Planning advice for September

[holtrp]

We are booked to arrive Sunday September 4 afternoon and leave evening of September 9. We are staying at HoJo and flying into LAX. The party is myself, wife, two kids 4 & 5 and father in-law.

We have 3 days of park hoppers and plan on spending one day each at Knotts and Universal. The biggest dilemma I am trying to work out is how to break up the trip. It seems like it might be best to alternate Disney-Knotts-Disney-Universal-Disney as this would do a few things: 1) Be in the park for the last day of the 60 yr celebration 2) Disney days will be longer and allow for nap trips back to the hotel, where as Knotts and Universal will probably be shorter but no mid-day respite from the park, so it might not be wise to put these two back to back. 3) I think it would be best to be in walking distance to the park opposed to on the freeways on Labor day.

What do you guys think?

A few other logistics questions: I would prefer not to rent a car, but what it the best way to get from Disney up to Universal and back? Last time we took the Disney bus from LAX to Disney, we waited on the curb for about an hour and a half, and after a 6 hour red-eye, that was painful. Is there a better way?

 

[SMD]

How set are you on flying into LAX? If you flew in to SNA and out of BUR (or reverse that) you could get a hotel near Universal to start or end the trip and then you'd only have to go 1 way to get between Disney and Universal. Out of LAX the bus is the only option that wouldn't require car seats for a 4 & 5 year old. One plus to renting a car is you could install them once and then use them for all your travel. If you do a private car rental, most people recommend Lansky, they have the option to provide car seats. They also add a grocery shop. Really no transportation option is immune to waiting, it's least likely with a private car and less likely with a shuttle, but it does happen. As far as which days, Disney tends to be extremely crowded Labor Day weekend because of the holiday and the half marathon. I would expect crowds in the area Sunday night and it usually carries over to the Monday. Knott's will probably be the least crowded of the 3 on that Monday. Also, the black out for the most restrictive USH AP ends on the Wednesday after having been in effect all summer. I would probably try to hit up Universal on Tuesday to avoid that. Disney APs are valid on t Monday holiday and the blocks are lifted in August, so I don't think you're going to have as much of a rush on that Tuesday from APs as you will at Universal.

 

[holtrp]

It is an easy x2.5 in price to fly into any airport other than LAX for us. The bus situation probably won't be as bad this time around as we're landing in the afternoon rather than the early morning, I think flying all night was more of an issue than waiting for the bus. Plus, it should run a more regular schedule in the middle of the day, I think we were waiting for the first one of the day.

I was initially planning along those lines. Monday Knotts, Tuesday US, Wednesday - Friday Disney. Is the Diamond celebration worth seeing or not so much? We could probably add another day for Disney to go Sunday afternoon when we get in for the first night. We were planning on playing by the pool and looking around DTD but I don't want to miss out on the 60th if it is worth seeing. Maybe I will wait and see if they are planning fireworks and what the park schedule is that night before deciding.

Reading about it, it seems like I have 3 options for getting to US from Disney. Rent a car. Take a bus / private car. Take the train. The train honestly sounds like the most fun because we won't risk being stuck in traffic. Anyone ever use the metrolink? Is it pretty easy to navigate?

 

[SMD]

I didn't really put it together that Monday was the 5th and the holiday. I think it will be crowded, but how can you be there for the last day and not see the 60th? Knott's could easily be any day really. As long as you accept that your first day at Disney will be crowded and save the other 2 for later in the week knowing it will be better, I think it's worth going on the Monday. If you don't have to decide right now (like commit to pre-paying transportation to another park) then I'd wait to see what the schedule looks like on 9/6 forward to see if there's anything that might end on the 5th. There's actually a good chance the fireworks will switch to Fri-Sun after the 5th, so that could be your only chance for those.

You should check the train schedule. It takes a long time to get to/from Universal from Anaheim via public transportation. You're looking at a minimum of 2 hours each way. You can cut that in half by driving. You risk delays on the train. Also, you'll be in traffic heading to the station and if you take Metrolink to Burbank you'll need to take a bus to Universal. If you transfer to the red line at Union Station, there are still possible delays both because of the trains and the transfer. An app like Waze can route you around traffic, but when a train pulls out of the station and waits because of delays up ahead, you're just stuck.

 

[Wilcojoe]

Since your staying at Hojo(free parking) and you will be making visits to UH and Knotts, a rental car is a no brainer, especially considering the size of your party.

Rental cars in LAX are actually quite affordable. I just did a quick search and it's about $190 (after taxes) for a full size thru Priceline for the days you will be there. However if you do a Priceline bid, I feel pretty confident you could get that rate down to about $140 or less(price would be about the same for an SUV). More often than not the winning bid would be with Hertz.

We will be there (also at Hojo) from 9/13-9/17 and this is what we are doing. I would much prefer to drive than rely on public transportation and when you crunch the numbers it will actually save you quite a bit of money.

 

[holtrp]

Thanks for the replies all!

I am really rethinking a rental, free parking at HoJo is a bonus. I really don't want to get hung up in grid lock traffic but I have never had a bad experience driving around down there, and I wasn't sure how the metrolink worked. I knew it wouldn't be anywhere nearly as efficient as say DC or NYC subway, but it sounds like it is pretty big ordeal to get up to Universal from Anaheim and it doesn't sound all that reliable. Any money spent on a rental would otherwise be spent on parking, shuttles, train tickets so a minivan or 3 row SUV would probably be the way to go.

The only other thing I could think of is possibly seeing if they would let me pay the extra $200 and upgrade to a 4 day park hopper and then try to hit the park Sunday night after we get settled? It is obviously going to be packed Sunday before labor day, but that was the other option if we wanted to save the other days for midweek when hopefully it is quiet.