affordable holiday in California

[triplets]

Hi,
Starting to do some research into taking our trio to California in 2007! Last there in 1995, that was our third trip so have covered a vast area, also Vegas and G Canyon. Going this time with three young children is going to be a different ball game, acommodation seems very pricy, looking for a budget around £100 a night. Have looked for villas etc but the prices are nothing like Florida prices. Really like to find something unusual this time, a little off the beaten track, got to be very child orientated, we always do our own thing but it might be cheaper to take a package, any ideas?:wave:

[Tiggernut]

I can't help you with the accomodation question but just a heads up for flights! as you can see from my countdown we're off to California in November and we got flgiths in the BA January sale for £870 for two adults and one child - MUCH cheaper than with Virgin or any of the US carriers! ;)

[Briar_Rose]

The motel we stayed at in Santa Monica was really great value and an excellent base for all sorts of adventures

I even took time out to write a review for tripadvisor here http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g33052-d82038-r3428125-Bayside_Hotel-Santa_Monica_California.html I'm the Leamington Spa reviewer.

We travelled all over LA from here - They do some good day trips as well - Homes of the Stars, universal, Disnseyland etc.

It was about $90/night/room - google for Santa Monica Bayside Hotel.

[KittyKat]

I can't help you with the accomodation question but just a heads up for flights! as you can see from my countdown we're off to California in November and we got flgiths in the BA January sale for £870 for two adults and one child - MUCH cheaper than with Virgin or any of the US carriers! ;)

That's an excellent price Tiggernut. I'm still waiting for the prices to drop to book for the end of May this year. The BA sale did not have cheap prices to LA during this period and I'm looking at over £1500 for 3 adults and 1 child but looking to pay no more than £1200.

Kitty

[mick]

We are thinking of doing Las Vegas - Orlando - New York in May just got flight prices from Continental £893 for 2 looks good to me what do others think?

Mick:wave:

[sumacdo]

If you want cheaper flights then have a look at Mytravel from Manch to Las Vegas. I think they run from May to Oct. Cattle class flights were really cheap last year but don't bother with an upgrade to premiar gold as not worth the extra. You can then hire a car and drive to LA, there's plenty to stop and look at on the way. The kids will love Calico, an old ghost town just outside Barstow, they can pan for gold and go down a mine. We did LA. then down to San Diego, across to Palm Springs (v odd place), through the Joshua Tree National Park, followed the Colorado river for a bit, called in at Lake Havasu to see London Bridge, and then back up towards Vegas. We stopped at a variety of Best Western types for about $60-70 a night. Sounds a lot in 2 weeks but my son really enjoyed the trip.

[Rio]

We booked with Virgin on Xmas Day when they had the 15% off and we saved quite a bit of money that way.
We found the flights to be expensive, but the cheapest one seemed to be with Air New Zealand. If we hadn't used Virgin, we would have booked flights with Air New Zealand and then booked our hotels seperately. The Radisson Maingate in Anaheim is good value for money and for the Grand Canyon we are staying at a Motel6 in Williams Arizona and in Vegas we are staying at the Luxor Hotel, though there are cheaper options there.
I think KLM do cheap flights as well.
Love Rio

[triplets]

Hi,
Thanks all for the posts. Spend an hour on here each night just trawling hoping to find something different, and affordable! As I said before we have been to the west coast three times and have covered alot of it. So not sure yet what route we will take, just finding accomodation prices very expensive for 5 of us, hoping to have found something really nice for about £100 max a night, is that being unrealistic these days?:o: