east coaster!

[terribm]

I am thinking about a trip to the west coast to visit the place where it all started!! I am sure there will be plenty more questions to come but for those of you that fly in, what is the best airport fly into. I am looking for not necessarily the closest but the most convienent to get in and out of and relatively close.

Thanks,
Terri

 

[LuvPoohNCA]

i highly recommend flying into John Wayne Airport in Orange County. It was very easy to get in and out of and it was only a 30 minute cab ride to the parks.

 

[shoes99]

We will be flying into SNA John Wayne Airport. We find it easier. We will be renting a car with National and driving to the Paradise Pier Hotel.

 

[jlmarr]

Probably the closest and easiest airport would be Long Beach, but there are only a few airlines that fly there, JetBlue being one of them.

 

[Firefly777]

I would recommend Orange County also. It's really nice and the perfect size, not too big, but not too small. It's also very easy to get into and out of.

 

[kentear]

We just got back from a week at Disneyland and we flew into John Wayne for the first time. I would NEVER use LAX again now that I have tried John Wayne. It was a breeze to get around in and much smaller. All the major carrier use it form what we could see. Plus, it was so close to Disneyland, I couldn't believe it.

 

[Alice28]

John Wayne....DO NOT go to LAX unless you want a major headache! UGH.

 

[dletz]

The other area airport I haven't seen mentioned is Ontario.

Here's a list of the milage going the route I would normally go from each airport to Disneyland.

John Wayne 13.2
Long Beach 18.5
Ontario 35.3
Los Angeles 39.3

John wayne is the easiest to get on the freeway, there's an exit from the airport that takes you right on the correct freeway to get to DL. You also only need to take 2 freeways, and it's relatively easy to get there from John wayne.

Ontario and Long beach would be a toss up. Its been a while since I've been to Ontario, and I think they've made it a bit easier to get on the freeway from here, but it used to be a pain to get here from the freeway, and get back to the freeway from the airport.

Long beach isn't hard to get to or from the freeway, but getting to DL is a bit harder. You've either got to go out of your way, or drive through some areas that aren't the greatest, have lots of traffic and stop lights.

LAX is a pain, but usually cheaper to fly into (although not always). The way we go would mean taking 4 different Freeways, and that can sometimes be a pain. Especially if you're anywhere near rush hour (which would be 6 am to 9 am and 3 pm to 6:30-7pm).

My number one choice would be John wayne, unless flying jet blue.

Just a word of caution on Long Beach, you go into a building to check in, then you go outside that building and walk around another building and go through security. This building has some gates, but most are in a different building. To get there you go out the building you are in and up a ramp into a trailer that has most of the gates. Then you walk out the door (you are again outside) and have to walk up the stairs to get on the plane.

When you arrive you walk down the stairs, into the building, out the building, into the other building, out that building, to the bagage area. The bagage area is outside (though if I remember correctly covered). Not all the walk areas are covered, so you would get wet if it were raining

 

[DaveH]

We are heading to Disneyland this year from the DC area. We are flying out of Dulles, we live about 5 miles from it, and the only non stop we can afford is Jet Blue to Long Beach. We are taking a towncar from there. It is cheaper than a rental and a only user van for the 2 of us. A shared van was the cheapest, but we didn't want to use a shared van. We are trying ExecuCar, which is part of Super Shuttle. We are going in 6 weeks. I will let you know how it goes for us when we get back.

 

[dcfromva]

We are flying non-stop into LAX. It is quite a "hike" from LAX to Disneyland, but the fare was pretty good. I also found a really good rental rate for National Emerald Aisle (with my coupons and discounts, the rate came out ot $140.00 for 9 days). The down side is having to catch a shuttle to get to the rental car place, but I am thrilled with the price (in the past, they have had lots of upgrades on the Emerald Aisle at LAX, too).
I would love to try that Jet Blue flight into Long Beach sometime. (I never seem to be able to book the tickets when they are on sale--maybe next time). I was wondering if anyone knows where the rental car counters are for Long Beach? Do you have to catch a shuttle at LGB to get the rental car places?

-DC