Disneyland to Universal Studios (and back) - Jan 3 or 4??

[seema]

What is the best way (ie route) to go to Universal Studios in the morning and back in the evening? What times should we take, to minimize our chances of being caught in rush-hour traffic, and/or a traffic jam - in this scenario, how long will it take to go to Universal Studios in the morning, and back to Disneyland (in our case, the Doubletree hotel, within walking distance of Disneyland). Of course, we can use the commuter lanes.

 

[JRDisneyClan]

The most direct route is I-5 North to the 101 Freeway North, but that puts you right through downtown L.A. Barring any accidents, 10 AM should be good & coming back after 8 PM would be safe, but expect some slowing through downtown at various times.

With no traffic at all, it would take you about 45 minutes, but expect an hour or so (1 1/4) to get your car parked at Universal. Unfortunately the carpool lanes don't extend all the way to Universal. There are other routes you could take, but they are farther & take you a little bit out of the way...how adventurous do you want to be with the different roads?

The only good thing during that week is that traffic might be a little lighter because all kids haven't gone back to school yet, so some parents are still on vacation & the colleges won't have started back yet either.

 

[XTinabell]

we just did this ourselves and we left our hotel I think around 9:30 to 10:00 and the drive was really easy, it was basically in a straight line the whole way and there are signs posted everywhere, even one sign that said how many minutes away we were from universal studios. Traffic was good until we got close to LA then it was practically bumper to bumper but we were moving and then once we passed LA the traffic was good again. I think it took 45 minutes to get there but I can't remember for sure. Anyways, we met up with my friend at Universal Studios and she said that traffic around LA is always like that during the morning and day. When we drove home later that night there was hardly any traffic and we made it back to the hotel in under a half hour we made really good time.

 

[rosiep]

I let Greyhound do the driving. If you purchase your tickets online you can arrange for a bus to pick you up at your hotel. I wrote a bit about this in my trip report..a cute chick and her mother hen...

 

[blackjackdelta]

It took us about 1 hour each way last August. 0830 and 1930. Was not like the year before which was a mess with accidents.

Jack