If You Go…
Hollywood Flights:
Hollywood Hotels:
Loews Hotel Hollywood
1755 N. Highland Ave.
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 466-7000
Magic Castle Hotel
7025 Franklin Ave,
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 851-0800
Hollywood Restaurants:
Musso & Frank Grill $-$$$
6667 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 467-7788
Note: LA’s oldest restaurant is showing its age a bit, but that’s part of its charm. Same daily menu for lunch and dinner, includes American and Old World favorites from grilled cheese, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Sauerbraten with Potato Pancakes to Roast Prime Rib.
Mel’s Drive-In next to the Hollywood Museum
1660 N Highland Ave,
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 465-3111
Note: 50’s style diner open 24 hours
Save on dining in Los Angeles with Restaurant.com
While the Hollywood Museum has a heavy movie and memorabilia focus, the Hollywood Entertainment Museum features sets from some of America’s most popular TV shows and information about what goes into the production of television shows and movies. The admission price to the Hollywood Entertainment Museum includes a guided tour, which is the only way you get to see all the “back-lot” areas.
Your docent-led tour starts out in the prop room with various monster heads looming on shelves above you and glass cases featuring props from various movies. Helmets, facemask and breast plates from “The Shadow” are next to dental headgear from “Problem Child III,” with a mask mold from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” opposite . Unfortunately, you get rushed through this area without any time to stop and examine the various prop displays.
The next stop is the wardrobe hallway next to the costume design studio, where at-risk high school students are taught costume design as part of the Museum’s accredited high school program for 11 th and 12 th graders. Whoopi Goldberg’s fuscia and black suit from the movie “Ghost” adorns a manikin in the hallway. Around the corner, you get a peek into the Art Director’s office where story boards and set models are in various stages of production.
You step into the “transporter” from “Star Trek” and with a quick “Beam me up Scotty” are transported to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. You can take a seat in the captain’s chair for a quick photo op. There is a Borg recharging alcove, complete with Borg. The intricacies of becoming an alien life form are explained over the latex masks of various creatures before you walk though the corridor of the Enterprise.
Finally you step through a doorway onto the set of “Cheers.” Everything is just as you remember it, except for the interactive interpretive kiosks on one wall that tell you about the different characters. The carved Indian stands guard by the door. The Wurlitzer juke box is there. The manager’s office is right where it should be. There are nicks in the bar where Norm scratched at it over the years.
After the guided backstage tour, you’re free to explore the common areas on your own. A nice collection of special effects aliens and monsters lines the left wall in the Science Fiction Collection. On the right an audio exhibit called The Dream Merchants lets you listed to the voices of various actors and directors talking about their craft. On my visit, only a few of the audio kiosks were in working condition.
The Hollywood Entertainment Museum is located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard between Orange Avenue and Sycamore Avenue in the lower level of the Galaxy Building. There is underground parking off of Sycamore. It is $2 for 2 hours with validation from the Museum. Parking on the next block at Hollywood & Highland is $2 for 4 hours with validation from participating businesses. On the Metro Red Line, exit at the Hollywood & Highland station, exit toward Hollywood Blvd. and turn right to the middle of the next block. You can get a $2 discount on Museum entrance if you show your Metro pass or Metro ticket.
spa facilities, based on Japanese, Swedish and even Native American healing modalities. A spa experience is great when you’re traveling alone, but it’s also a wonderful bonding experience between couples or friends. It can even be a great multi-generational family experience. Many of the Santa Fe spas have facilities where couples can get a massage in the same room. Hot tubs and steam rooms accommodate groups. Spa salons allow girlfriends to gossip over a manicure or pedicure.
Treatments based on the North are restorative, with their roots in the restful stillness of winter. Herbal ingredients are chosen to “relax the body and encourage tense bodies to cool down.'”
In addition to the four compass points, the Native American medicine wheel counts the Center as the fifth direction. Golden Center treatments represent the earth. They are designed to support all the other directions and bring optimum balance. As much as we both appreciate having our energies balanced, Julie and I both choose the Golden Center Chocolate Mole Mud Wrap as much for the pleasure of being wrapped in chocolate as for its balancing effect.
The treatment begins with a dry body brush “to energize the lymph.” Then the warm Sedona mud mixed with cocoa, cumin, cinnamon and nutmeg is slathered over my body. Its creamy smooth texture is much more chocolaty than muddy. Irene works fast to apply the warm mole mud before it cools, then wraps me in warm layers of wool and Mylar to keep in the heat. I am feeling like a cross between a chocolate truffle and a well-wrapped mole enchilada.
relaxing scalp massage. She adds a hot stone behind my neck to release the muscles. Then my feet become the subject of her attention with a decadent foot massage. Twenty minutes later I use the shower in the treatment room to shower off the mole mud, then relax on the massage table for a half-hour back massage with my selection of scented or unscented lotion to work out the remaining kinks. The final touch is a layer of the Spa’s signature “Spun Gold” body lotion which leaves a glittery golden sheen on my skin.
The sun came out so we ventured outside after our spa experience, but if it’s still raining, lunch at the Eldorado Court restaurant might be in order. For dinner, the hotel’s much-lauded Old House Restaurant can keep you well-fed and dry. In between you can check out the fitness center on the fifth floor, or lounge in front of the kiva fireplace in your deluxe room. Drinks in the Lobby Lounge are accompanied by live music nightly.