Suggestions for drive to DL from (Oakland/SF Bay Area)

[foxykendra]

We are so excited - leaving in less than 2 weeks!

We'll be driving down from Oakland, with our two little kids (3 and 5). Does anyone have any tips/suggestions? Specifically, have you found good places to stop along the way? Was there anything that kept your kids happy/occupied for long stretches of time? Anything you did on the drive that you would *not* do again?

The drive is really the only part of our vacation that I am not looking forward to...so I am hoping that I can figure out some strategies to make it okay.

Thanks!!

 

[youmyflower]

Howdy, I'm here in the East Bay too. My biggest suggestion is just to make sure you don't hit 580 Livermore/Pleasanton at rush hour. What time of day are you going? We usually leave about 6 a.m. and then the kiddos sleep in the car until we stop for breakfast, 9-10 ish. We always stop in Bakersfield for lunch, but it's totally out of the way. Then we take 99 down the remainder of the way.

 

[PinkBudgie]

We live in the North Bay. When our boys were little they were very good car travelers. Much better than my sister and I were! We took them up and down the west coast.

There isn't anything of interest to small kids to stop at on the way, that I know of. But there are a lot of rest stops so take advantage of those. When our boys were little we would also stop for lunch in S. Cal, before arriving at our destination, at a fast food place with a playground. This got some of their energy out.

Activities for the car might be a movie on some sort of portable dvd player- wish we had those when my boys were little!
Paper and a few colored pencils. They won't leave marks like felt pens or melt like crayons.
Books.
Disney books.
Activity books.
Disney activity books.
Music and Disney music, of course.
If they were a little older I would recommend a hand held game system like a DS. Possibly the five year old might be able to do it. I believe DS has young child games.
The library has stories on CD you can check out. They might like some of those too.

Well, those are things we did when our boys were little.
Talk about things you see out the window.

 

[pixiewings71]

Ya, do NOT leave during rush hour! LOL Seriously, leave early or late but not during rush. We like to drive at night (we've done the drive from Berkley, that's where my other half works) and it was just as long as driving from home. LOL We stop in Love's, it's about halfway has good gas prices and places to eat. Fast food if you want to eat and drive and Denny's if you don't. We take coloring books, our Disney CD's and our van has a DVD player. If you don't have a portable one you might think about it for the trip, that thing is great for long trips. Take breaks when you need to and don't push it, yes, the drive sucks but it's worth it in the end!

 

[disneegrl4eva]

the only place that I can think of would be casa de fruita and I wouldnt use the bathroom there but the little store and stuff is nice

 

[LavenderPeach]

Much better than my sister and I were!

Hey, what is that supposed to mean? I think I traveled quite well, thank you.

Anyway...... there is a travel center (DH likes the travel center because they have some arcade machines there), gas stations and a bunch of eating places right before you go over the grapevine. Well, it's not really the grapevine anymore but that area where you go up over the mountain before heading into the LA area. It's been a few years since I've made the trek up and down the state so I'm not sure exactly what is there but we like to stop before we go up the mountain and get into all the LA mess. Sometimes we do stop on the other side of the mountain in Santa Clarita (around the magic mountain area) because there are lots of restaurants there.

I haven't traveled too far with DS3 yet so I can't help you with what to do in the car but I think DVDs might be the key to keeping one's sanity in this situation.

 

[Brenda in CA]

We live in Manteca (near Stockton) and drive to Disneyland. We also drive to Oregon to my dad's several times a year. That's about an 8-hour drive. My kids are 14, 11, 6, and almost 2. We leave around 4 or 5am, so that part of the time we are driving it's still dark and the kids usually sleep. We make sure to bring a few movies with us (I try to include at least one new one). The kids bring a few books to read, their iPods with music, and there are at least 2 Gameboys and a Leapster in the car with games. We stop at least 2-3 times. Everyone gets out to use the bathroom and stretch a little. We pack some snacks for the drive so we usually only have to stop once to eat an actual meal.

 

[pycees312]

we always leave between 2 am and 5 am latest.live in southbay. leaving by 5am means my kids will sleep until we hit Santa Maria( on highway 101) i hate 5...
we have breakfast and then only halfway to go. highway 101 has plenty of things to look at such as the ocean etc at that point. put's us getting to disney by 11am and in the parks by 12. we do this all the time. lol
if we decide to leave by 2am the kids sleep the whole way. we stop at dennys on harbour and in the parks by 10.make sure you provide pillows for them. we do bring the leapsters, game boy for my 5 year old and psp's for the twins

 

[usschmidt]

My girls are a little older but have been playing with their Leapsters since they were your kids' age. Also, we listen to books on tape from the library, watch movies, listen to Disneyland music, and sleep

Good luck! I'm sure everything will be fine.

 

[konagal]

Previous posters are right about rush hour traffic in the Bay area. However, you will be going out of the city, not into it.

You have basically two choices. I-5 and 101.

I-5 is mostly a boering drive through the central valley of CA, but is much faster than 101.

I-5: you would take the 580 east to I-5. This road is very congested on a weekday morning going into Oakland/San Francisco. However, you will be going out of the city.

I-5 south to the Grapevine, then over the pass into LA. There are not a lot of choices to stop, so if you see a grouping of gas stations, food joints, get off.
Kettleman City is one. Casa de Fruta is a nice stop but is located between 101 and I-5 and out of the way. Lynn, the bathrooms in the Casa de Wine building are good and clean and the sandwiches are excellent! CA 99 is another option, but really out of the way. If you want to travel CA 99, the closest it gets to I-5 is at Stockton. But actually Stockton is out of the way, and CA 99 "deadends" into I-5 anyway at the base of the Grapevine.

101 is a much longer drive and gets very conjested in many places and once you hit LA bacause you go straight through downtown. Probably a LA resident can offer better advice on how to avoid some of that! Parts of the 101 are beautiful. There are many places to stop.

Do you have any portable DVD players? Disney movies?

 

[PinkBudgie]

Hey, what is that supposed to mean? I think I traveled quite well, thank you.

All I had to do was look at you funny and you would start yelling.

We also always left no later than 6am.

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

My kids are much older now, but when they were 3 and 6, they kept pretty busy with a bunch of colorful pipe cleaners, bending them into all kinds of shapes. It made for some interesting car decorations!

Also, Andersen's Split Pea has good food and a nice little gift shop. Picking up a treat or new little play thing en route might be a nice bonus.

 

[LavenderPeach]

My kids are much older now, but when they were 3 and 6, they kept pretty busy with a bunch of colorful pipe cleaners, bending them into all kinds of shapes. It made for some interesting car decorations!

That's what I used to play with on long car trips! I had a lot of fun making various things with them.

 

[amyamya]

Also, Andersen's Split Pea has good food and a nice little gift shop. Picking up a treat or new little play thing en route might be a nice bonus.

Do they still have that huge barrel of cheese spread and bread? I remember stopping there and eating some of that in the gift shop!

We are doing this same trip with a 2 and a 4 year old in a couple of days. I did find some great Disney sticker books at Costco for $7.79 that have hundreds of stickers and activities with almost all the Disney characters. They are awesome.

We're coming from the Sac area so might take 99, if I can convince DH. He really wants to just get on 5 and not stop until Magic Mountain where we usually eat lunch...

 

[pycees312]

Previous posters are right about rush hour traffic in the Bay area. However, you will be going out of the city, not into it.

You have basically two choices. I-5 and 101.

I-5 is mostly a boering drive through the central valley of CA, but is much faster than 101.

I-5: you would take the 580 east to I-5. This road is very congested on a weekday morning going into Oakland/San Francisco. However, you will be going out of the city.

I-5 south to the Grapevine, then over the pass into LA. There are not a lot of choices to stop, so if you see a grouping of gas stations, food joints, get off.
Kettleman City is one. Casa de Fruta is a nice stop but is located between 101 and I-5 and out of the way. Lynn, the bathrooms in the Casa de Wine building are good and clean and the sandwiches are excellent! CA 99 is another option, but really out of the way. If you want to travel CA 99, the closest it gets to I-5 is at Stockton. But actually Stockton is out of the way, and CA 99 "deadends" into I-5 anyway at the base of the Grapevine.

101 is a much longer drive and gets very conjested in many places and once you hit LA bacause you go straight through downtown. Probably a LA resident can offer better advice on how to avoid some of that! Parts of the 101 are beautiful. There are many places to stop.

Do you have any portable DVD players? Disney movies?

From SJ there is only a 30 min difference between 101 and 5.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

I've taken 580 eastbound to I-5 south on many occasions during morning rush hour and never had any sort of traffic. Afternoon rush hour on 580 east is a different matter. What time to leave will depend on how much time you need at assorted pit stops. As a straight shot, I'd estimate Oakland at 5 1/2 to 6 hours, but that consists of one stop for gas consisting of 10 mintutes at most.

By myself, I can leave at 8:00am and arrive in Anaheim around 1:30-2:00pm. I just stop for gas once, snack in the car and eat lunch in Disneyland since I'm just in a hurry to get there. It's worth noting though that if you leave around 10:00am or later, you're going to hit L.A. rush hour and will hit traffic on the backside of the drive.

Make sure that you factor in gas stops, potty stops, food stops et all into when you want to arrive and depart accordingly.

 

[Leofoenget]

I live in San Jose area. bring a DVD or Video player. We like to leave later in the morning that way we hit LA after their rush hour. Or you could drive all night. I can't do that but I know many do.

 

[foxykendra]

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

We are planning to leave at 7:30 am on a Sunday, so I hope traffic won't be a problem.

We've got a DVD player and a couple of new movies plus some old favorites.

I've also been collecting little goodies and toys for the kids for the last few weeks so I can dole them out as necessary.

Sounds like 5 is the way to go - we want to get there as fast as possible. But it sounds like there is really no good place to stop on 5? Does anyone have any advice about that? Maybe just packing our own snacks/lunch?

I hope the drive does not take longer than 7 hours...ugh, what do you all think?

 

[usschmidt]

We've done the drive 3 times now and it takes us 7 hrs each way (home is Cupertino). Someone always needs to get out of the car, take bathroom breaks, etc.

 

[dismom73]

The last time we drove down we left at 5am. We just took the kids from bed, still in thier pj's and put them in the car, so they slept for a couple of hours. Make sure you have enough gas once you hit the grapevine, because there is nowhere to get gas until you get over it and the last gas station before you start going up charges a lot more than the ones that are a few exits before it. If you do the car paint on your windows with something like "Disneyland or bust" or "We're going to Disneyland" the kids will enjoy the attention they get from people driving by honking and waving. We always try to stop at a McDonalds (or similar) that has the play area and let them run around and play for 20-30 minutes. The first time we drove down with kids, my DH thought we could make it with just one stop, gas and lunch at the same time. Well, that plan doesn't go over so well with small children. Plan on stopping at least 2-3 times for potty breaks. And pack plenty of snacks in the car because you will hear the words "I"m hungry" a few times.