Catching Views in Catalina Island

The trip to Catalina island from Dana Point takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes. When we arrived we saw the famous Catalina casino which no longer shows movies as it used to in the past. People can still get inside if they buy a $20 ticket but we did not think it was worth it.

The first thing we did when we got off the boat was to rent a golf cart for two hours. We needed to spend a couple of hours as our hotel check-in time was 2 pm and we ararived 11 am. So we rode the golf cart around the capital Avalon and explored the scenery and all the places that we visited later on on foot. After we returned the golf cart we had lunch in a steak house in Avalon and then we walked to the hotel which was about 15 minute walk. The view from the hotel ballcony is hown in the picture to the right.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Avalon till it became dark. The weather was a little cold in May, and it was Eid Ul Fitr so we enjoyed three days during this short vacation in this lovely island. A scene in the evening of the capital Avalon is shown in the picture to the left.

We were quite tired from a whole month of fasting and a very busy day, so we went to bed early that evening to get ready for our adventure awaiting us in the morrow as we planned to go parasailing in the morning. So next morning we had breakfast in the hotel, which was a regular continental breakfast, not that great if you ask me but was enough to get us going for our parasailing adventure. We were the only two on the boat and we went up 600 ft in the sky for about 15 minutes as you see in the picture to the right. It was scary after a while as we kept going up, but when we started to go down we started to cheer and all fear went away. We enjoyed this adventure as it was the very first time we ever do parasaling, and probably the last time too.

After that adventure we had a very good seafood lunch at a restaurant in downtown Avalon by the sea. In the afternoon we walked all the way to Wrigley's Memorial and Botanic Garden. It was hot away from the coast but it was worth seeing all the special seculant plants inside. I also managed to fly my drone and take some panoramic video from the sky of Wrigley's Memorial building.

Luckily we discovered there was a bus that we could ride to take us back to the hotel for $2 each. We had to pay exact change to take this ride. The ride was quick and smooth and saved us from walking back in the heat, although walking back was downhill and much easier than our walk in the morning. We walked some more in the evening and explored the area around the Casino, and again we retired early in the evening to get ready for the final day adventure which was a safari ride inside the forests of the island for two hours before finally going back to the return trip boat around 3 pm. So the next day we checked out from the hotel but left our bags at the desk, had our lunch and then took our Safari ride from downtown Avalon. There were no bisons or anything as theey advertised, so the only things we saw were trees and vista landscapes from high above the coast. The ride took us to the Catalina airport and back. At 3 pm we took our boat back to Dana Point and drove back home to arrive around sunset. That concluded this short vacation in May 2022.