Alberta-San Francisco-Disneyland Route Advice

DisneyFairytale

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 8, 2009
Hey everyone,
I am hoping one of my Canadian peeps can help me out with this one.

We are planning to do a trip down to Disneyland in October, but we are driving down to save ourselves the money in plane tickets. Last time we drove down we went through Vegas, so we are going to go through San Francisco this time.

We have never gone down that route, and not sure which route is the best one to take. Any advice? shortest? best scenic route? must do stops along the way?

thanks in advance everyone :bride:
 
We did this drive down last summer! We went the pacific coast highway.

our route was Calgary to Kingsgate (overnighted at a friends house)
Kingsgate to Portland (overnighted in portland)
Portland to Arcata - near the redwood forest - A MUST DO!
Arcata to San Francisco. we did 2 nights in san fran and would've loved much more time there! We did a bay tour on the boat, checked out peir 39 and went to the aquarium of the bay. If we were to do this again I'd do Monterrey bay aquarium instead lol...
From san fran we drove through to Anaheim and stayed there for 6 days. we then went down to San Diego for 2 nights and drove back home through Las Vegas, Salt Lake and Great Falls.

The only thing we found with the Pacific coast highway was that because it was a smaller highway there were many more small towns along the way meaning more reasons to slow down! It's a beautiful drive and the Redwood forest is something of a sight to see in this life time!

If there are any other questions I can answer let me know!
 
We did this drive down last summer! We went the pacific coast highway.

our route was Calgary to Kingsgate (overnighted at a friends house)
Kingsgate to Portland (overnighted in portland)
Portland to Arcata - near the redwood forest - A MUST DO!
Arcata to San Francisco. we did 2 nights in san fran and would've loved much more time there! We did a bay tour on the boat, checked out peir 39 and went to the aquarium of the bay. If we were to do this again I'd do Monterrey bay aquarium instead lol...
From san fran we drove through to Anaheim and stayed there for 6 days. we then went down to San Diego for 2 nights and drove back home through Las Vegas, Salt Lake and Great Falls.

The only thing we found with the Pacific coast highway was that because it was a smaller highway there were many more small towns along the way meaning more reasons to slow down! It's a beautiful drive and the Redwood forest is something of a sight to see in this life time!

If there are any other questions I can answer let me know!

You are amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I've been really lost as to what the best route is. I had been told about the PC HWY but didn't want to go by what this stranger advised, so I am SUPER thankful you posted this, thank you!

How long did it take driving time to get down to Disneyland?
 
Glad I could help! The girls still talk about last summer's driving trip. it's definately one memories are made on! The little towns are fun to explore too!

we chose to drive max 9 hrs per day. most of our days were closer to 6-7 hrs as we wanted to stop early to take advantage of the nice weather!

We took 2.5 days to get to San Francisco and 6 hrs from San Fran to Anaheim. 2.5 hrs to get to San Diego from anaheim and 6 hrs back to Las Vegas. Our longest day was our first day from Kingsgate to Portland as there is just no short cut through there.

PC highway is so pretty! If I can find some pics I'll post them but I think they're packed away on my external hard drive lol...

we could've done the drive in 3 days straight through without stopping through the redwoods or san fran.

Hope that helps!
 


We also did the San Fran --> Disneyland option. We opted to stop for 2 nights in Monterey and did the aquarium there one day. It was a nice town and great stop for us (we were traveling with an 8 month old at the time).

We flew into SF and out of LA.

We did the Pacific Coast Highway as well...just know that it is pretty curvy. By the end I was glad we were through it - I was getting car sick!

Let me know if you have any questions :)
 
We also did the San Fran --> Disneyland option. We opted to stop for 2 nights in Monterey and did the aquarium there one day. It was a nice town and great stop for us (we were traveling with an 8 month old at the time).

We flew into SF and out of LA.

We did the Pacific Coast Highway as well...just know that it is pretty curvy. By the end I was glad we were through it - I was getting car sick!

Let me know if you have any questions :)

The curves are ok. We are actually both from Europe where thats all they have. Looking forwards to scenery tho from what everyone has said. Very excited!
 



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