27 days until DL & California Trip!

[SandraC]

27 days until DL & California Trip!

 

[michelle1]

We did a 2 week California/DL trip this past summer and it was amazing!! It truly was one of the best vacations we have had...have a great time!

 

[BraMax]

I hope you have a wonderful time on your trip to DL? Where are you staying how long are you going for? Come on we need details . Sorry if you posted that already

DH and I leave in 42 days for our trip to Dl.

 

[SandraC]

We are heading to California on Jan 18 for a week. It's my daughter's wish trip. She wants to visit the set of CSI NY.

We have 8 days in California.
2 days are travel days.
1 day CSI NY set.
1 day Malibu.
1 day Universal Studios.
1 day Disneyland.
1 day Hollywood Tour.
1 FREE day to do whatever dd wants to do since it's her wish trip!

We will be going to Disney World in Florida in March as well.

We have a Southwest credit so we'll be planning another trip later in 2009....don't know where yet!

S

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

We did a 2 week California/DL trip this past summer and it was amazing!! It truly was one of the best vacations we have had...have a great time!

How hot was it in the summer?? If we don't get to go to Germany with dh on his 'work' trip in March I'm thinking 2 weeks in California in August might be a good plan.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

Are you getting hoppers for Disneyland?

I was there in November - I can't reinforce the idea to get to Nemo's submarine voyage asap in the morning. My dad did it on two different days. The first day the park opened at 10am and by 10:30 he waited 40 minutes. The second day was early entry at 7am - at 7:10am the wait was 10 minutes (basically he had to wait for them to load one sub and he was on the second one).

Also, if you've not been, let me tell you everything in DL is much closer together than at WDW. The map looks deceiving because you assume it's to the same scale as MK or DHS but it's not. You think things are around the corner and then down a bit but really, it was just the other side of the corner (I don't know if I'm making any sense at all).

 

[michelle1]

How hot was it in the summer?? If we don't get to go to Germany with dh on his 'work' trip in March I'm thinking 2 weeks in California in August might be a good plan.

San Francisco is cool even in the day (apparently Oct is their warm season ) but as we got further south it was much warmer. It is hot in the day and cools off in the evenings but not even close to Florida summer heat. Actually, the weather there is perfect to me because there is barely any rain....in fact, we didn't see a drop of rain for the whole 2 weeks we were there. If you get a chance to do the trip to California I would highly recommend it...driving down that coast is absouletly spectacular!

 

[BraMax]

How hot was it in the summer?? If we don't get to go to Germany with dh on his 'work' trip in March I'm thinking 2 weeks in California in August might be a good plan.

We've been to California in both July and August. The tempature was noramly around 80-100. But one thing we found there was always a breeze so it didn't feel that hot. The beach is always cooler 70-90's and the desert is always hotter like 90-110. It was 110 the day we went to Palm Springs to do some shopping.

My advice is drink tons of water find the shade when you can and enjoy yourself. We are headed back this summer. We are doing a 3 week driving trip from Edmonton down to Southern California. With plans of being in DL for my sons birthday August 2nd. We want to take advantage of the birthday celebration. We have AP's so he wants the fastpasses for everyone lol.

If you have any other questions about summer in Cali just ask.

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

Sounds great - I'm thinking 2 weeks in Cali in the summer is what we are going to end up doing as Germany would cost so much $$ that we would only end up getting the 1 trip for the year doing that. Also thinking my 9yo would not be at a good age to appreciate Germany yet!

So what are your 'must do's'??
I'm thinking we'll use our DVC points and do 4 or 5 nights at DLhotel then Universal, beach, drive the coast, hollywood, must find a good golf resort or 2 to stay at too.

 

[BraMax]

We've done Universal Studios...just remember if you have been to the one in Flordia that this one is smaller and doesn't have as many rides...although they do have the back lot tour which is cool.

We did the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Mans Chinese Theater. From there you can see the Hollywood sign. And across the street is the El Capitan Theater and the Disney Soda Fountain.

You can drive/walk Rodeo Drive and tour Beverly Hills.

You said you have a 9 yo son...if he is into Lego then Legoland is pretty cool and only an 45 min to hour drive from Anaheim.

There is SeaWorld and the San Deigo Zoo/Wildlife Park as well.

As for golf resorts I try not to look at them as my DH would be and we can't have that . But you do have Tory Pines and a few others not sure what though.

I'm sure you will enjoy your trip. We want to go to Europe when my two get older aswell. But waiting until they will appreciate it.

 

[michelle1]

Sounds great - I'm thinking 2 weeks in Cali in the summer is what we are going to end up doing as Germany would cost so much $$ that we would only end up getting the 1 trip for the year doing that. Also thinking my 9yo would not be at a good age to appreciate Germany yet!

So what are your 'must do's'??
I'm thinking we'll use our DVC points and do 4 or 5 nights at DLhotel then Universal, beach, drive the coast, hollywood, must find a good golf resort or 2 to stay at too.

We flew into San Fran and spent a couple nights there (did Alcatraz, rented bikes and rode across Golden Gate bridge) and then drove down the coast and spent a night in Monterey (aquarium is awesome), a night in Pismo Beach and then ended up in Santa Monica for a few nights to do Hollywood, beach etc and finished up with 3 nights in anaheim to do DL and then flew out of LAX. The coastal drive is so amazing and the kids loved seeing sea lions and elephant seals along the way. My Ds really loved spending time on the beach in Santa Monica and my Dd loved all of the Hollywood stuff and we happened upon a movie premiere where they saw various movie stars on the red carpet. We didn't do Universal because we have done it so many times in Florida but DL was great (and different!) By the way, if you have days left on your WDW passes you can use them at DL.

 

[BitsnBearsMom]

That all sounds great!! Will definatly have to look up golf resorts/golf courses so we can do at least 1 round..... have to keep dh happy if I'm dragging him to another disney park!

We have not done universal in Fl with the kids yet - dh and I did it on our honeymoon about 18 yrs ago now but not since then - so smaller will be good. Universal in fl will happen on one of our future trips as we're getting kind of tired of the DW parks and need to take a break!

Still frustrated that dh is going to germany and we aren't but oh well..... I do agree that the 9yo wouldn't appreciate it yet! We'll do the Europe trip in about 3 or 4 years when he's almost ready for high school and just before older ds' is finished high school.