Our Monterey routine

You would think a day trip to Monterey is infrequent enough that you just "do it". But because of the Aquarium membership, we've gone a few times now and have now developed a routine that seems to work well.

First off, we skip the whole waking up and driving early thing. We've proven that unless it's a doctor's appointment or church, we are incapable of leaving the house with two kids before 10AM. And even when we plan to leave at 10, we usually leave at 10:30 after realizing at 10 that I have to nurse the baby again.

We actually go in the late afternoon. We let Tobey take his nap in the car (ideally 1.5 hours but usually only a 45 min. nap) and get to the aquarium in the mid-afternoon, this last time at 3PM. By that time, a lot of people who did the morning drive/visit thing have pooped out kids and are leaving. So even on a busy weekend with the Jazz Festival and Cherry's Jubilee (the classic cars that we seem to run into every year), we found a parking spot in the garage (and for cheaper too, $5!). The aquarium closes at 6PM so we have a good 3 hours or even more if we get out a little earlier than 1PM.

The big advantage to the "afternoon shift" is that the kids' section of the aquarium (not to mention almost the rest of the aquarium too) is a lot less crowded. We start at the members entrance which is the furthest corner from the kids' section so it makes sense we start out at Outer Bay, Jellie Art and Sharks anyway. We have to show up at the kids' section almost after 4PM before the place clears out a little more. One weekend we went with our playgroup at 3PM at the kids' section and it was still a mob (but a holiday weekend too, our mistake). Finding that sweet spot is a challenge because if you go too late, the kids might not finish playing. We missed the kelp forest and the sea otters which we did get to see last time so again, if we weren't out the door at home an hour later than planned, then we might have had time for those too also, so long as the kids hold out.

Afterwards we just have dinner on Cannery Row somewhere. This time we went to Monterey Jack's which was okay. It was upstairs so getting there with strollers was difficult and in fact, Eric/CC had to wait for me to finish nursing Eli after dinner because it took both Tom and Eric to get the double stroller down the 6 steps. Last time with the playgrou we went to Sly McFly's which we weren't impressed with. Some guy sittin' on the steps told us there's a whole 'nother world up on Lighthouse Ave where the dinner prices are 1/2 what they are on Cannery Row, but still just walking distance so we don't have to move cars. We might try that next time.

Eric/CC said they were going to get membership again since they expect their parents in town a lot this fall. Plus, Anna is getting to the age where she's enjoying it more and more, an age that Tobey hit 6 months ago. Maybe we'll go in on the membership with them again but this time it'll be in their name and we'll have dibs on the guest passes.