get our shit together in the morning (11am for you?), but crucially gets us to Newark to fly back to Edinburgh on the flight around 9.30pm. Getting on that flight, if you get up really early that morning, feels much more like (after your first flight and layover) getting on your "bedtime flight", meaning I can have a drink and a light bite and try and get about five hours in. It's a shorter flight coming back, so you arrive in Edina about nine in the morning.

Following that, I generally nap for two or three hours or so in the late afternoon that day, bed at 11/12 again. While you're not completely over it immediately, in my experience this has proved the best strategy for me to mitigate the effects of jetlag on this journey.
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Splendidly comprehensive info there, Aggie. Cheers!

Nice to break up the journey a little too.

And no pissing about with going to a European destination first. 6 & half a dozen I suppose.
 
Brainwrong said:
Splendidly comprehensive info there, Aggie. Cheers!

Nice to break up the journey a little too.

And no pissing about with going to a European destination first. 6 & half a dozen I suppose.
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Indeed - fly to an American layover and you will clear immigration during that layover when you have to kill time anyway, leaving you free to stroll directly out of the airport at your final destination. (Make sure to allow enough time to do this)
 
aggie said:
Indeed - fly to an American layover and you will clear immigration during that layover when you have to kill time anyway, leaving you free to stroll directly out of the airport at your final destination. (Make sure to allow enough time to do this)
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Yeah, I'm not certain how long to leave. My first trip to the states was from Canada to US and they grilled us (I was only 12 at the time!), because I had a wonky accent I assume.

Then last year when I went to NYC, I got through in about 40 minutes, 35 minutes of that was in the queue. Luckily I seemed to have been on the first plane to arrive that day from Europe, there were 3 other plane loads of folk queueing up behind me. Lucky escape there.
 
British Airways EDI >LHR>LAX. Only way to go for shortest travel time. Get World Traveller plus seats. That route now uses the Airbus A380 meant to be superb.
 
BurbankHibee said:
British Airways EDI >LHR>LAX. Only way to go for shortest travel time. Get World Traveller plus seats. That route now uses the Airbus A380 meant to be superb.
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The prices for that route are the cheapest across the board no matter what class you're flying too.

Shortest journey my preferred option.
 
BurbankHibee said:
British Airways EDI >LHR>LAX. Only way to go for shortest travel time. Get World Traveller plus seats. That route now uses the Airbus A380 meant to be superb.
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This is the correct answer.If you get on the A380 there is a minor additional charge that some people are almost keen to pay, whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

It also means you use T5 @ LHR, no fannying about changing terminals.
 
Brainwrong said:
The prices for that route are the cheapest across the board no matter what class you're flying too.

Shortest journey my preferred option.
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Generally booking direct on BA website is cheapest but check the travel agent Flight Center (centre) as they are occasionally slightly cheaper.
 
BurbankHibee said:
British Airways EDI >LHR>LAX. Only way to go for shortest travel time. Get World Traveller plus seats. That route now uses the Airbus A380 meant to be superb.
Click to expand...

This is the route we tend to use (unless we have Air Miles to use on another airline). If you do a stop over in the States e.g. Chicago or Boston then you have to collect your bags, clear customs then put your bags back for the next plane - this is a major hassle if you are on a tight connection time or if your first flight was late.

Get in touch nearer the time and we can try and meet up - I do have 3 kids all aged under 5 so might not be able to do much partying but it would be nice to try and show you some cool LA stuff (although the Burbank boys have been here a lot longer than me and probably know more).

Oh and remember Hibs win the Cup on May 17 so watch your travel dates.
 
vasco de gama said:
This is the route we tend to use (unless we have Air Miles to use on another airline). If you do a stop over in the States e.g. Chicago or Boston then you have to collect your bags, clear customs then put your bags back for the next plane - this is a major hassle if you are on a tight connection time or if your first flight was late.

Get in touch nearer the time and we can try and meet up - I do have 3 kids all aged under 5 so might not be able to do much partying but it would be nice to try and show you some cool LA stuff (although the Burbank boys have been here a lot longer than me and probably know more).
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Cheers, man. Sure we could squeeze a couple pints in ;)
 
Brainwrong said:
Ha! For some reason I think of that as being Florida!

What's the difference between Walt Disney & Bing Crosby?

Bing sings and Walt disnae.
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Sing along...

"M-I-C-K-E-Y.....Double U- E- Aye- Arr! Hibees...Hibees...Hibees...Hibees...He's here..He's there..He's everyfackinwhere...Mickey Weir..Mickey Weir..... :hammer_smiley:
 
Wannabehibee said:
I went to LA from Edinburgh via Schipol with KLM. But I wouldn't recommend KLM to anyone.

The best airline I've flown with is Frontier, but not much use as they only fly inside America. :giggle: The cabin crew were superb. :)
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Went to states (4th visit and spread over 6 different airlines)with klm in 2011 and they were top notch. Only bested by BA. You have a shite experience wannabe?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
broonieboy said:
Went to states (4th visit and spread over 6 different airlines)with klm in 2011 and they were top notch. Only bested by BA. You have a $#@!e experience wannabe?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
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Did you not go KLM last year Mr B? :hmmm
 
Typo, you are of course correct! They were top drawer with us (apart from the veggie meals issue on the return flight, although I still got a beef stew) and would happily travel transatlantic with them again.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
Been to LA a couple of thimes...the last time was in 2004.
Flew BA from Heathrow..it's a bitch of a flight (11 hours) but if I was ever going back I would
do it the same way again....and yes, the jetlag is hellish especially coming back.

LA is great though...
 
broonieboy said:
Typo, you are of course correct! They were top drawer with us (apart from the veggie meals issue on the return flight, although I still got a beef stew) and would happily travel transatlantic with them again.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
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The Uganda lot went KLM this year (6 flights in total) and his nibs said the flights were every bit as good as the ones to the US last year. His only gripe was one of the legs on the way back was Kenya Airlines instead and it was naff. However, it was overnight so he just slept all the way and forewent the food etc.
 
A while now since I was in LA, however travelled to/transited LAX many times in the late 90's/early 00's and my memories of the airport are not positive. Probably worse now given TSA/Homeland Security and the last thing you want after an eleven hour flight is to have to stand in a queue at Immigration for two hours.

So it might be worth checking out Aer Lingus: Edinburgh - Shannon - LA where you can clear US immigration in Ireland saving you valuable time when you arrive, particularly if you are picking up a car at the airport.
 
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