Hi All! First Disneyland Trip...

[travelwith4kids]

Thanks for your input!
I did think it was alot of driving but thought that as it was broken up so much we would be ok. DH is happy to drive the distances... Am having a moment of doubt now

Universal could easily be done on the Saturday. I ony thought Friday as I thought it might be less busy then the weekend?

We could drop somewhere (?) but I have become quite attached to all our destinations and the things we want to do... I guess we could leave off SF. Go from Yosemite to Monterey and then down the coast. Or we could leave the car in SF and fly to LA from there and then home. Will chat to DH about this.

 

[losfp]

Thanks for your imput!
I did think it was alot of driving but thought that as it was broken up so much we would be ok. DH is happy to drive the distances... Am having a moment of doubt now

Universal could easily be done on the Saturday. I ony thought Friday as I thought it might be less busy then the weekend?

We could drop somewhere (?) but I have become quite attached to all our destinations and the things we want to do... I guess we could leave off SF. Go from Yosemite to Monterey and then down the coast. Or we could leave the car in SF and fly to LA from there and then home. Will chat to DH about this.

Yeah it can be tough to leave things out I don't mean to scare you, but it's probably a good idea to have a think about it and consider all the factors. I had a crazy packed schedule for our 2012 trip until I sat down and considered the driving distances and times etc. It hurt to cut some destinations but I believe that we made the right choice. Especially with our kid in tow - you will have more!

 

[zanzibar138]

I think what people are concerned about is the number of days driving you have in a row. The distances seem quite manageable to me. I also tried to keep things under 4 hours for us. However, most of the time we had a 'day off' in between.

Looking at your itinerary with the driving distances added in (thanks losfp!), I can see an opportunity to re-shuffle a couple of days, and maybe be able to make a couple of your stops a bit longer.

From Yosemite, you won't have to stop in Columbia, just drive straight through to San Francisco. You'll be seeing plenty of big trees and forest at Yosemite, so I don't think losing the state park there and big trees would be too much of an issue.

Also, you could either drive down the coast in 2 days instead of 3, giving you an extra night you could spend somewhere else. If you did this, you'd have to be choosy about your stops. Otherwise, you could stop at a halfway point for 2 nights. You'd still be able to visit Monterey on the way through the 1st day, and Pismo Beach (if that's really important to you) on the 3rd day. It might be of interest to you that while I was planning my itinerary for this September, I found out that it's not the right season for the elephant seals. You will see sea lions in San Francisco anyway at Fisherman's Wharf.

We stayed in Santa Margarita for 2 nights (not far from San Luis Obispo, which is pretty much exactly halfway between San Francisco and LA). We spent our full day there exploring Morro Bay and Montana de Oro State Park. There were some nice beaches there, interesting geological formations, and there are sea lions in Morro Bay too around the jetty area. We also did a morning horse ride at Madonna Inn. The horse riding was nice, but we were all blown away by the hotel! It would be a fun place to stay in San Luis Obispo (all completely over the top themed suites). We had morning tea after our horse riding, and the restaurant there was like a blinged out Miss Maud's

Other popular 'halfway' stops seem to be anywhere along the Big Sur coast, San Simeon (the kids might get a kick out of the castle there), and Santa Barbara and surrounding areas. We made a quick stop in Santa Barbara and were underwhelmed, but we didn't really get any further north than San Luis Obispo (we came in from the east instead).

We did the drive back from San Luis Obispo on a Sunday and traffic was terrible getting back into LA all the way from the Ventura area. We went via Solvang, which was cute and a nice place to stop for brunch. We also stopped in Santa Barbara, but were underwhelmed. Closer to LA, we did a detour via Malibu and the only thing I'd write home about there was the traffic

 

[LivingforDisney]

About Universal, not sure, it is pretty busy every day
You should check the universal calendar for opening times, ect
If you are going to be there when they have the Halloween Party's, it closes earlier on these days.

 

[zanzibar138]

About Universal, not sure, it is pretty busy every day

I disagree. We went on a Wednesday and it was practically empty. We walked onto most things multiple times at various points in the day, and only waited 10 minutes for the Simpsons (which was relatively new at the time). Longest wait of the day was 20 minutes for the studio tour.

Like DLR, it's probably gotten a lot busier during non-peak times, and Fridays are probably the busiest weekday, but I suspect it would still be a fair bit quieter than Saturday.

I say see how you feel on Friday. If you're only one train station away and you wake up at a reasonable time, it's highly likely you'd make it for rope drop anyway. If you feel good, I say go for it! If not, you probably won't have a great day anyway, so you may as well wait until Saturday and make the best of the crowds.

You should check the universal calendar for opening times, ect
If you are going to be there when they have the Halloween Party's, it closes earlier on these days.[/QUOTE]

If you're going to stick with doing Universal at the beginning of your trip, this won't be an issue. But if you're leaving it until the end, definitely check

 

[travelwith4kids]

I really appreciate all the feedback!

After reading the last few suggestions I have (to be honest) had a very mild freakout that we were are being too ambitious with our trip.
We are madly saving (we never imagined we would be able to afford to take our kids OS for a month) and it will possibly (but hopefully not) be our only trip to the West Coast so trying to see and do as much as we can!

DH and I talked about it... (he has been less then useless in helping me plan )

Neither of us want to miss any places on our plan so all overnight destinations will stay the same but our stopoffs on route (and activities) will be put into a 'must do' list and a 'if we have time and feel up to it' list.

We will add a night to Vegas, and although that really doesnt make any difference to how far we are travelling, it gives us 2 rather then 1 day in Vegas of non driving. Makes the long trip from GCNP to Vegas and then from Vegas to Bishop-Yosemite seems less rushed. The only problem with doing this is we will have to adjust our dates for our Yosemite booking. I've looked online and I'm pretty sure we cant get a day later with our booking at the Lodge at the Falls but we can get a family room at Curry Village. So we either stay 2 nights at Lodge at the Falls and get the 3rd night at Curry Village or we change our 3 nights to Curry Village (having not stayed at either we arent sure what is 'best' but we preferred the look/feel of the Lodge?) Am going to call them in the morning.

Re: driving distances/pace. I think (hope) we will be fine (DH thinks it is perfect), our longest day of driving is 5 hrs all up, and all our long driving days we can take the entire day to arrive our destination. We have time to stop whenever we want along the way and enjoy the sights.

I havent decided yet if it matters to us if we miss Fantasmic and only see the fireworks from the inn rooftop... Still thinking on that. To be honest I think that everything else at DL will be enough for us with 4 young kids... I'm not sure a 1 night show is worth worrying to much about BUT I've never seen it, everyone seems to say its amazing, maybe we should make the effort?? We could just stay 2 nights in LA.

So arrive LAX Thurs, easy day
Fri. Universal
Sat. LA sights before heading to Anaheim in the afternoon.
Sun. DL (Fantasmic/fireworks but maybe not both?)
Mon-Thurs. 3 days DL with a spare (shopping in Anaheim? or leave early and add an extra day to SD? or even further along at PS?)

THIS IS SO HARD AND I FEEL SO MUCH PRESSURE ON ME TO HAVE IT PERFECT! ARGHHHHH (sorry had to get that out lol)

Thanks again for all the ideas though... really does help me plan!

 

[Aussie Wendy]

There is a good grocery store at GC in the village complex-we stopped in after having done a drive along Desert View Drive. Was a good place to buy ready made sandwiches for lunch too, or you can catch the bus as others have said. I was surprised having read some dubious posts about what the store stocked at how extensive it was and prices weren't that bad for an Australian!

As to the road trip, it all comes down to if you are road trippers in Aus? If the kids are used to road trips, if you have done road trips here, then your travel plans are easy and not too much driving at all. If your kids have never done more than 2 hours in a car anywhere then they may find it more tiring/tedious. Grand Canyon to Vegas was a short drive to us and we stopped to look at the Hoover Dam en route and ate lunch there (but decided against the tour due to the crowds as we didn't rush away early that am from GC). Can't remember if you said your Williams stop was on the way there or on the way to Vegas but we didn't do that. We got in to Vegas mid pm. Time to unpack and go for an exploratory wander through the Flamingo's gardens (birds habitat), Ceasars Palace (aquarium, audio-electronic fountain), eat dinner, watch the Bellagio fountains and hit the sack as we were up just after sunrise to watch our 2nd sunrise at GC. Our one full day we explored some other areas along the Strip like the Venetian (loved the gondolas in the canal), the nearby shopping mall rather than trecking up to the Outlets as we had given our rental car in (DD (teenager) bought quite bit of stuff), had a long lazy lunch, a nap, then explored south past the MGM (lions), NYNY, Hershey Choc world and back to the Bellagio conservatory. End of trip tiredness had kicked in but regret didn't get tix for a show. Up the Excalibur end you have the dolphin and tigers exhibit at The Mirage (quite costly), opposite end of the Strip is Circus Circus with its rides (cost) and circus acts (free). Google Las Vegas with kids and you will get the key things they might enjoy. For us that was enough time there. There is plenty to do with children but its very spread out - distances between each casino complex are huge. You can easily not take the kids anywhere near casinos as all the attractions are in the attached shopping complexes but its still full on crowds and heat and expensive shops and not really our cup of tea-but others love it...so you can see what camp you fall into!

 

[travelwith4kids]

Thanks for that Aussie Wendy, you have made me feel heaps better!
We havent done road trips as such with our kids but our recent holiday trips have been atleast 4 hrs drive and the kids were perfect. They are really good kids and I think will be happy to sit back and watch the scenery and sing really badly to frozen songs coming from their Ipods!
Thanks for the ideas for Vegas, the more I look into it there seems to be heaps for the kids to do, DH and I arent gamblers at all so we are happy with family friendly activities and I was hopeing to go to the outlets for a couple of hrs but the kids prob wont want to shop for much more then that.
I didnt ring Yosemite this morning as we were a bit rushed but will do tomorrow as I think we'd like an extra Vegas day.

 

[WearegoingtoAmerica]

Congratulations on planning your holiday with your children. I just wanted to add, that you know your family, and how they will cope sitting in the car day after day. If they are fine in the car for 4 hours, then almost all of your days drivings are a lot less than that going by the previous times. We went last year for 6 weeks and took our 6 kids, who at the time were 10, 8, 6, 5, 3 & 9 months. We spent the majority of our time on the East coast but only had maybe 4 downish days over all. We were on the go most of the time. We did spend the 1st day doing not much at all to adjust with the time but then it was go, go, go. We spent 4 nights in Houston, 14 nights in Orlando, 5 nights in New York and I think the rest were all mainly 1 & 2 night stays. The kids coped beautifully. I kept waiting for the melt downs, but they didn't come. To help with this, we spent some time in an RV so we weren't unpacking & packing all the time. This also gave them the security of sleeping in the same bed, whilst moving around. We, like you, thought it would be awhile before we went back, so wanted to see as much as possible.

 

[WearegoingtoAmerica]

Sorry, typing on the iPad & pressed Send before finished. Not sure how to edit the post on it. Anyway, what I was trying to say, was you know your family, and whether they would cope with what you have planned. Just look at the times & what you really want to see in the different places & whether you can fit it all in. It is hard to take out places though. We are going back next year & I have had to can driving down the coast from San Francisco to LA because we just can't fit it in & there are other places that, for us, trumped that. Once it was decided to remove those days, everything else just fell into place. Good luck deciding, and I agree with you, vacation planning can become very obsessive. I'm sure your kids will have a great time.

 

[travelwith4kids]

Thanks for your thoughts WearegoingtoAmerica.
Your trip sounds like it was amazing!! And WOW, I thought we were brave with 4 young kids but 6 is awesome!!! You guys must have had so much fun and I so glad to hear that your little ones travelled well! Our kids really wanted to get an RV but we chickened out as we thought it would be too much work? They love the film with Robin Williams, I think its called 'RV Vacation'? and they were basing their ideas on that. We think if we are lucky enough to go again and see the east coast we will do a stint of RVing then.

We are pretty set with our plans now. Changing Yosemite worked out fine which was very lucky as rooms that fit us are limited, so we are able to add a day of non driving (and hopefully shopping ) to Vegas.

So we look like-
3nts- LA
5nts- Anaheim
4nts- San Diego
1nt- Palms Springs
1nt- Kingman
2nts- GCNP
3nts- Vegas
1nt- Bishop
3nt- Yosemite
1nt- Columbia (or near Calaveras Big Trees)
4nts- San Fran
1nt- Monterey
1nt- Pismo
either home or 1 or 2nts LA.

I am trying to get most of the accommodation organised as it is tricky finding rooms that fit 6 within our budget so having it booked eases my mind alot. Obviously this far out everything is cancellable. So far I've booked Anaheim, SD, PS, GCNP, YNP and SF.

How did you go with car seats for your kids? Did you take Aussie ones with you, hire or buy them there?

 

[travelwith4kids]

PS... just wanted to add that I just told DH about your trip with your 6 kids and he thinks your brilliant and he takes his hat off to you!!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Congratulations on a great trip planned!

For San Francisco, some of the things we've covered over the years are in this thread.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2451585

There should be the Jelly Belly factory there, plus Coit Tower, China Town, Golden Gate bridge etc. Your San Francisco pass will include the Muni pass. The thread should include a number of Muni bus numbers to get to the various attractions.


For some pictures and info on the drive down PCH ie. Henry Cowell, Pismo, Monarch Butterflies, Elephant Seal, this TR should have some. Head to the second post for the quick links.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2614243

 

[travelwith4kids]

Thanks so much for the links PrincessInOz, off to have a read now...