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Disneyland California and West Coast Trip Planning Disneyland California and West Coast Holiday Planning Questions, Suggestions and Tips.

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Old 3 Sep 20, 08:05 PM  
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#21
Megara84
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Originally Posted by miked1e View Post
Death Valley is fantastic. Great drive but got very hot... especially in those areas were it was recommended to turn off your air con.

Yosemite is amazing. Spend as much time here as possible.

As there are only the 2 of you (I think I read this right) then I am sure the driving isn’t a problem and I would go as far to say is as much of the holiday as visiting the places.

I loved the driving and to say that I drove through some amazing places in the US including Route 66, Death Valley, over the Golden Gate Bridge, down the most crooked street in the world, down the big sur / pch... was amazing!

I am sure you have looked through trip reports but here is a link to mine with similar itinerary and time frame. Was just the 2 of us at that time.

https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...d.php?t=975056

We did:

Santa Monica, LA, Vegas, Lone Pine,
Yosemite, San Fran, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Anaheim!

Hope this helps and let me know if I can help any further! Enjoy the planning..
You’re absolutely right, the drive is as much of the holiday as seeing places. We’ve already started making playlists for each part of the trip!

Your point about adding on traffic is a very good one though, in general I’ve added an hour or so to all of Google maps suggested times but I don’t want to feel rushed driving along the coast.

Thanks so much for linking your trip report, I’m going to go and read that immediately!
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Old 3 Sep 20, 08:53 PM  
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#22
cornishfrogboy
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Originally Posted by Megara84 View Post
Hello West Coast experts!

In the absence of being able to plan a holiday for this year, we're looking to next year and planning a West Coast trip. This has been a bit of a dream of ours for a while so we're really excited to (hopefully) make this a reality in 2021.

We've put together a rough itinerary and hoped those who have been before might be able give some thoughts on our plan...

When: October 2021
How long: 16 nights
Where: Fly into LAS and out of LAX

Day 1: Fly into Vegas drive to Death Valley
Day 2: Death Valley to Sequoia NP
Day 3: Sequoia am, driving to Yosemite pm
Day 4: Yosemite all day
Day 5: Yosemite am, drive to San Francisco pm
Day 6: San Francisco all day
Day 7: San Francisco all day
Day 8: Drive to Monterey
Day 9: Drive along Big Sur to LA
Day 10: LA sight seeing day
Day 11: Universal all day
Day 12: Drive to Anaheim and Disney
Day 13: Disney all day
Day 15: Disney all day
Day 16: Back to LA for one last night
Day 17: Fly home

We want to have a holiday that's a mixture of hiking, city exploring and of course the parks!

If anyone has any tips to share re the above, feel free to let me know.

Thanks!
An interesting plan. I am one of those who absolutely ‘hammers it’ on vacations as you will see if you view the trips in my signature. I rarely drive less than 1100 miles over a fortnight and use planes trains and automobiles to absolutely maximise my time.

I cannot help you with the first bit as we are not visiting Las Vegas until next August and then with a very different route involving Tucson and Tombstone. Others can.

My observations are in the middle part.

Day 9 does not look wise. Monterey to LA is a huge undertaking and you will be flitting through some of the finest Coastal scenery in the World. I would look at just doing Monterey to Pismo (or the iconic, fabulous Madonna Inn ) you will find detail of the Madonna Inn in my trip report (see signature). In that day you will still be driving a lot of miles, but would then have time for a combination of 17 Mile, Big Sur at Partington Ridge, Pfeiffer Park, Bixby Bridge, Elephant Seals at San Simeon and Hearst Castle. (Probably not all of them).

Day 10 Could then be a much shorter morning drive, possibly taking in Solvang or the Reagan Library to lengthen it to a day. (see my trip report for Reagan Library in the Simi Valley). You could then conclude that day by booking in at a Hotel, I am guessing at Hollywood to be near to Universal next morning.

You will note that I have cut out your day of LA sightseeing. All is not lost!

On day 16 you have back to LA for the last night. Have you considered staying a night on RMS Queen Mary at Long Beach with its fabulous Art Deco bar as used by just about everybody who was anybody between 1936 and 1960.. or so.
Next morning you could travel across and park up at Santa Monica and see the pier area before picking up a day tour of Hollywood etc from very nearby. (See my trip report). Santa Monica puts you pretty close to LAX for your flight home and parking is in any case free as part of the day trip reccomended in my signature.

I am not trying to pull your plan apart, thinking it is generally a good one with plenty of thought put in. My concerns lay with that day 9/ day 10 part and better optimising time whilst missing nothing out and actually gaining a few extra goodies !

Hope it helps.
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Index of all my Trip and Pretrip reports..https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...6#post15662196

Edited at 09:40 PM.
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Old 4 Sep 20, 01:48 PM  
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#23
Megara84
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Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy View Post
An interesting plan. I am one of those who absolutely ‘hammers it’ on vacations as you will see if you view the trips in my signature. I rarely drive less than 1100 miles over a fortnight and use planes trains and automobiles to absolutely maximise my time.

I cannot help you with the first bit as we are not visiting Las Vegas until next August and then with a very different route involving Tucson and Tombstone. Others can.

My observations are in the middle part.

Day 9 does not look wise. Monterey to LA is a huge undertaking and you will be flitting through some of the finest Coastal scenery in the World. I would look at just doing Monterey to Pismo (or the iconic, fabulous Madonna Inn ) you will find detail of the Madonna Inn in my trip report (see signature). In that day you will still be driving a lot of miles, but would then have time for a combination of 17 Mile, Big Sur at Partington Ridge, Pfeiffer Park, Bixby Bridge, Elephant Seals at San Simeon and Hearst Castle. (Probably not all of them).

Day 10 Could then be a much shorter morning drive, possibly taking in Solvang or the Reagan Library to lengthen it to a day. (see my trip report for Reagan Library in the Simi Valley). You could then conclude that day by booking in at a Hotel, I am guessing at Hollywood to be near to Universal next morning.

You will note that I have cut out your day of LA sightseeing. All is not lost!

On day 16 you have back to LA for the last night. Have you considered staying a night on RMS Queen Mary at Long Beach with its fabulous Art Deco bar as used by just about everybody who was anybody between 1936 and 1960.. or so.
Next morning you could travel across and park up at Santa Monica and see the pier area before picking up a day tour of Hollywood etc from very nearby. (See my trip report). Santa Monica puts you pretty close to LAX for your flight home and parking is in any case free as part of the day trip reccomended in my signature.

I am not trying to pull your plan apart, thinking it is generally a good one with plenty of thought put in. My concerns lay with that day 9/ day 10 part and better optimising time whilst missing nothing out and actually gaining a few extra goodies !

Hope it helps.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. We're definitely going to add a day onto the Big Sur drive and we're playing around with the LA part of the trip as well. We definitely want one last day and night in LA and your suggestions have given us some great inspiration for how we can spend that time.

Off to read your trip reports now!
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Old 4 Sep 20, 02:55 PM  
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landandword17
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Originally Posted by Megara84 View Post
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. We're definitely going to add a day onto the Big Sur drive and we're playing around with the LA part of the trip as well. We definitely want one last day and night in LA and your suggestions have given us some great inspiration for how we can spend that time.

Off to read your trip reports now!
So what are you guys thinking of for LA last night then? I'll give you a quick breakdown of LA as it's a very different city to EU cities or East Coast cities. It is a megalopolis made up for many different areas which grew out into a huge sprawling city so what LA is or what vibe it offers is up to where you chose to visit/stay.

Hollywood itself is basically Leicester Square on a Saturday night. Santa Monica is laid back, beachy and has a nice shopping street along Third Ave.
Beverly Hills is very upmarket but very walkable with lots of shops and restaurants - think Mayfair with Palm trees!

West Hollywood is maybe as close to a EU city break vibe. Walkable, lots of shops and restaurants, malls, museums, great nightlife along Santa Monica Blvd and Sunset Strip, lots of trendy hotels.

Downtown LA is the business centre so lots of office buildings and skyscrapers. It has some great museums, the Disney concert hall, the main train station, the original Spanish district along Olvera Street, the basketball/concert arena Staples Center and some hip restaurant like Perch BUT it is still gritty. Very gritty. You will see a sizable homeless presence and you will see people with drug addictions behaving erratically. We never felt unsafe but it is something to be aware of.

Then you have the likes of Burbank/Toluca Lake/Studio City which are lovely middle class suburbs with hotels and motels serving Univeral and Warner Bros. You won't feel like you are in a city though and it's not walkable.

In between you have uber hipster areas like Echo Lake and Los Feliz which are all coffee shops, microbreweries, bookshops and tattoo places to the coastal cities in the south of Los Angeles county which is are technically part of the ''city'' are each have their own vibe - Manhattan Beach, Long Beach, Redondo Beach..

So you can see why saying that you one one last night in LA is not as straightforward as saying you want a night in NYC or London! It's like a menu and you decide what vibe you want and what you want to do. If you wanted to do the beach and a casual meal it will be masochism to book a hotel in downtown or Burbank

Because you want to come back to LA for that last night/travel home day you can chose 2 different parts of the city for your 2 stays and get a feel for different areas which is a plus.

We are a similarly aged couple who love LA but it does take research and planning or you will be added to the long list of folks who hate the place

Edited at 02:58 PM.
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Old 4 Sep 20, 04:49 PM  
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#25
Megara84
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Originally Posted by landandword17 View Post
So what are you guys thinking of for LA last night then? I'll give you a quick breakdown of LA as it's a very different city to EU cities or East Coast cities. It is a megalopolis made up for many different areas which grew out into a huge sprawling city so what LA is or what vibe it offers is up to where you chose to visit/stay.

Hollywood itself is basically Leicester Square on a Saturday night. Santa Monica is laid back, beachy and has a nice shopping street along Third Ave.
Beverly Hills is very upmarket but very walkable with lots of shops and restaurants - think Mayfair with Palm trees!

West Hollywood is maybe as close to a EU city break vibe. Walkable, lots of shops and restaurants, malls, museums, great nightlife along Santa Monica Blvd and Sunset Strip, lots of trendy hotels.

Downtown LA is the business centre so lots of office buildings and skyscrapers. It has some great museums, the Disney concert hall, the main train station, the original Spanish district along Olvera Street, the basketball/concert arena Staples Center and some hip restaurant like Perch BUT it is still gritty. Very gritty. You will see a sizable homeless presence and you will see people with drug addictions behaving erratically. We never felt unsafe but it is something to be aware of.

Then you have the likes of Burbank/Toluca Lake/Studio City which are lovely middle class suburbs with hotels and motels serving Univeral and Warner Bros. You won't feel like you are in a city though and it's not walkable.

In between you have uber hipster areas like Echo Lake and Los Feliz which are all coffee shops, microbreweries, bookshops and tattoo places to the coastal cities in the south of Los Angeles county which is are technically part of the ''city'' are each have their own vibe - Manhattan Beach, Long Beach, Redondo Beach..

So you can see why saying that you one one last night in LA is not as straightforward as saying you want a night in NYC or London! It's like a menu and you decide what vibe you want and what you want to do. If you wanted to do the beach and a casual meal it will be masochism to book a hotel in downtown or Burbank

Because you want to come back to LA for that last night/travel home day you can chose 2 different parts of the city for your 2 stays and get a feel for different areas which is a plus.

We are a similarly aged couple who love LA but it does take research and planning or you will be added to the long list of folks who hate the place
I do see your point and we were definitely going to do some research regarding where exactly in LA we wanted to focus our time for our final day/night.

I feel like even in London it would be the same. Someone might say they want to spend one last night in London before heading to Gatwick and it would be safe to assume that they weren't hoping to see all of London in one night or travel right across the city in that time. I understand that LA is a bigger beast though.

I suppose what I was trying to say is that we want to end our trip with a day of some sort of sightseeing and then dinner and drinks. We'll do our research to ensure wherever we stay allows for this and the breakdown you've given above will really help so thank you for taking the time to share.
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Old 6 Sep 20, 10:40 PM  
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In 2008 we drove from San Francisco, down PCH to Anaheim, in one day. We had stops that totalled about 1.5 hours and it took us 15 hours, so it is doable in one day. We probably wouldn't repeat it, but that's mostly because these days we have more annual leave available.

We still haven't come close to feeling satisfied that we have 'done' LA. We are very much big city people. If I were planning for dinner and drinks in LA I'd be looking at staying in West Hollywood to go out on Sunset Strip, that's very much our vibe. Walking around there and Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood felt very safe, no concerns in that respect. No different to walking around London.

I can't wait to be planning our next trip to LA.
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Old 7 Sep 20, 03:38 PM  
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Originally Posted by mrblack View Post
In 2008 we drove from San Francisco, down PCH to Anaheim, in one day. We had stops that totalled about 1.5 hours and it took us 15 hours, so it is doable in one day. We probably wouldn't repeat it, but that's mostly because these days we have more annual leave available.

We still haven't come close to feeling satisfied that we have 'done' LA. We are very much big city people. If I were planning for dinner and drinks in LA I'd be looking at staying in West Hollywood to go out on Sunset Strip, that's very much our vibe. Walking around there and Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood felt very safe, no concerns in that respect. No different to walking around London.

I can't wait to be planning our next trip to LA.
Our favourite part of the city too and even in the height of summer we overheard very few Brits (or other Europeans), our hotel was mostly American tourists and the cafes seemed to be all locals whenever we stopped in. Seems like it's still a bit of a hidden gem even though the Strip is maybe the most iconic image of LA.

We're saving up to go back and stay at the Hotel Bel Air for a week as we both have big-0 birthdays coming up in 2023! Really looking forward to trying a resort in a big city.
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Old 15 Sep 20, 10:21 PM  
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Lau-nicole
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We did a very a similar trip last year. We drove up from Anaheim to Sequoia stayed in Visalia overnight and woke up super early to drive into the NP - we focused on the sequoia side not Kings Canyon. We spent a few hours there exploring the Giant Forest and left in the afternoon to drive to Yosemite it was a long day but it was more than doable and I’m glad we decided to keep Sequoia - it’s a really underrated NP compared to Yosemite but it’s absolutely beautiful. We also spent 1 full day in Yosemite which was long enough for us to see the highlights and do a short hike. We definitely only scratched the surface but it was worth it.

Definitely do the artists drive scenic loop in Death Valley!
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