Newbie to Disneyland & Hollywood

[VickieMH]

Hi
I’ve been to Florida many times but my husband has said he is bored and wants to try elsewhere. I know Florida so well and I’m scared of trying the west coast. Husband wants to start at San Francisco to do Alcatraz and work our way down to Los Angeles, universal Hollywood and Disney Anaheim. I don’t know where to start ! Not even certain if there are fast passes? Magic bands? Disney hotels? Universal hotels ?
Has anyone done anything like this holiday and how did you go about booking ? Any help appreciated

[daytonababe]

No universal hotels as such but there are two in walking distance the Sheraton and Hilton

Disney has the old paper fast pass which we use but you can pay $10pp per day for the max pass.


We go every year and book it all DIY

You need to decide how long you’re going for etc , the distances between places can be vast . I would read some trip reports on here to get some ideas .

[400ixl]

How long do you think you will be able to go for? This will help people suggest times in different locations.

West coast is massive and you wouldn't cover it in multiple holidays.

An example first time holiday would be:

San Francisco - 3 nights (we prefer staying in Fisherman's Wharf area (don't have a car for this stage) doing Alcatraz, Dylan's Tour, Walt Disney Museum, Golden Gate Bridge etc

Monterrey - 2 nights seems to be most peoples preference to do the aquarium, whale watching, 13 mile drive / Pebble Beach etc

Somewhere between Morro Bay and Santa Barbara as a stop (1 night, but maybe two if SB)

3 nights North LA (Could be hotels as above but they are quite expensive so many stay in Burbank area) to do Hollywood, Universal, Santa Monica, Warner Bros Tour etc. You could also extend and do a day at Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park.

LA is huge, its 1.5-2 hours between Universal and Disney.

3 nights Anaheim to do Disney, some like to do more or less, You can do the parks in 2 days, but 3 is more relaxed for the first time.

That is 12-13 nights, so you could extend some locations, others like to finish with a night or two on the coast near to the airport so somewhere like Redondo Beach up to Marina Del Rey. Long Beach to see the Queen Mary may be another option.

Hope this helps. There are loads of trip reports to see what is in the various locations.

[jocat]

We did a California road trip last year, and it’s well worth doing, although a little daunting to begin with. I’d recommend that you book it all yourself.

We flew into Los Angeles and home from San Francisco (purely because the flights were much cheaper that way round.) We had the following itinerary:
3 nights Anaheim - for Disney of course. Lots of hotels available within walking distance to the parks.
3 nights Los Angeles (staying near Burbank) - visited Universal, Warner Bros Studio Tour, Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard and the Griffith Observatory.
2 nights Cambria - (stopped at Santa Barbara and Solvang on the way. The PCH wasn’t fully open when we went so we also travelled North on the PCH to see the elephant seals while using Cambria as our base.)
2 nights Monterey - while there we went whale watching, travelled down the PCH to Big Sur, saw 17 mile drive and Carmel.
3 nights Yosemite - would highly recommend if you can fit it in. Needs booking early though!
4 nights San Francisco - Dylan’s Tour, Alcatraz, Walt Disney Museum and some general exploring.

There’s so much to see on the West Coast that it can be hard trying to decide on an itinerary. We’d have loved to visit San Diego too, but that was the thing we had to drop from our plans, as we didn’t want to rush our other stops (hence the minimum of 2 night stays, where some people only do 1 night stopovers). Only you know what would work best for you as a family with this. The closure of a bridge on the PCH also worked against us and meant we had some doubling back to do.

The thing I found most helpful was reading other people’s trip reports. That helped us decide where we definitely wanted to visit. We’d have never included Yosemite without those and that was the highlight of our trip.

A word of warning - be prepared for the high cost of accommodation on the West Coast. We booked cheap flights and thought it would be a cheap holiday. The hotel prices were very pricey in certain places. We booked most of ours with Ebookers or Expedia on a cancellable rate, then cancelled and rebooked some of them closer to the time when we saw a good sale rate.

Happy planning! Although it can be hard at times, Dibbers will always help out if you’re finding it difficult. And the holiday makes all the planning worthwhile.

[sky13]

Just went to SF and Anaheim last month. It was a two city trip, and we took a domestic flight between SFO and LAX to get between the two (as opposed to driving which seems to be a more popular option here).

SF is a really nice city and one of the cities in the USA that I actually like. It's very walkable, public transportation is actually good (and the cable cars are fun!), and there's a decent amount of things to see in and around the city. There are also some good day tours of SF and nearby areas. Lyft works incredibly well in SF and helped make getting around a lot easier.

I'll add that hotels in SF vary hugely in price depending on time of year and whether there are any major conferences in town. We were in SF during Thanksgiving week where I guess no one had any conferences, so hotel prices in SF that week were about 1/3 of prices I'd seen for some other times. I was also considering staying in hotels outside of the city centre (but on the BART line) which are quite a bit cheaper.

Anaheim for Disneyland - Disneyland is incredibly small compared to WDW. And there are only 3 on-site Disney hotels, but a huge number of non-Disney hotels/motels within walking distance of Disneyland (a couple of which are actually even closer to the parks than the on-site DLH or PPH). Accommodation quality varies from cheap and basic off-site, to the absolutely amazing but rather pricey Disney GCH hotel. No Magic Bands. Park tickets can be linked to the Disneyland app (and can use the app to scan into the parks). Maxpass is currently $10/person/day and allows you to get FPs through the app and also get Photopass photos - I had this for most of my days and it's amazing. Without Maxpass you can still use the old paper FP system but this involves a lot more running around the parks.

Also have a look at Knott's Berry Farm - it's about 15 minutes from Disneyland, and is a fun way to spend a day wandering around and taking some rides.

I booked this trip multi-city with United (and effectively got my domestic flight for free). Hotels wise I used Expedia to look for hotels and prices in the area, but ended up booking directly with Hilton/Marriott as they had better rates (or loyalty points). GCH was booked directly with Disney using a Disney offer (which only get released around 3 months or so before the dates). Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm tickets booked through LMT Club as they were the cheapest I found. Alcatraz tickets booked through the official alcatrazcruises website. Day tours (Dylan's for SF and Anaheim Tour Company for Anaheim/LA) booked directly with the companies. Used a lot of Lyft/Uber to get around as we didn't have a car.

Hope this helps!

[VickieMH]

Hi. I have been away with work and I have just managed to catch up on this thread. Bless you all. Thanks for the advice👍. I am going to start looking at an itinerary tomorrow and check out hotels. I feel a bit daunted by it all to be honest. I feel safe booking Florida. Thanks again.

[Mrs Red C]

Check our the California trip report threads, there's quite a few from 2018. Ours are Red Cuillen and Mrs Red C. All have different info but hope it helps.

[VickieMH]

Originally Posted by Mrs Red C

Check our the California trip report threads, there's quite a few from 2018. Ours are Red Cuillen and Mrs Red C. All have different info but hope it helps.

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I will definitely take a look. Many thanks

[VickieMH]

Originally Posted by daytonababe

No universal hotels as such but there are two in walking distance the Sheraton and Hilton

Disney has the old paper fast pass which we use but you can pay $10pp per day for the max pass.


We go every year and book it all DIY

You need to decide how long you’re going for etc , the distances between places can be vast . I would read some trip reports on here to get some ideas .

See more...

Hi. We can only go for 14 nights?