First time LA and San Diego

[Wonderwomanjo]

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading these forums for hours. The core details of my holiday were booked before I did, so some things can’t be changed. However, I’m hopeful I still have a good plan.
We fly into LAX April 1st. Booked into intercontinental century city for 5 nights. I now realise this is a quiet area but am pleased the hotel has excellent reviews and is a 10 min walk from Westfield mall where I think we will be able to grab reasonable breakfasts/ meals if we don’t want to venture too far. There is also a hotel courtesy car up to 2 miles. Not convenient for too much public transport, we will rely on Uber’s generally.
So we have 4 whole days in LA. Plan is one day at universal, one day on a tour, one day at Warner tour and a dodgers game in evening. So one whole day left.

We then fly internally to San Diego and stay at the Omni next to the Pedro Park ( no games when we are there sadly)
My main questions are: any advice from families on a room only basis? Never had this type of holiday before and am slightly worried about remoteness of hotel and no car. ( it was cheaper to fly internally to San Diego than hire a car and park it at hotel) I accept we will be paying for Ubers.
Also, suggestions for what to do on our last day in LA family of four, mum, dad, 12 yo boy and 17yo girl.
Thanks! ( have lots of questions to follow, I’m sure!)

[jdouds]

Hi really think you should have a car, even to drive to San Diego if it's possible to cancel flight.It's 2 hours and by the time you try and get to airport etc you would be there. When in San Diego it would also be useful for zoo, wildlife park, coast beaches etc

[Fireworks]

We didn't have a car the last time we were in San Diego and managed fine, we also found that it was cheaper to fly from San Francisco to San Diego than to drive and pay the horrendous parking charges, plus it was nice for hubby to have some time without a car before picking up a car at San Diego airport and travelling back up the coast to San Francisco.

San Diego is quite a compact city so if your hotel is near Petco Park there are lots of options for food and drink within walking distance. Also the airport is very close to the centre of the city so taxis/ubers from the airport are not massively expensive

We used the Old Town trolley tour (I think it was a 3 day ticket) which is like a hop on hop off bus except that it's a trolley and this took us to Coronado, Horton Plaza, Bilbao Park (and the zoo), Little Italy, Old Town and even though you are limited on a circular loop it worked out fine for us.

Have you read Aims' thread about San Diego pinned to the top of the form, its got lots of really useful information.

[daytonababe]

Have you priced up Uber ? Given the traffic in the area they will likely not be cheap

Personally with 4 days in LA I’d get a hire car , La is a vast spread out city having a car means you will see far more , beaches , Griffiths observatory , Hollywood etc .


Warner Bros your only lasts 2.5 hrs so you’ll have a lot of free time that day too .

[Wonderwomanjo]

Thanks for the replies. I had seen the trolley tour tickets and thought they might be a good option, thank you fireworks.
The price of parking, (45 a day at our hotel) car hire etc worked out more expensive than flying to San Diego. With the tour picking up from our hotel it will limit the number of days we need to get anywhere. The hop on, hop off stops outside our hotel too, though it has fairly negative reviews, it might be an option for one of the days.
The tour seems to cover all the main places, so it is hard to know what to plan for our last day and something else for the Warner day too. I’m still getting my head round how much people pack in to these trips each day, I guess it is a whirlwind holiday!

[marypoppins38]

We have flown LAX to San Diego and didn't have a car. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis (not too far from the Omni). San Diego is a really compact city and so easy to get around. We did the trolley bus tour and it was fantastic. Certainly don't be put off by the negative reviews, we really enjoyed it and it was a great way to get your bearings. We used Uber to get around in San Diego. It was really cheap as everything you will want to see is pretty close by, I think we only paid $13 to the zoo. If you want to spend a day at Coronado Island (although the trolley tour does take you there), its very easy just to get the ferry from the Convention Centre which is right by your hotel. Don't worry that you will be remote without a car at all as the Omni is right by the Gaslamp District where there are tons of restaurants and shops. Its a really great location.

[KarenG]

We stayed in the gas lamp district in San Diego - only for three nights - and didn’t get the car out at all. It’s a very walkable place.