New Years Eve day started early with my wife having to work a half-day. I woke up at a normal time for us (6:30) but let the kids sleep in a little. Tomatico wanted to get to the gym after seeing it the previous night. I decided to start their day by opening the automated shades with a touch of a button next to the bed. It was a neat trick though I’m not sure they appreciated it as much as I did.

Breakfast and Gym

We got dressed and headed down to the lobby to meet my wife. It was pretty quiet, and she had found a corner for herself. We decided to split up for breakfast since our youngest didn’t want to go to the gym. They went to a nearby diner while we got something quick at the hotel cafe. I was sure to charge it to the room so we’d get the bonus points.

From there, we were off to the gym, which is just off the lobby. The room has mirrors on nearly all the walls, which makes it look bigger than it is, but there are 11 cardio machines, including a rowing machine, which is not a standard device. There were a half dozen weight machines as well and a free weight area and a separate warmup room with exercise balls and mats. It was a reasonably efficient layout. We’d seen a lot of gyms recently, so we were developing some expertise in evaluating them!

Many of the cardio machines also had the built-in TV and internet apps, which I suspect was the real reason Tomatico was so excited. He got some free screen time while he worked out. I guess I’m okay with it as long as he’s working out. The exercise will do him better than the screen time will do him harm.

We spent nearly an hour doing cardio, so it was a good workout making up for the truncated one at the previous hotel.

Pool Time and Shopping

My wife had taken our youngest to the pool after breakfast while she worked. We finished our workout, showered, and went down to meet them. It was a beautiful day and was the first shorts weather we had experienced on the trip. Most days had been in the ’50s or low 60’s at best. Our youngest was quietly splitting his time between the hot tub and the regular pool and having a blast on his own.

Tomatico had run out of shorts as he only had two pair for the whole trip. With all the time in the gym, they were all dirty, so we decided to go shopping. We’d look for a laundry service but expected we wouldn’t get things back quickly due to the holiday. Luckily there is an outlet mall across the street!

Tomatico and I went over and headed to the Nike outlet store. We found exactly what we were looking for and more (of course). The outlet had a fantastic selection of clothes and shoes, not the normal mismatched collection of sizes and styles that we expected. The prices were pretty attractive, too, as there was a 40% off sale.

We quickly paid and headed back to the pool, where my youngest was finally getting a bit waterlogged. We gathered our stuff and headed back up to the room to get changed into some shorts and find some lunch.

Lunch in Hawaii?

The Shoreline Terrace area across the street has a ton of restaurants and is where we ate the previous night, but the outlet malls also have a lot of restaurants. I checked Google and found Islands Restaurant, which is a burger bar with some Mexican dishes as well. It looked promising and close by, so we headed there.

It was just before noon, and there was no wait to be seated. They were offering $5 Mai Tai’s for Mai Tai Tuesday, and my wife decided to join the fun. The menu had a distinctively Hawaiian theme to it, and the TV’s had surfing highlights which the kids loved. It made us long to go back to Hawaii!

The restaurant has bottomless homemade French fries that they serve family-style and fresh. The first batch came up before our food and quickly disappeared before the food arrived. They were delicious. Not too salty and perfectly crisp. We were all fighting for the crispiest ones. We ordered a second batch, which came a few minutes later as we were finishing our food, so we had that batch for dessert. We were offered a third order but declined for fear that we might eat it!

The fish in my wife’s fish tacos was super fresh, and the boys “tried” almost half of the fish before she could fend them off. Overall the food was delicious and the bill was less than $40, including my wife’s mai tai. We haven’t seen prices like that often on this trip!

After lunch, the kids decided they wanted churros again from the place they went to last night. It was a 10-minute walk back over to the Shoreline Terrace area, and they had no problems finding the shop again. They all got the same thing as the previous night and watched as it was fried and prepared fresh.

Long Beach

After dessert, we decided we wanted to go check out the beach as we needed to walk off some of those calories from the fries and the churros. On the map, the beach doesn’t look too far away, but it’s further away than I thought. We walked along a bike/pedestrian path next to the marina for about a mile before we got to the extremely wide and flat beach. It took us a few minutes from there to walk down to the water.

As we got closer to the water we could see there was a LOT of trash and debris in the sand and tangled in the seaweed. This part of the beach was not the cleanest. Our youngest did touch the water, though. He said it wasn’t very cold, but I’m not sure I believe him.

After a few minutes, we turned around and walked towards our hotel. It was a beautiful day out, so we enjoyed the weather and exercise. We ended up walking through a park/lagoon area adjacent to the hotel. It was really pretty with paths and views.

Pool and Gym (Again)

Once back in the hotel the boys decided they wanted to do different things. Tomatico wanted to try out his new shoes in the gym, so I took him there while my wife took our youngest back to the pool. I don’t do as well in the sun, which is why she usually does the poolside activities.

Tomatico was dedicated to his workout. He stayed on the elliptical for two full hours and would have stayed longer if I hadn’t made him take a break. It was getting towards dinner time, and I knew we’d need to get something early due to the expected crowds.

Dinner and Fireworks

Tomatico got showered and changed before we headed out to find something to eat. We headed across the street to Pikes Place, where there is a cluster of restaurants that were starting to get busy even though it was just 5 pm. We ended up at Chili’s because we could get right in. The boys were super hungry after their respective pool and gym time.

After eating, we heard some music as we exited the restaurant and followed the sound down to the water. There was a New Years celebration going on with a DJ and later a live band as well as craft projects, face painting, street performers and food vendors. It wasn’t too crowded, either. I suspect it got more crowded as the night wore on, though.

We headed along the shore and stumbled upon a trampoline/bungee ride the boys were determined to do. It was a trampoline, and they got into harnesses attached to bungee cords that helped them jump higher (and keep them from missing the trampoline on the way down.

Our youngest was first to try it, and he loved it. Tomatico was next and didn’t enjoy it as much. The harness wasn’t very comfortable for him. I think it works better on smaller kids. He tried to enjoy it, but the harness got very painful for him very quickly.

After that, we decided to head back to the hotel and relax while we waited for the fireworks. Several people had told us some would start at 9 pm (midnight eastern time). We put on a movie while we waited, and right at 9:00, we heard the first pop of the fireworks outside our window.

We had a perfect view from our room. They were directly in front of us with no obstructions. It was fantastic. The show lasted about 10 minutes and had a very nice finale.

My wife always talks a big game about “staying up for the new year” but still falls asleep. After the fireworks, we finished watching the movie, and I put the kids to bed. My wife was already fast asleep at that time. She had gotten up early for work, so I was not at all surprised she was out so early.

I managed to stay up later and heard the second fireworks show at midnight. This one lasted a few minutes longer, and the finale sounded a little bit bigger, though I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to risk waking anyone up by opening the shades.

All in all, I’m thrilled with the room we had. It had a perfect view of the fireworks and was extremely convenient to all the celebratory action of the night. It was worth it!