Trip Report for Victoria Gardens, Ontario Mills Mall and the Morongo Indian Casino

[Goofster57]

We were in need of a little get away after a very busy and some what stressful week, so my DW had a great idea, we would head north about an hour to the Ontario, California area get a room and hit some shopping malls. She could shop and I could people watch, what better distresses could there be.

So after I got home from work and threw a few things in a bag we were off around 5:15 p.m. we had to make a short stop at my MIL (bless her heart), then a stop at one of our favorite little fast food location.

So after our very nutritious dinner we were off, next stop Ayres Inn in Ontario, California

(I just noticed we are about to run a red light in this picture, I wasn’t driving)

We got on the East Bound Riverside Freeway (91)

Transitioned to the North Bound Orange Freeway (57)

And then came to a stop

We anticipated that we would be spending a lot of time in traffic with such a late start and it looked like our fears were coming true but once we got by the Brea area it was pretty much full speed the rest of the way.

Here are a few shots of the beautiful California roadside scenery.

Only in Southern California would you see an ad for Plastic Surgery along the freeway, the funny part which I missed in the shot was what was across the bottom of the bill board.

Call Dr. Beautiful with the phone number

We transitioned on to the East Bound San Bernardino Freeway (10) for the last stretch of our trip. As you can see there really was no traffic at all.

We have had a very dry year in California this year; in fact I heard the driest since they started keeping records.

We arrived at the Ayres Inn around 6:30 p.m. and got checked in, my only observation about check-in was when I got to the front desk I was third in line, now I would figure that this would have been a busy time for check-ins however they just had one person working the front desk and he was checking people in, and answering the phones, so it took a while before we got our key and where off to our room.

We got to our first floor room (4138), which was just off the lobby.

There was a King Size bed and a couch that made into a bed

Wet Bar/Dinning area with a small refrigerator, Microwave

and a $4 bottle of water

A desk with a Free High Speed Internet connection

An Armoire with a television that had a Nintendo System and a large selection of movies all at an additional cost of course

Just a word of warning here, I thought that I was selecting a movie about Doctors and Nurses in a hospital, but that was not the case, so read the reviews "Carefully" before selecting a movie.

There was a very nice patio outside our room with a fireplace and a bunch of tables and benches for relaxing

The sink area was located by itself

With the other facilities located by themselves, which included a whirlpool tub

One thing that I had never encountered before was that when you entered the room you had to find a “Green” thing-a-ma-jig to insert your room key into to get the electricity to turn on. While you were in the room you had to leave your room key in this thing to keep the Lights and Air Conditioner on. I'm sure it is to save electricity when guess like me leave the room with everything still on.

Over all it was a very nice hotel, we paid $129.00 total (room, tax etc.) for the night which included a "Full Breakfast" of Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, Home Fires and assortment of Breads (no pastry items) and two kinds of Dry Cereal, there was also Milk, Coffee, Hot Tea and Orange Juice.

Next up Victoria Gardens, Ontario Mills Mall and the Morongo Indian Casino.

Thanks for reading, hope you are enjoying

 

[Goofster57]

After settling onto the room we decided that we would head to Victoria Gardens which is billed as “One Destination Countless Experiences” here is a link to their web-site

http://www.victoriagardensie.com/index.cfm

It is a pedestrian-oriented, open-air, mixed-use town center mall with very high end shops, a movie theater; civic cultural arts center; lots of fountains and green areas for relaxing and listen to Concerts in the Park. Here are a few random pictures that I took

There was a train that drove around the inter mall area, I believe it was $5 per ride

This was a interactive fountain for the kids or adults I guess to play in

Most people just seemed to be sitting around the park area trying to stay cool

There was a “Cinderella” coach that you could take a ride around the center in for $5

Here is one of the fountains that were scattered about the center

This seemed to be the new store that everyone was talking about

It is going to be a Bass Pro Shop, it is huge, I never been in one, but I think that with the size of the building they are going to have a lake inside and you will be able to rent boats to go fishing on it.

Another fountain

We went into the Fuzziwigs Candy Factory to find a number of retro candies from my youth,

but I was totally traumatized by these dolls

I'm sorry they are just a little scary,

I was afraid that I was going to have nightmares all night.

This is a very nice area to spend an evening, it was very crowded the night we were there, most of the places that we inquired about eating had a 1-2 hour wait. There were a lot of un-chaperoned kids (ages 14-18) there running in small packs, I did not see any of them causing any trouble, it just looked liked they were trying to have fun with their friends on a Friday evening.

We would defiantly like to go back maybe during the holiday season to see if they decorate up the streets.

Next we head to the Ontario Mills Mall.

 

[AuntieM03]

Great job, I love Victoria Gardens. I also really like the Honey Baked Ham just outside of Ontario Mills.

 

[blue_river]

We were in need of a little get away after a very busy and some what stressful week, so my DW had a great idea,

What a great idea - again, smart lady - that wife of yours

we would head north about an hour to the Ontario, California area

Just another thing the Americans copied from us

get a room and hit some shopping malls. She could shop and I could people watch, what better distresses could there be.

The perfect solution to destressing

(I just noticed we are about to run a red light in this picture, I wasn’t driving)

We have had a very dry year in California this year; in fact I heard the driest since they started keeping records.

It's been dry here too - and COLD

The river is much too low for this time of year.

Just a word of warning here, I thought that I was selecting a movie about Doctors and Nurses in a hospital, but that was not the case, so read the reviews "Carefully" before selecting a movie.

You "thought" eh? and I bet you didn't want to waste good money either

What a fun change of scenery

I'm glad to the two of you were able to get away for the weekend. Sometimes we need to do things like that

Back for the next post a little later.

 

[Goofster57]

Great job, I love Victoria Gardens. I also really like the Honey Baked Ham just outside of Ontario Mills.

Thanks for reading and commenting Michelle

It really is a nice place to just walk around and enjoy the day.

I am so with you on the Honey Baked Ham shop, we have one here in Anaheim that we visit on a regular basis, probably to regular.

What a great idea - again, smart lady - that wife of yours

I know we have been through this before, but I will say it one more time

She married me didn’t see…..

Just another thing the Americans copied from us

We know a good thing when we see it.

You "thought" eh? and I bet you didn't want to waste good money either

It made me regret my decision not to go the Hospital in WDW when I broke my toes.

Speaking of toes you are not going to believe this I smacked them again on this trip , if you look up klutz in the dictionary you will see my picture.

 

[Goofster57]

We were unable to find a place to eat at Victoria Garden (VG) with out a long wait so we got in the car and figured that we would try and find a place to eat on the way back to the hotel.

I new if nothing else we could eat at the Kentucky Fired Chicken across from the hotel.

Yeah, Big Box Meal, Rock on Buzz

Well has luck would have it Sorceress spotted an Italian restaurant (no KFC ) across from VG so we decided we would give it a shot. It was called Johnny Carino’s Italian Grill.

I checked in and was told it would be about a 15 minute wait. They called us in about 5 minutes and we were seated and ready to eat, we started with a Spinach/Artichoke dip, then dinner salads, we were both already feeling a little full after these and our entrée’s hadn’t even made it out yet.

Sorceress had the Bowtie Pasta Festival; Sliced grilled chicken sautéed with bacon, fresh garlic, red onions and roma tomatoes, tossed with bowtie pasta in a creamy asiago cheese sauce.

I got what I always get when eating Italian; Baked Lasagna with layer upon layer of pasta, Italian sausage and ground beef braised in garlic, fresh ricotta and other Italian cheeses, and a hearty meat sauce.

Wow, those descriptions sound like they are right of the menu….oh yeah they are.

We each had about 5 bites of our entrees and couldn’t eat any more so we got them boxed to go, since our room had a refrigerator we figured we could have them later.

The food here was some of the best I have had and we found out that it is a chain restaurant and that there are a couple in our area of Orange County so we will be visiting this establishment again.

So we paid the bill, $45.96 tax and tip and headed back to the hotel.

So after an evening at the Victoria Gardens a good Italian meal and the power going out about every 30-45 minutes most of the night at the Ayres Inn, we slept in until about 8:30 a.m. the next morning.

Now I mention this only because I am up by 5:00 a.m. every morning, 7 days a week, I can’t explain why I just am, internal clock or something so to have slept in a couple of hours really felt good.

I got up and got ready and while Sorceress was getting ready I went down to the “Full Breakfast Service” offered by the hotel to pick up some breakfast to bring back to the room. I was a little disappointed in the “Full Breakfast Service”, it was basically a breakfast buffet. You could ask the employee behind the counter for what you wanted, I passed on the Scrambled Eggs as they looked like they were very dried out powdered eggs, the sausage appeared to be burnt, so I’m thinking Baked Lasagna in the fridge back in the room, so I got some bacon and potato’s for Sorceress and headed back to the room.

I heated up my left over Lasagna, which was just as good as it was the night before; Sorceress said the bacon and potato’s were mediocre at best. So we would stay at Ayres Inn again, but pass on the “Full Service Breakfast”

After breakfast we finished packing and headed out to the Ontario Mill Mall.

http://www.ontariomills.com/static/node688.jsp;jsessionid=archSz2aLEwauUqOup

It is a fairly large mall with regular stores as well as outlet type stores.

Here are some random shots I took while there

In the picture above you can see a bench, these were spaced through out the mall and that is were I spent most of my time, moving from bench to bench as Sorceress went in a lot of the stores. I was very proud of her because every time she came out of one and handed me a bag to carry she would let me know how much she saved me by buying things here.

I saved you $17.00

I saved you $8.50

By the time we finished I looked like a Sherpa headed up Mount Everest and she had saved me 100’s of dollars.

As you can also notice I was not the only person doing some waiting


At one end of the Mall they had a Rain Forest Café

And a Dave and Busters

The selections of shops seemed to be what you would find in most Malls; there were a few specialty shops

So after about 17 hours of shopping we headed out and decided that we had time to head over to the Morongo Indian Casino to see if we could successfully leave some money there also.

This was our first visit to this casino, we have visited a few others here in California and we like this one the best so far, it had very nice and spacious Non-Smoking gaming room which the others we visited did not, we found them to be very crowed and cramped.

Since you are not allowed to take pictures inside the casino I found some publicity shots to use here.

We started out by getting our “Official Slot Card” first. You know when your going to drop big bucks you want to get as many perks as you can. And we figured since we had budgeted 20 large for each of us the perks should be rolling in.

Before we started earning all of our freebies we decided that we needed to eat, so we thought that we would give the Potrero Canyon Buffet a try, now we are not usually buffet people, they are usually to expensive and we never get our money’s worth, but we thought we would check it out and see.

The cashier told us that the cost was $13.00 which we didn’t think was too bad, there weren’t any characters like at Disney, but the occasional drink girl would walk by, she then informed us that with our “Official Slot Cards” we got a $5 discount…..YEAH the perks are rolling in already.

I believe that this is one of the best buffets I have been too in awhile, the selection was massive, they even had a “Full Breakfast Service” still available at 1:00 p.m. and it was really good. They had 6 to 7 stations with different cuisine including a Carving station, Stir Fry, Comfort Food (Fried Chicken, Mash Potato’s etc.) a meat dish station with creamy chicken dishes, and the best Beef Bourguignon I have ever had and I can say that because that is one dish that Sorceress has not done or it would have been the second best I have ever tasted.

As for desert I have one word to say Macaroon Cookies…well I guess that is two words, but they were great as were all of the other desserts we tried.

So we rolled ourselves out of the buffet and headed for the gaming room and those penny slot machines.

They didn’t have any of our favorite machines, but we did find some that we enjoyed playing.

I have always found it hilarious that when playing a penny machine that you can hit on every line that can be played and have red lines flashing all over the screen and score a whopping 16 cents.

Well as usual we didn’t win big, well we didn’t even win little either, we played for about two hours on our allotted budget and had a really good time which is all that matters to us.

We headed out of the casino and started the 1 ½ hour drive home.

We had a very busy, jammed pack trip and we enjoyed it all and are looking forward to our next weekend get away.

Hope you got some enjoyment out of our trip report and join us for our next one.

See ya on the Boards

 

[KathyRN137]

Well, isn't that just like a man! Tons of descriptions of the food but not one peep about Sorceress' loot!

So glad you had a fun, relaxing weekend.... you deserved it!

Hugs to Mom,

Kathy

 

[blue_river]

There was a train that drove around the inter mall area, I believe it was $5 per ride

A mall with a train? Who would have thunk?

This was a interactive fountain for the kids or adults I guess to play in

and why aren't you two in it???

There was a “Cinderella” coach that you could take a ride around the center in for $5

That's pretty

It is going to be a Bass Pro Shop, it is huge, I never been in one, but I think that with the size of the building they are going to have a lake inside and you will be able to rent boats to go fishing on it.

Are you just making this up?

but I was totally traumatized by these dolls

I'm sorry they are just a little scary,

I was afraid that I was going to have nightmares all night.

They are a little scary looking!!

We would defiantly like to go back maybe during the holiday season to see if they decorate up the streets.

Oh, I bet they do! It's probably very pretty!

Very cool pics Goofster. I'm saving the last one to have some reading for the morning

 

[blue_river]

I know we have been through this before, but I will say it one more time

She married me didn’t see…..

Yes we have but I'm thinking she didn't see what she was getting herself into

It made me regret my decision not to go the Hospital in WDW when I broke my toes.

Speaking of toes you are not going to believe this I smacked them again on this trip , if you look up klutz in the dictionary you will see my picture.

Oh No! Was there any blood involved?

Join the club

I am such a klutz at work. I can't tell you how many times I've spilled food on the retirees or knocked dirty cutlery on their clothing

I'm not cut out for that kind of work. Put me in a cubicle with a computer and leave me all by myself, and I'm good to go. That's where I belong.

*Sigh*

 

[Goofster57]

Well, isn't that just like a man! Tons of descriptions of the food but not one peep about Sorceress' loot!

Hey I just carried them, I didn’t try them on.

I’ll tell her she needs to get on an post a report on what she got.

A mall with a train? Who would have thunk?

At first I thought I had too many at the Yard House

and why aren't you two in it???

Me in my Speedo's definitely would have cleared the mall out.

Mommy, Mommy my eyes, my eyes

Are you just making this up?

Yeah, but that is the biggest Sporting Goods store I have ever scene.

They are a little scary looking!!

I got these guys to sleep with that night

Yes we have but I'm thinking she didn't see what she was getting herself into

Yeah, That is probably true, if she ever figures it out I am in deep you know what.

Oh No! Was there any blood involved?

No, Just a few &*%$## and a (^@**^%%$ followed by a @)&#&

Put me in a cubicle with a computer and leave me all by myself, and I'm good to go. That's where I belong.

Me too

 

[blue_river]

I new if nothing else we could eat at the Kentucky Fired Chicken across from the hotel.

Yeah, Big Box Meal, Rock on Buzz

Not YOU too??

Well has luck would have it Sorceress spotted an Italian restaurant (no KFC ) across from VG so we decided we would give it a shot. It was called Johnny Carino’s Italian Grill.

Mmmmmmm....Italians

Love my spaghetti

Now I mention this only because I am up by 5:00 a.m. every morning, 7 days a week, I can’t explain why I just am, internal clock or something so to have slept in a couple of hours really felt good.

This is all I have to say about waking up at 5 when it's not necessary

I heated up my left over Lasagna, which was just as good as it was the night before

Lasagna for breakfast?? I'm going to call you Garfield from now on

By the time we finished I looked like a Sherpa headed up Mount Everest and she had saved me 100’s of dollars.

Way to go Sorceress

Never heard of a Dave and Busters

The selections of shops seemed to be what you would find in most Malls; there were a few specialty shops

By the angle of that picture, it looks to me like you tried to take it without being noticed

We started out by getting our “Official Slot Card” first. You know when your going to drop big bucks you want to get as many perks as you can. And we figured since we had budgeted 20 large for each of us the perks should be rolling in.

So we rolled ourselves out of the buffet and headed for the gaming room and those penny slot machines.

Big spenders!!!
I like the quarter machines

we played for about two hours on our allotted budget and had a really good time which is all that matters to us.

I enjoyed following you along on your weekend getaway even though I had to follow a maze to get to this TR

 

[Goofster57]

Not YOU too??

Chicken Good, Goofster like Chicken

This is all I have to say about waking up at 5 when it's not necessary

I feel the same way I just can't break the habit

Lasagna for breakfast?? I'm going to call you Garfield from now on

I forgot about Garfield liking Lasagna, it is one of my favorites

Way to go Sorceress

HEY, She doesn't need your encouragement...

Never heard of a Dave and Busters

They are like a Chuckie Cheese for adults, they have a restaurant in one section and then a big game room area, you can buy a "Power Card" to play the games and win tickets for trinkets and they have pool tables and table shuffleboard (my favorite). TinkerBoo works at the one in our area

By the angle of that picture, it looks to me like you tried to take it without being noticed

If I hadn't been laying on the floor for the angle I probably could have gotten away with it.

Big spenders!!!
I like the quarter machines

Too rich for our blood

I enjoyed following you along on your weekend getaway even though I had to follow a maze to get to this TR

I have a lot of fun doing them, I was going to attach it to my Disneyland thread but though better of it, then I should have put it under Other Southern Cal trip reports, under the Disneyland Trip Report thread, but you know me

 

[blue_river]

Hey I just carried them, I didn’t try them on.

So you say

I’ll tell her she needs to get on an post a report on what she got.

Great idea

Yeah, That is probably true, if she ever figures it out I am in deep you know what.

No, Just a few &*%$## and a (^@**^%%$ followed by a @)&#&

Such language!!

Chicken Good, Goofster like Chicken

Ya, well Buzz went and ruined my whole chicken loving experience

They are like a Chuckie Cheese for adults, they have a restaurant in one section and then a big game room area, you can buy a "Power Card" to play the games and win tickets for trinkets and they have pool tables and table shuffleboard (my favorite). TinkerBoo works at the one in our area

That sounds like a neat place.

Isn't shuffleboard for the elderly??

I have a lot of fun doing them, I was going to attach it to my Disneyland thread but though better of it,

Smart

 

[Goofster57]

Isn't shuffleboard for the elderly??

I sense you are trying to say something here.

 

[MotoXPrincess99]

Hey, that's pretty cool doing a TR about an ordinary trip. Maybe I'm just nosey but I like to know what other people are doing. Maybe I'll write one on Monday about my weekend. I'm going to Balboa Island. I've never been.

 

[Goofster57]

Hey, that's pretty cool doing a TR about an ordinary trip. Maybe I'm just nosey but I like to know what other people are doing. Maybe I'll write one on Monday about my weekend. I'm going to Balboa Island. I've never been.

It seems a lot of people want to know what else there is to do when they are out here visiting Disneyland, so I thought what the hey.

We love walking around Balboa Island, you should take the car ferry at least one way across the bay. Look forward to your report. Take pictures

 

[Disneyolic]

I see no one has posted here in over 1½ months but I just saw it and thought it was cool. Some of my family lives near this area (San Dimas, Fontana, Upland). So it was cool to see the "10" again. Only 2 more years till we get back out there......still dreaming.