How do I split 10 nights in California?

[smithlane]

I would also recommend sticking with Southern California for the 10 nights. As 400ixl says it would be better to go straight to San Diego from LV as you’ll be doubling back on yourselves from Anaheim otherwise. You can do Whale Watching from SD, we didn’t do it there as had done it in Monterey but saw plenty of leaflets advertising it.

Personally I’d have 4 nights here, I can imagine LV will be fairly hectic so would be good to have a bit of chill/beach time however there is plenty to do around the city to keep you entertained if you wish. We stayed in Oceanside which is about 50 mins North of SD as it was our beach time part of the holiday but I spent a day in the city, would have loved to have had longer though. You have to have a meal at Kansas City BBQ, the place where the bar scenes in Top Gun were filmed, great food and memorabilia.

From SD go up to Anaheim for 3 nights for Disney then your last remaining 3 nights in the LA area. Not sure if you remember me saying in one of your posts but please DON’T stay in the Hollywood Blvd area, it’s just like the opening scene from Pretty Woman 😂. We had an apartment booked through Booking.com and it honestly wouldn’t have come as a surprise if we had woken up to a homicide on the pavement outside

You’ll have plenty of time to see the LA sights and maybe a day at Universal too although we didn’t visit so can’t comment. We did the Warner Bros Studio tour instead but with 2 little ones probably of little to no interest.

It was a year ago to this date we were there and I still miss the holiday like crazy, we had such an amazing time

[400ixl]

Universal Hollywood can be done in a day even without front of line passes.

As Smithlane says you can do whale watching from San Diego as well.

[jdouds]

Hi again whale as bone can be done in lots of places but Monterey is where a lot of the film crews go as it is so good.

[Milpston]

Originally Posted by smithlane

I would also recommend sticking with Southern California for the 10 nights. As 400ixl says it would be better to go straight to San Diego from LV as you’ll be doubling back on yourselves from Anaheim otherwise. You can do Whale Watching from SD, we didn’t do it there as had done it in Monterey but saw plenty of leaflets advertising it.

Personally I’d have 4 nights here, I can imagine LV will be fairly hectic so would be good to have a bit of chill/beach time however there is plenty to do around the city to keep you entertained if you wish. We stayed in Oceanside which is about 50 mins North of SD as it was our beach time part of the holiday but I spent a day in the city, would have loved to have had longer though. You have to have a meal at Kansas City BBQ, the place where the bar scenes in Top Gun were filmed, great food and memorabilia.

From SD go up to Anaheim for 3 nights for Disney then your last remaining 3 nights in the LA area. Not sure if you remember me saying in one of your posts but please DON’T stay in the Hollywood Blvd area, it’s just like the opening scene from Pretty Woman 😂. We had an apartment booked through Booking.com and it honestly wouldn’t have come as a surprise if we had woken up to a homicide on the pavement outside

You’ll have plenty of time to see the LA sights and maybe a day at Universal too although we didn’t visit so can’t comment. We did the Warner Bros Studio tour instead but with 2 little ones probably of little to no interest.

It was a year ago to this date we were there and I still miss the holiday like crazy, we had such an amazing time

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I've just done some rough calculations:

Plan A

Las Vegas to San Diego - 332 miles or 5 hours 3 mins
San Diego to Anaheim - 96 miles or 1 hr 26
Anaheim to Los Angeles - 36 miles or 36 minutes 464 total

Plan B

Las Vegas to Anaheim - 258 miles or 4 hours
Anaheim to San Diego - 95 miles or 1 hr 30mins
San Diego to LA - 130 miles or 1 hour 57 minutes 483 mile total

By the look of that doing Plan B would only actually be an extra 19 miles in total. I can see that the travelling times are probably more than a little optimistic but that would be the case for both plans?

Am I missing anything? I can't remember whose trip report it was I read recently who said their top tip was to try and td Disneyland on week days rather than weekends. Plan B would mean 3 days at DL between Mon-Thurs whereas plan A would mean being there across a Saturday and Sunday.

I am ruling out Monterey. I know this the best place for the whale watching but the extra travelling will just be too much. I will have a look at the SD tours as I remember most of the Monterey trips (not all) had a minimum age that Benjamin wouldn't make.

I also looked into the cage diving that Sally and i would love to have done but having read up on the San Diego offerings and Great White sightings are rare unless you do the overnight trips to Guadaloupe island so that's out and saved a few quid

I'm in the midst of a hotel search for SD. Im leaning towards Mission Bay or La Jolla. I would like somewhere beachside for a proper chill out few days. I don't think we will do the likes of San Diego Zoo or Balboa park as we have enough busy times during this whole holiday. I'm not ruling them out though. I read you trip report on the Kansas BBQ and will definitely have this on the shortlist for eating. I've also seen it in a couple of Vlogs.

For LA we were not considering staying in that area. When planning 6 nights we were looking at houses/villas in the hills so hoping close enough to see everything easily bit also hopefully far enough out to get away from it.
I'm still undecided whether to do 3 0r 4 days in LA and the same for SD. If we are just doing beach time and a whale watching tour in SD I think 3 nights may be enough. This would then allow a back up 2nd day in Universal if we found we needed/wanted it. I think I am leaning towards staying in the Burbank area for LA now. I have found a nice place on VRBO which is within a 15 minute walk of Universal and has it's own pool/hot tub etc... however, I may wait and see what the prices are like for the Universal hotels when they come out in a month or two. I think a villa would be nice though having spent the previous 10-11 nights in hotels.

The Warner Brothers tour does look good but will probably skip it for the reasons you say.


I can't believe how much thought is going into the second half of the holiday making Florida feel so simple

[KarenG]

How old are your children? I may have missed that. Based on my expedience (over a few trips around S California) those travel times are VERY optimistic.

Do not attempt to travel from Anaheim / LA to Vegas on a Friday night - it will be horrendous (I don’t think you are but just mentioning it)

Would another option be to fly between Vegas and San Diego...?

[Milpston]

Originally Posted by KarenG

How old are your children? I may have missed that. Based on my expedience (over a few trips around S California) those travel times are VERY optimistic.

Do not attempt to travel from Anaheim / LA to Vegas on a Friday night - it will be horrendous (I don’t think you are but just mentioning it)

Would another option be to fly between Vegas and San Diego...?

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That will be 6 and a half and 4. The eldest will be 19. Yeah I thought looking at those time estimates you would have to get a move on and have no traffic

At the moment it looks like we will be flying into Vegas on a Thursdsy and leaving for California on a Monday morning.

I did read somewhere that you can get flights for about $30 each, I don't know how true that is. I haven't looked at it properly. My thoughts being for the sake of a 5 hours drive I'm not sure it would be worth the messing about with cars each end, maneuvering the kids and luggage through two different airports.

[400ixl]

Problem with timings is many people do the estimate during the day here which is in the middle of the night on the west coast.

4 hours would be absolute best case from Vegas to Anaheim, budget on 6 and be please if you get there earlier. As for Anaheim to Hollywood being 36 minutes, try 1-2 hours depending on the traffic.

As mentioned, you should not be heading into Vegas on a Friday or out on a Sunday if you can avoid it.

If you are flying out on Thursday what about:
Fly to LA and then head to Hollywood area (or villa), then do Universal on the first day as you will most likely be up early anyway. That could then leave you Saturday and Sunday for a look around when there will be less traffic (warner bros has a min age of 8 so that would be out) and travel down to Anaheim on the Sunday evening. This would then allow you to do 3 days (Mon-Wed) in Disney. You could then head down to San Diego for a few days (Thu-Sat) and then travel up to Vegas on a Sunday when the traffic will be going the other way. Then fly home from Vegas.

[Milpston]

Originally Posted by 400ixl

Problem with timings is many people do the estimate during the day here which is in the middle of the night on the west coast.

4 hours would be absolute best case from Vegas to Anaheim, budget on 6 and be please if you get there earlier. As for Anaheim to Hollywood being 36 minutes, try 1-2 hours depending on the traffic.

As mentioned, you should not be heading into Vegas on a Friday or out on a Sunday if you can avoid it.

If you are flying out on Thursday what about:
Fly to LA and then head to Hollywood area (or villa), then do Universal on the first day as you will most likely be up early anyway. That could then leave you Saturday and Sunday for a look around when there will be less traffic (warner bros has a min age of 8 so that would be out) and travel down to Anaheim on the Sunday evening. This would then allow you to do 3 days (Mon-Wed) in Disney. You could then head down to San Diego for a few days (Thu-Sat) and then travel up to Vegas on a Sunday when the traffic will be going the other way. Then fly home from Vegas.

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I'm not sure if the site I quick looked at even takes into account for traffic but I could see they were very optimistic timings.

I think we will be over the early starts by the time we fly in as we will have already had 15 night in the US. Having said that, unless things change drastically my kids are always up by 6 anyway

That way round would work though... I guess I should wait and see what the best deal I can get on flights once they are released mid September. I would like to stick with BA for decent flights+cars deal and also to only have to pay a deposit at the moment.

I think I will put that option to the Wife and eldest to see what they think. I guess it will come down to whether they would like to finish in Vegas or LA. I originally went for finishing in LA as I didn't think BA did daily direct flights to Vegas... not sure where I got that from as it appears they do.
Thanks

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by Milpston

I'm not sure if the site I quick looked at even takes into account for traffic but I could see they were very optimistic timings.

I think we will be over the early starts by the time we fly in as we will have already had 15 night in the US. Having said that, unless things change drastically my kids are always up by 6 anyway

That way round would work though... I guess I should wait and see what the best deal I can get on flights once they are released mid September. I would like to stick with BA for decent flights+cars deal and also to only have to pay a deposit at the moment.

I think I will put that option to the Wife and eldest to see what they think. I guess it will come down to whether they would like to finish in Vegas or LA. I originally went for finishing in LA as I didn't think BA did daily direct flights to Vegas... not sure where I got that from as it appears they do.
Thanks

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Definitely have a few different plans in the pipeline as the flight prices will determine your route.

When we were in the early planning stage I ideally wanted to start in San Fran and end in San Diego so we would do a straight route down and fly back out of SAN or LAX, however when flights were released it was a good £200pp more doing it that way around so we ended up having to fly in and out of SFO so did a circular route. Thankfully we had 3 weeks so could break the journey up on the way back up.

In my experience Las Vegas is usually more expensive than LA purely as there’s fewer flights per day but until they’re released then it’s all guess work.

We like booking with BA to pay the deposit, even more so nowadays as you haven’t committed to a good few thousand of pounds in flights should the inevitable happen. Although like you I have every positivity the C word will be a distant memory by next Summer 😬

[Milpston]

Originally Posted by smithlane

Definitely have a few different plans in the pipeline as the flight prices will determine your route.

When we were in the early planning stage I ideally wanted to start in San Fran and end in San Diego so we would do a straight route down and fly back out of SAN or LAX, however when flights were released it was a good £200pp more doing it that way around so we ended up having to fly in and out of SFO so did a circular route. Thankfully we had 3 weeks so could break the journey up on the way back up.

In my experience Las Vegas is usually more expensive than LA purely as there’s fewer flights per day but until they’re released then it’s all guess work.

We like booking with BA to pay the deposit, even more so nowadays as you haven’t committed to a good few thousand of pounds in flights should the inevitable happen. Although like you I have every positivity the C word will be a distant memory by next Summer 😬

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Yeah that's a fair point. I will want to keep the costs down on flights as much as possible. I will also look to see what come up flying home from San Diego. All three would be an option really.