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-   -   August 2022 - LA, Disney, Santa Barbara (https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1226947)

liz-paul 11 Jun 22 12:51 PM

August 2022 - LA, Disney, Santa Barbara
 
Never done a pre trip report before, but here goes!

We go in August and we are me, my husband and 2 teenage boys (16 & 13). We've been before in 2019 and I did a live trippie then (link below). This trip will probably not be like too many others from the Dibb as it is quite LA heavy and I know LA is not that popular here. However, the primary purpose of our trip is to visit my brother and his wife and their baby.

Prices are slightly rounded/approximate.

Flights:
Direct from Dublin with Aer Lingus £2700 for 3 adults, 1 teen economy inc seat selection and checked bags. Whilst this is a lot of money I didn't think it was too bad all things considered...

Hotels:
7 nights in Glendale at the Glendale Express Hotel. It looks very basic but it was cheap and we got 2 rooms for £1155 for 7 nights.

3 nights in Anaheim at the Best Western Plus Park Place Inn for £672 for 1 room inc breakfast. This is the only place where the four of us will share a room but I thought the close proximity to the parks was worht sacrificing space for.

3 nights in Santa Barbara at the Best Western Plus Santa Barbara for £876 for a 2 bedroom suite.

Hotel prices are eye watering :cry: and we're not doing any fancy hotels but it has still cost us £2700 for 13 nights!

Car hire:
Used Andy from Discount florida car hire and we have a mid size SUV from Alamo for £971 inc a second driver (it is my aim to try driving on the 'wrong' side of the road for the first time on this trip...). Car hire is also eye watering :omg:

Other costs:
Travel insurance from Leisure gaurd £230 for family of 4, annual cover inc USA and covid cover. No pre existing. I went with leisure guard as they were really good when I sprained my ankle in California last time.

Parking at Dublin Airport £84 (100euro).

I will probably update with other costs such as Disney tickets, activities, food etc as I book them and/or in the trip report.

What are we planning to do there?
Well, normally for a trip of this expense I would have our time pretty well scheduled in advance, however given our own personal circumstances we really need this holiday to be a break as well as a trip! So apart from our 2 Disneyland days we probably won't decide what to do until the day before or the day whilst we're away. But we do have a list of things we'd like to do, although we won't do all of it I'm sure! I'll add a list in another post shortly.

Please feel free to ask questions or say hello and I'll do my best to answer!


Previous trip report:
https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...ighlight=socal

Bad Pink Tink 11 Jun 22 01:07 PM

waves hi

Your trip is very like what I do :) I did my first trip back to California after the lockdown and travel bans in January, this is my trip report https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1214537

I am also returning again next week for a similar trip, but taking a side trip to Seattle and taking the Amtrak sleeper train down to LA Union Station.

I am staying in Downtown LA for a few days and then going to Anaheim and staying at Desert Inn and Suites for Disneyland.

I don't drive so I use a mix of public transport and car services to get around.

I have been doing LA / Disneyland trips for over 10 years, so if there is anything I can help with let me know.

liz-paul 11 Jun 22 01:11 PM

What we might do
 
In Anaheim - this one's easy; we plan on 2 days in Disneyland with non hopper tickets. We haven't been before and are particularly excited to see Star Wars Land and probably anything Avengers related. I intend to try and form a plan of action for our 2 Disney Days to maximise what we do, but not sure how that will work with the rest of my family! Although we are walking distacne from the park gates so can split up if anyone needs a rest, lie in, early night etc.

In Glendale
- we'll be visiting with my family a fair bit but also would like to do some or all of the following:

*Science center/exposition park.
*Griffith park - views, observatory, planetarium, hiking/walking - we walked up to the Hollywood sign before but didn't go to Griffith park last time.
*Hollywood walk of fame - we've done this before but my youger son doesn't really remember and is keen to go back. And at the time I would have liked to spend a bit longer there than we did. And maybe this time I'll finally find Keanu! :inlove:
*Academy museum of motion pictures.
Santa Monica/Venice - Been to Santa Monica before but we might go back.
Natural history museum.
*Visit a beach - Laguna, Huntington, Manhattan, Hermosa, Long Beach, Newport?
*See a sunset from the beach - this might be easier in Santa Barbara.
The Getty.
The Getty Villa.
The Broad (museum near Walt Disney concert hall), I'd also like to see the Walt Disney concert hall and a bit of downtown so this might be a good half day all bundled together.
*Shopping - The Grove/Farmers market looks nice. Camarillo outlets (did these outlets last time and they were very good!). Glendale Galleria and Americana at Brand are jsut down the road from our hotel and are both nice malls.
La Brea tar pits
Baseball game
See some live music - my son is a drummer and my brother is also a musician so we might try to do this although not sure how many venues there will be that we can take teens to.

Any other suggestions are welcome :smile:

Santa Barbara - don't know much about the place but was recommended on here and by my brother as a good beach destination. We are considering any or all of the following:
Beach
Whale watching/boat trip
Visit to Solvang - 45 mins/1 hour
SUP/kayak rental
I think it would be nice to have dinner at a beach side restaurant and watch the sunset and SB looks like the sort of town/city that you could enjoy jsut having a good look round.

Again, suggestions welcome!

liz-paul 11 Jun 22 01:14 PM

Day Trips
 
Also considering some of the following places as day trips:

Malibu
Palm Springs (I'd love to visit and to go on the tramway, but it may just be too far for this holiday)
Santa Monica recreation area/Topanga State Park
And several of the beaches I mentioned are day trips really.

liz-paul 11 Jun 22 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bad Pink Tink (Post 15489576)
waves hi

Your trip is very like what I do :) I did my first trip back to California after the lockdown and travel bans in January, this is my trip report https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1214537

I am also returning again next week for a similar trip, but taking a side trip to Seattle and taking the Amtrak sleeper train down to LA Union Station.

I am staying in Downtown LA for a few days and then going to Anaheim and staying at Desert Inn and Suites for Disneyland.

I don't drive so I use a mix of public transport and car services to get around.

I have been doing LA / Disneyland trips for over 10 years, so if there is anything I can help with let me know.

Thank you! I enjoyed your last trippie and have been reading your current pre trip - hope you have a great time!

Bad Pink Tink 11 Jun 22 01:38 PM

For your Glendale days my suggestion would be to pick one place to do in the morning, plan somewhere for lunch, then do a second place after lunch.

I would map them out and put the most far away things to do in the morning and then something between that place and your hotel in Glendale for the afternoon.

Travel distances and LA traffic mean things take far longer to get to then expected. Years ago when I travelled with friends and we hired a car, we would allow 70 to 90 minutes to get from point A to point B.

I love The Grove / Farmers Market.

The Farmers Market part is a mix of food stalls and produce stalls. Some places have tables and chairs where you can eat the food.

The Grove is a more up scale outdoor shopping district with restaurants and bars. They have a nice fountain area in the middle and LA people come here to chill for an afternoon.

While there are some ok areas in Downtown LA, its not really a nice area. Its not as grotty and seedy as Hollywood but you still need to know where to go. I have stayed here multiple times and Im staying in the area again, but only becuase I know the area and it suits my needs.

The Broad has parking, so I would park there, visit the musuem, go over to Walt Disney Concert Hall, have a look around and then go collect your car. The only other part of Downtown LA that I would recommend to first time tourists is around The Staples Center / LA Live area at Figueroa Street and W11th Street. The Staples Center is now called Cryptom.com Arena. It is the home of LA Lakers basketball team and there is a shop. LA Live is a restaurant and bar area. You can park at LA Live and walk around. One block up from LA Live at Figueroa Street and W Olympic Street is The Grammy Museum, which is well worth a visit.
Other than the places and streets I mentioned I wouldnt advise a first time tourist to walk around Downtown LA.

liz-paul 18 Jun 22 09:16 PM

Tickets for Disneyland booked today. We are very fortunate that my sister-in-law works for Disney and is able to sign in 2 of us on one day and 3 of us on the other day. So instead of buying 4 x 2 day non hopper tickets for $1020 I have bought 1 x 2 day hopper and 1 x 1 day hopper for $524 (£430) and the rest of the tickets will be free! This is obviously excellent as the hopper tickets give us more flexibility and who doesn't want to save money? The only very slight downside is that my sister-in-law will need to be there each morning when we go in which means that we probably won't get as early a start as we might like. But as our hotel is so close to the gates we will probably come back to the hotel for a while in the afternoon and make the most of the evening hours.

Once the tickets were booked I tried to make a reservation for Oga's Cantina but there are no times available for either of our days. This is a real shame but I'll keep trying every day. I hadn't realised how close we are to going, but on the other hand the free sign in tickets for our dates only became available yesterday so I'm glad I didn't jump the gun and book our tickets a couple of weeks ago.

One thing I can't decide on is whether to book any restaurants in Disney/Downtown Disney. We don't really want to have too much scheduled but I'm conscious that we might not get what we want if we don't book in advance (as is the case with Oga's Cantina!). We have free breakfast in the hotel and I'm guessing we'll do fast food/quick service type lunches in the parks. So I guess it's just dinner I need to figure out. There is an iHop beside the hotel and plenty of non-disney restaurants within 15 mins walk like PF Changs, cheesecake Factory etc. All of which we should be able to reservations last minute... Debating whether to book anything in Downtown Disney the night that we arrive...

If anyone has a suggeation for restarants we really should consider in either of the parks or Downtown Disney area please shout. We definitely don't want to drive any of those 3 evenings so that we can both have a drink with dinner if we want.

In rather more boring developments I've ordered 3 mobile sims for all of us and downloaded the Aer Lingus IFE app!

liz-paul 18 Jun 22 09:21 PM

Other activities added to the possibilities:
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Paramount Pictures Studio tour or Sony Pictures Studio Tour

A trip to the Channel Islands National Park when we're in Santa Barbara (also looking at the feasibility of OH doing some kayaking here).

liz-paul 19 Jun 22 09:56 AM

Thanks to a post on the West Coast board I have rebooked our car hire this morning and saved £195! I still used DFCH and booked the same car, dates, Alamo etc.

Between this, no need for covid tests and the money saved on our Disney tickets I've saved about £800 in the last 10 days! Not an insignifcant amount of money. :D

georgemac 20 Jun 22 12:31 PM

We drove to Palm Springs from LA on a day trip and went up the tramway - we loved that day. When we were in Santa Barbara also drove inland to Solvang - had a lovely day there - would have liked to take advantage of the wine tasting shops but I was driving.
I know Palm Springs Tramway will be in my trip report from sig below - also think I did trippie when we stayed a couple of nights in SB.

SB was a lovely place, especially the main drag, but down near the beach - lot of homeless and not so sure I'd have been happy walking about some of the areas at night - but maybe just being overly cautious.

LA - I love the beaches - the rest well probably not a fan, really enjoy Manhattan Beach, liked Santa Monica, Venice Beach well not really for me but worth seeing, loved Marina Del Rey though at opposite end of Venice beach.


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