Monterey 2017 USA trip stop 5

In Monterey we had an AirBnB booked but unfortunately a few weeks before the host cancelled! Ant was able to find and book a hotel very close to the pier and it was perfect! It was a 10 minute walk from the pier and about 30 minutes from the aquarium that I was so excited to see.

Monterey was one of the places we were both most excited for together! We knew what we wanted to do and was just excited to explore the area.

Day 10 (22nd Aug)-

-Today after leaving Santa Cruz and taking an uber to Monterey we arrived and checked into our hotel.

-That afternoon we had a walk down to the pier and looked in all the little shops, we ended up booking the whale watching trip we wanted to do for the next morning.

-We both enjoyed some lunch. I had fish tacos and they were incredible!

-We walked further and managed to find the aquarium I had been so so excited to visit! And it was perfect! Monterey Bay aquarium is the one the film 'Finding Dory' was based on, and as I am a huge lover of the film but also aquariums I was very happy to finally get the chance to visit!

-The aquarium has conservation programmes and animal care, rather than it being like a 'zoo' and touristy feature.

-The amount of creatures they had were incredible and they have live eating sessions where they also gave lots of information about the animals (the penguins and the otters were my favourite!)

Day 11 (23rd Aug)-

-This morning we had to wake up really early and be ready on the pier to get on the boat. But wow it was worth the early start! We wrapped up warm and I'm glad we had (it was freezing and so windy the further we went out).

-The boat trip was amazing and breathtaking!! We saw sea lions, and cute little sea otters! We saw loads of humpback whales jumping around! And we even got to see some blue whales! Seeing a blue whale was crazy, we had really wanted to see a killer whale but unfortunately didn't but seeing these blue whales made up for it, they were indescribable! One of the people who worked on the boat said only 10% of the population will ever see a blue whale and to know I have been so close as there were right next to the boat felt amazing!

-After the whole morning on the boat we had gained quite an appetite so had our lunch in a gorgeous restaurant on the pier looking out at the sea, seeing the boats and sea lions and otters occasionally have a swim past!

-We finished exploring the pier area and went to the little beach part we has walked past the day before!

-We then wandered back to the hotel and realised there was a shopping centre near by (I was very keen to get to a Sephora!). We walked there and did some shopping and grabbed warm cookie with ice cream and made myself very happy with a few new makeup products!

Day 12 (24th Aug)-

-Today was a very early start (around 2am if I remember right?) we got an uber from the hotel to Monterey airport and got ready to take our next travel to LA.

-To be continued in the next post............