Sacramento do DL: 30 day countdown

[07pilot4me]

ok ok, more like 31 days but so excited that we are within a month

trip details:

leaving Sacramento on may 28th which is a Saturday (Mem day weekend) and leaving Anaheim on June 4th. planning to upgrade a 3 day pass into an annual pass during the stay. plan is to maybe visit the park everyday, but not so commando style since we have a 5 and 2 year old (plus having the annual pass will help us "relax" even more)

am i correct in hoping that traffic going down the 5 should be "lighter" on Saturday, not really in a rush to get there since we would treat this as a travel day. any suggestions as to the traffic patterns that day (get to Anaheim by what time??)
Since we plan on upgrading, we may use one of the days Saturday night, one day Sunday and the last day on Monday (upgrade the ticket on Monday). plan to visit each of the days we are there and hoping for soft openings of LM ride and Star Tours. also plan to visit the beach (maybe thursday would be a good day since Grad night + press event for new rides?? ).... really hope that we get to ride LM and Star Tours before official opening on June 3rd, or else that Friday might be the most hectic day of our trip.

staying at Ramada maingate and hoping that their pool is done, any input advice would be appreciated.

 

[skiingfast]

The Ramada Maingate Pool is open, and fancier than ever.

 

[07pilot4me]

sweet!!

The Ramada Maingate Pool is open, and fancier than ever.

 

[mvf-m11c]

am i correct in hoping that traffic going down the 5 should be "lighter" on Saturday, not really in a rush to get there since we would treat this as a travel day. any suggestions as to the traffic patterns that day (get to Anaheim by what time??)
Since we plan on upgrading, we may use one of the days Saturday night, one day Sunday and the last day on Monday (upgrade the ticket on Monday). plan to visit each of the days we are there and hoping for soft openings of LM ride and Star Tours. also plan to visit the beach (maybe thursday would be a good day since Grad night + press event for new rides?? ).... really hope that we get to ride LM and Star Tours before official opening on June 3rd, or else that Friday might be the most hectic day of our trip.

I live in Sacramento and I drive down to Anaheim a lot. As for your suggestion of going down to Anaheim from Sac, even on a Saturday there will be traffic going down to Anaheim when you are in LA. Going down on I-5 is nice and should be no problem, but there is not too much to see on I-5 than going down on I-99. It will take around 6-7 hours to get to Anaheim from Sac so the best time to get in Anaheim is around 10 - 3 in my opinion.

 

[mama2dutchies]

no idea about traffic patterns but I would imagine the earlier you leave the better..

Drive safe! we're headed down the week after you (june 12)

 

[07pilot4me]

I live in Sacramento and I drive down to Anaheim a lot. As for your suggestion of going down to Anaheim from Sac, even on a Saturday there will be traffic going down to Anaheim when you are in LA. Going down on I-5 is nice and should be no problem, but there is not too much to see on I-5 than going down on I-99. It will take around 6-7 hours to get to Anaheim from Sac so the best time to get in Anaheim is around 10 - 3 in my opinion.

thanks for the advice, we will plan on leaving no later than 8am then. are there any alternate routes than taking I-5 or I-99?

 

[mvf-m11c]

thanks for the advice, we will plan on leaving no later than 8am then. are there any alternate routes than taking I-5 or I-99?

Taking I-5 & I-99 is the best way to get to Anaheim when you are coming from Sac. Other routes will just take you way longer, so it is your best bet to take one of those two routes when both highways merge after Bakersfield.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

Stick with the 5. It's the most straightforward. I would say your trip will probably take at least 7 hours unless you're a real speed demon and don't ever stop. With little ones, you'll probably want to make a couple quick stops to get the wiggles out and probably to get gas once.

I would suggest leaving no later than 7 AM if you can manage it. That ought to get you to Anaheim between 2 and 3 PM.

 

[mama2dutchies]

thanks for the advice, we will plan on leaving no later than 8am then. are there any alternate routes than taking I-5 or I-99?

I don't know how old your kids are, but we're looking to pack the car up on night before, and show off no later then 5am

We figure we can be an Anaheim (with potty stops and lunch) by 12-1 latest 2! We have a 5 pm reservation at GK

 

[jpow5]

We just got back from our trip and had forgotten how much truck traffic there is on I-5. We traveled down on Monday and back on Thursday. Both days the slow lane was a constant stream of semis, which made made it difficult to use cruise. Once in the greater LA area, traffic was pretty thick. It added about 30 minutes on the way down (arrived at 4:30) and about 1 hour on the way back (left at 1:30). Hope you have a great trip!

 

[charmama4]

I'm excited for your upcoming trip!!! We are going in June ourselves and we hail from Travis AFB.

With our four kids (14, 12, 10 and 7) it takes us 4 movies to get there. That is how we time it.

We leave base (via HW 12 to I-5) at 8am and always stop at In and Out on "our" side of the GrapeVine. With the lunch break and two gas/potty stops and leaving at 8am we still get to the hotel at check in time 3pm.

It seems to me that Saturday or not there is still traffic in LA, but it is of course not as bad as during the work week.

Have a magically Disneyland trip!!!!

 

[07pilot4me]

thanks for all the great advice! we will now plan on leaving sooner. we will also be looking at buying one of those portable dvd players for the ride down.
we are crossing our fingers that the saturday traffic in and out of LA will be much better than when we drove to disney on a friday afternoon and drove home on a wednesday mid morning.

 

[AmericanItGirl]

The thing to remember is that you will also be dealing with people traveling for Memorial Day weekend.

That being said, traffic along the 5 is never terrible, unless the Grapevine is closed (when I drove to LA in early January, the Grapevine was closed and it was snowing in Palmdale and Lancaster, took me 12 hours on just the detour).

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

We just did this drive a few weeks ago. I do agree with the others, stick with I-5. We found the lowest gas for a stop around half way through the drive is at Lost Hills, I think around the 245 mile mark. It is the next "large" stop after Kettleman City.

We hit MAJOR traffic just after we passed Magic Mountain. I would say this was right around 2:00pm.

Drove home on Monday and again hit major traffic in LA and just before Magic Mountain. They were doing some sort of road construction and it was going from 4 lanes down to 2, added about an hour to our drive home. Which stinks when you have sick kids in the car! I would say this was round 11:30am.

 

[pixiewings71]

I'm excited for your upcoming trip!!! We are going in June ourselves and we hail from Travis AFB.

With our four kids (14, 12, 10 and 7) it takes us 4 movies to get there. That is how we time it.

We leave base (via HW 12 to I-5) at 8am and always stop at In and Out on "our" side of the GrapeVine. With the lunch break and two gas/potty stops and leaving at 8am we still get to the hotel at check in time 3pm.

It seems to me that Saturday or not there is still traffic in LA, but it is of course not as bad as during the work week.

Have a magically Disneyland trip!!!!

You said you leave base? Are you stationed at Travis? We are about 10 minutes outside of Travis. We also go the same way, 12-5, easiest way to go.

OP you will hit traffic but don't stress over it, just expect it and when it happens you'll be fine. We are doing the drive the day after you, we leave on the 29th and I think we are going to try to extend our stay for a few more days and leave on the 4th or 5th but I'm not sure yet. Anyway, you will be fine, take the 5 all the way, expect the traffic and just get there when you get there. Last time we went we just left home at 10 am or so and headed down..took it slow and got there around 5, it was pretty great.

 

[DTDkettleCORNfan]

Last year my sister left the Sacramento area at 4am and had the best drive ever. She said they hit zero traffic the entire ride. We left the same day around 9am (we usually like to get an earlier start, but had to drop off the dog at 8am) and had horrible traffic from Magic Mountain to our Harbor Blvd. hotel. Sigh. Worth it, of course, but next time we'll drop the dog off the day before and get an earlier start.

 

[07pilot4me]

somethin tells me that we will have a pretty hard time sleeping that night (well the adults anyways). so leaving before sunrise might not be out of the picture. the last 100 miles is what has us worried and we just have to constantly tell ourselves to "chill out" . i can already hear it now "are we there yet?" lol

 

[kissesbykim]

Fellow Sacramento family here! We usually take 5 down then hit the 210 East when we get to LA. From there, we take 57 South and exit at Ball Rd. It's not as direct but it seems less congested than 5. We almost always leave on a weekday though, Saturday traffic should be better.

We are going June 16-20! Have a great time!

 

[initiation]

Another vote for leaving as early as possible if you want to minimize drive time, no matter the day!

We're leaving from Lodi in three weeks for a Sunday-Tues trip and plan to leave around 1/2am sunday morning to make it around park opening (8am) and power through a full day. (We're two adults though)

Have fun and I wish you pleasant driving. I myself hate long drives, but when you're going to DL.. it all seems to not matter.

 

[07pilot4me]

one more week! one more week!

ok, haven't posted on the thread for a while, but may be possible that we leave on Friday . any optimal time on Friday to leave by (also memorial day weekend)?? or just stick with our early Saturday morning plan, We also might take Ca 99 since there are more towns on the way and we will be driving at night.

any feedback appreciated