August 2019!

[Fieldway]

Our trip...
I’ve been enjoying using the forums to help research our much looked forward to Cali adventure. We have done DLP twice, WDW twice, New York once and I went to San Diego 19 yrs ago, including a day trip to LA, which has given us our starting point.
Thanks for all the useful posts that are here already.

This trip is for my 40th, so lots of the things we are doing are my choice, and some choices are not the cheapest... but I am also trying to compromise with what the rest of the family want. DH loves a relaxing holiday, but he also loves US holidays, so there is maybe more down time than most of the trip reports I’ve read.

We are me and DH, plus DS 14 and DD 10.

Flying AA from Heathrow to LAX on 30th July.
First 5 nights we are staying at the Beverly Hilton. Our plans for these five days are not finalised but at the moment the rough plan is
Sunrise hike by Hollywood sign on first morning, we’ve found some people who lead these so thinking of booking that. We know we will be up early so this seemed a good way to make the most of it. Then rest of day by pool, maybe around Beverly Hills etc. If anyone has booked a guided hike we would love to hear about it. The one we found was an experience on Airbnb, has anyone used this feature?

Next day while we are still waking early Universal studios for the day.

That leaves 2 full days in LA/Beverly hills area to do Santa Monica, some shopping, sprinkles cupcake shop (dd priority!) Griffin observatory and...?

Are we missing anything obvious?

Then we are planning on heading down to San Diego. This is not booked (waiting on bonus from work due in early April!) but we have our eye on an Airbnb in mission beach. We will have some down time and beach time and a bit of time in San Diego itself. We are thinking of booking a sunset boat trip. Again the one we have seen is an experience on Airbnb. Has anyone done this?

We have 5 nights there then 3 nights booked at Hyatt Huntington Beach. This looks so lovely and will be some more relaxing time, beach time etc. Hopefully some shopping too.

Then once fully refreshed our last 4 nights are at Disneyland!
I’m a bit nervous that it will be bonkers after galaxy edge opens so glad we went for 4 nights, we have 5 day tickets so can go in and out of the park as much as we want and try to be in early and have time for a break at the hotel. It’s not too far from Huntington Beach to Disney to maximise the whole week.
We are staying at the Disneyland Hotel, this was a total dream of mine, I really want to have an afternoon with a cabana at the pool!

Then back to LAX to fly home with BA. Our flight is late, 10pm-ish I think. How long do we need to factor in to get to airport from Disney?

Other questions generally: target or Walmart? Are there any good big ones near any of our stops? Got to get the make up, medicine and fun oreo flavours and hoping to get Cinnabon flavoured nuts we found last time we were in Florida!


And car hire, do we need one all the time or should be Uber in La and then get one for San Diego until we get to Disney? Will there be any savings to be had that way?
We used the great “car on the drive” last time we were in Florida. Is there anything similar in Cali?

Thank you if you read all of this! And if you have any advice greatly appreciated.

C x

[jdouds]

Hi all looks fairly good but it is a lot of time in LA area . If you just want to chill then it's fine , but there is so much more that could be done without to much more effort.