First time to California - to DL or not to DL?

[sheetz]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. LA proper is really not that interesting for tourists IMO. LA great for eating and for nightlife, but not for tourist attractions. Hollywood is fine for like a 1/2 day, but I'm not sure if it's a "must-do", except to say that you've seen it. See the Hollywood sign, see the Walk of Fame, maybe the Chinese Theater, then you're done.

These are horrible recommendations and places tourists should avoid. LA has tons of great tourist attractions: Getty Museum, Griffith Observatory, CA Science Center, Petersen Museum, La Brea Tar Pits, Original Farmers Market, Huntington Library, etc. How many of them did you visit?

 

[Disney Dad ADL]

These are horrible recommendations and places tourists should avoid. LA has tons of great tourist attractions: Getty Museum, Griffith Observatory, CA Science Center, Petersen Museum, La Brea Tar Pits, Original Farmers Market, Huntington Library, etc. How many of them did you visit?

She said they were thinking about going to Hollywood, so I was telling her what there is in Hollywood.

From OP:

Neither of us have ever been before, so are trying to decide if we want to do the typical Hollywood-type adult tourist activities, go to DL or some combination of the 2.

I don't think Hollywood is that great of a place to visit (I think you're agreeing with me?), and I would not recommend going there if you have limited time. Maybe I should have been more explicit. I've been to some but not all of those places, but I agree with you that I would go to many of those places you listed before I went to Hollywood.

 

[sheetz]

She said they were thinking about going to Hollywood, so I was telling her what there is in Hollywood.

I don't think Hollywood is that great of a place to visit (I think you're agreeing with me?), and I would not recommend going there if you have limited time. Maybe I should have been more explicit. I've been to some but not all of those places, but I agree with you that I would go to many of those places you listed before I went to Hollywood.

Well, you said "LA proper," which means everything I listed except for the Huntington Library. Maybe you were using the terms "Hollywood" and "LA proper" interchangeably?

 

[Disney Dad ADL]

Well, you said "LA proper," which means everything I listed except for the Huntington Library. Maybe you were using the terms "Hollywood" and "LA proper" interchangeably?

OP is trying to decide if she should do "typical Hollywood-type adult tourist" activities (which I interpret to mean the Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theater, Hollywood sign, etc.), or go to Disneyland. She is concerned that she will be missing out on the Hollywood experience by skipping it and going to Disneyland instead. My personal opinion is that Hollywood is not that interesting, and if I had to choose between Hollywood and Disneyland, I would probably go to Disneyland, especially if you are a Disney fan as OP appears to be.

Again, there's nothing wrong with LA and the places you listed. To me, personally, I don't find LA proper to be as interesting a tourist destination as other places in California, and it appears based on other responses in the thread that I'm not the only one. I'm sure there are many people who disagree with me and feel that LA is their favorite place to visit, and there's nothing wrong with that either.

 

[DizzyDis]

Thank you all for your thoughts, it appears that my language may have been less than precise and I apologize for any issues that raised. I said Hollywood as my conference is right in Hollywood and, as we will be relying on public transportation, staying close seemed to make sense.

I appreciate everyone's contributions and thank you all for taking the time to comment and you have all given us lots to think about!

Thank you!

 

[ktlm]

I'm going to LA/Disneyland with my 20 year old. We have three days and FYI this is what we picked to do:
Overnight in Hollywood area: Day 1 -- Warner Brother's Studio tour, Griffith Observatory, Santa Monica Pier - we'll hit the walk of fame and Chinese theatre arrival night too FYI
Then thee nights in Anaheim: Disneyland day 2, California Adventure day 3 (DS is a huge Titanic fan and we will see the Titanic attraction on Day 2 also).

Note: I have been to WDW 39 times, DS has been to WDW 15 times, but never to Disneyland. It is a dream of ours, though, to see Walt's Original Park, and Carsland in CA Adventure looks too cool to pass up too.. I was at Disneyland in 1964 when I was four, but not since and DS has never been.

I would suggest that you think about hoppers instead of compartmentalizing the parks into 2 separate days. We are WDW vets that now go to DL about every year too, and hopping is an entirely different experience at DLR than at WDW. I can't imagine being at DLR without hoppers. Being WDW vets, DLR feels like one big park to us. We kind of think if it like EPCOT- as being 2 different sides of the same park. We go back and forth all day. Also at least when we are there in the summer, usually the hours are not exactly the same. DL often closes later than CA, so when CA closes we hop to DLR. It takes about 5 minutes to get out of one park and into the other. Even in the summer months- last year we were there anniversary week in July- unless you are hopping at park opening of one park (or right when one closes and the other is open later)- there usually is not much of a line to get in the gate of the other park. You don't even have to go through bag check to hop. The parks are only separated by a plaza. The gates are about 100 yards apart, so the length of a football field (if you look at it on google earth you can really see how close the gates are). It is shorter than the walk from where most WDW buses drop you off to the gate of the park. The bag check is on the sides of the plaza and is the same for both parks, so once you are in you go back and forth without any rechecks. We have literally gone from the back of DL to the back of CA in 10 minutes. If the lines start to get long in the park we are in during the afternoon, we check the wait times apps, and if they are shorter in the other park- we hop for a while. We have lots of flexibility in regard to parades or shows- because if something didn't fit into our schedule one day- we can just hop over to see it and then go back to what we were doing in the other park. We have gone over just to get RSR FPs for much later- knowing we would be hopping later and wanted to ride RSR in the evening. To put it in perspective. DL and CA together are about 160 acres-- EPCOT is 300 acres. With 2 days, I think you will be able to get more done if you give yourselves the flexibility to hop. Just a thought! Have fun!!

 

[ktlm]

(DS is a huge Titanic fan and we will see the Titanic attraction on Day 2 also).

One other thought-- are you talking about the Titanic artifact exhibition in Buena Park? If you are, I'm sorry to say that it closed permanently in April this year.

 

[Disney Dad ADL]

Thank you all for your thoughts, it appears that my language may have been less than precise and I apologize for any issues that raised. I said Hollywood as my conference is right in Hollywood and, as we will be relying on public transportation, staying close seemed to make sense.

I appreciate everyone's contributions and thank you all for taking the time to comment and you have all given us lots to think about!

Thank you!

No need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm sure you'll have a great time no matter what you do. You can always go back again next year

Have a great trip!

 

[kathy884]

Thanks ktlm, We used touringplans.com and have some great looking plans that have us in each park about six hours, then we thought we'd take a break and come back for dinner and some Jacuzzi time and then if we feel like it go back and hit the evening parade and fireworks / maybe some more attractions. Predictions are crowd level 3 for our Disneyland day and crowd level 6 for our CA Adventure day. I know we could add hoppers if we want too, but didn't want to spend the money up front. Thanks for the thoughts though. I really appreciate the info that the Titanic attraction in Buena Park closed. It looked kind of tight for fitting that in, but if it was open we'd have to go. Good to know that in advance. Appreciate your posting.