20th Anniversary Trips: San Diego & Disneyland Edition (A July/ August Trip Report)

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Hello Everyone!!! Welcome to my next trip report!!!

If you are new to my trip reports, I'm Ariella the planner and schemer of all of our trips. My husband and I had our 20th wedding anniversary this year. So, we planned a few trips for the year. This is the fourth trip for us this year This one was the whole family! Our first trip was a short cruise just Andy and I. Andy and I had never been on a cruise before. ANY cruise. So, if you want to hear about a first timers perspective, you can read that trip here. Our second trip was a trip to Disney World after taking a detour to SCAD for a college tour for our oldest. You can read that trip here. Our third trip was a trip with both my sisters and there families to Maine. I did not do a trip report for that, as there was zero Disney things with that trip.

That brings us to this trip! This was the big trip for the year. The main event! We had planned to go to San Diego a few years ago but life got in the way and we had to cancel that trip. So, this was to be us finally getting out to San Diego! And then this was our 3rd time in Disneyland.

What to expect from this trip report...

• Visiting both Zoos in San Diego
• Some ComicCon Fun
• Braving a Slot Canyon
• Trying great food in San Diego
• Seeing all of the 70th Anniversary Stuff
• 3 Nighttime Shows
• More great food in Disneyland
• Finding 3 Backside of Water!

Who we are:
Ariella
Morgan, Momma and Gwen
This is me! (And Morgan and Gwen) I realized during these trips that I almost never have photos of me by myself! I am the planner of this trip, and all of our trips. I was a little stressed planning this trip with trying to find what we wanted to do for San Diego. But it all worked out!

Andy
Untitled by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr
Andy was very much looking forward to the San Diego portion of this trip. He enjoys our Disney trips but he was looking for us expanding our trips just a bit.
Morgan
Morgan
Morgan is our oldest, she is getting ready to apply to colleges and is super stressed about all of it. Morgan really enjoyed this trip and tried to take lots of inspiration for her upcoming AP Art projects!

Gwen
Untitled
Gwen is our youngest, she is a sophmore in high school and she is not stressed about college. She is just living her best younger sister life right now. Gwen really enjoyed the Disneyland portion of the trip. Not that she didn't like San Diego... but Disneyland was more her speed.

Where:
The San Diego portion, we decided to stay at the Sherton La Jolla.
Screenshot 2025-03-25 at 6.57.07 AM
We found out after we booked the flights, that ComicCon San Diego was going to be happening, so we decided to stay outside of city limits. And it turned out to be the best idea. We really enjoyed La Jolla.

And then for Disneyland we decided to stay at The Anaheim Hotel.
Screenshot 2025-10-12 at 9.22.01 AM
the Anaheim Hotel is a good neighbor hotel. I tried to figure out a way to make staying at a Disneyland Hotel make sense, but all of the hotels in the surrounding area were just so much cheaper.


When:
Our trip was from July 23rd all the way to August 2nd. We wanted to have a nice long trip to make the flight across country feel worth while and boy did we!

I hope everyone will follow along as I re-live our summer trip! Up next a very small travel day!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Travel Day

Since we had so many trips this year, Andy and I worked today. Gwen also had Color Guard Sections this morning. Morgan was the only one who had a relaxing morning.

Our flight was leaving at 6:30 PM. Once we were done with work and practice, we grabbed an uber to the airport. Our uber driver took us a strange way to the airport again. They all seem to use GPS and more and more it takes them the strangest ways to save 30 seconds.

But we got to the airport with no issues and got checked in and through security. Andy and I have TSA Pre-check and it makes the Philly airport so much easier!! You never know what you are going to get.

It was about 4:30 when we grabbed a seat at Chickie and Pete's for an early dinner.
Vacation Cheers! by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr
It was a crazy week leading up to this trip and Andy and I were just not feeling a vacation kick off drink. So, we went wild with waters and a diet coke all around!

Crab Fries by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr
Chickie and Pete's is a local Philly chain and they are known for there crab fries. So we had to order some. They are french fries with Old Bay Seasoning with warm cheese sauce to dip in. Delish!

Cheesesteak Nachos by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr
We also go some chicken fingers to share. Along with some cheesesteak nachos! Everything was good and it was just enough to hold us over for the flight.

We took our time at dinner and then headed to our gate. We had just enough time to take turns using the rest room before they started calling folks to board.

6:06 we were ready to board
Boarding the plane by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr

Thankfully our flight was uneventful... long but uneventful.

And before we knew it, we were in California!!! It was 9:30 California time.

We got off and found baggage claim.
San Diego Airport by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr
It took FOREVER for our bags to come out. There was so many of us just looking around wondering where all the bags were. But they finally all came out.... except one of our bags! Eek. Once we realized that all the bags had in fact come out, Andy went over to find an office to see where our bag was. Turns out some how one of our bags got on an eariler flight!!! And was waiting in the office for us to show up!!! No idea how this is even possible, but thankfully we had all of our bags.

We decided to rent a car for the San Diego portion of the trip since we were going to be in La Jolla. So, we headed to find the shuttle to the car care area.
Off to the Rental Center Shuttle by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr

We only waited a little big for a shuttle to show up. And it was maybe a 5-10 minute shuttle to the car care area. The car care area was HUGE!! We found our rental company area.... waited for what felt like forever. But finally got our car and headed to go find it.

Brake Light "Art" by Ariella Saucier, on Flickr
It was now 10:46 california time, so 1:46 for us. So we were READY to get to the hotel! The car care center had a lot of art made with car parts. This was break lights!

We managed to get everything into the car and how to use the gps with our phone and we headed out! It was only a 15 minute drive from the San Diego airport to our hotel. The Sherton hotel was right off of the highway, which turned out to be very convient!

We checked in and went promptly to bed! It was a long day!

Up next our first day in San Diego! Will the time zone get to us?

 

[hardcorestitch]

Glad you made it to SD safe. Little fun fact: a lesser known Disney character, Hailey Banks, was based in this area in a town north of there.