Southern California Help us plan

[kailuagirl]

We (me, my sister and our girls 9 and 11) are flying into LAX on a Wed at 545 a.m. On Friday we will drive down to San Diego to meet our dad. Trying to figure out what to do. We are not doing Disney this time (major boo), as we will be back in Sept for a 6 day stay. We have family in Mission Viejo we can stay with.

Here's the questions.... about how far from LAX to the Grove, to go to American Girl? Would a cafe lunch be something worthwhile? La Brea tar pits is close by right? How far to LA science center? I can't figure out on the map which order we should do these things in, or even if we can do them all in a day.

We were thinking of going to Universal on Thursday. None of us have ever been. Universal opens at 10. Would it be better for us to stay in the LA area the night before instead of driving down to Mission Viejo? We've done the route to LA from MV and it's terrible, just wondering if the route to Universal kind of avoids the mess of the LA traffic? I haven't a clue.

Any advice is appreciated, or if you have any other suggestions of fun things to do. Thank you!!

 

[StageTek]

It's about 18 miles from LAX to The Grove. Yes, the cafe lunch is something worthwhile.
The Tar Pits are about a mile from The Grove. Science Center is about 12 miles from The
Grove and about 14 miles from LAX. It's always difficult to answer the "can we do this in
one day?" question. Yes, it's possible but what is "one" day? 8 hours? 10? 6? It's possible
to visit all three (American Girl/Tar Pits/Science Center) in one day.

The route from MV to LA is the same route, just a little further - you will not avoid the LA
traffic heading to Universal.