Where should we stay?

[AnnaLadner]

We are suprising the kids with a trip to Los Angeles this summer. The 12 yo wants to explore all over but the 6 yo and the 11 yo have been BEGGING to go to Disneyland and Universal Hollywood. We are planning on surprising them with a day at each park (I know it isn't enough but we'll be on a time crunch.) I have NEVER been to DL and the only time I have even been to California I stayed in Hermosa.
What are some good neighborhoods to look into for airbnb or other options for a family of 5 that will also allow us to explore more than just the area around the parks?

Thank you guys in advance, this forum is new to me but I've been Disney World obsessed for many years and can't wait to learn even more.

 

[JerrodDragon89]

Never done a airbnb in LA (local) so I'll let others speak on that

But just an FYI USH is about an hour to almost 2 hours from DIsneyland depending on traffic.

Disneyland is more then enough for one day but if you want to check DCA it's also has a lot of unique attractions and WOC is an amazing nightitme show.

USH also offers a pass where you can get into Super Nintendo World an hour early and are 25 bucks but very much worth it because if you get those done and the lower lot rides right after park opening you will still see low wait times for most rides in the upper section of USH.

 

[mdmost]

Yeah, the distance to both parks is pretty large and traffic will never be easy. Are you staying anywhere else around LA or is this just a fly in to do the 2 park days and leave? If it's the latter then I would do a night at a Harbor Blvd hotel and a night at either the Sheraton or Hilton in Universal City.

If it's the former, I would suggest a split stay. Look in Orange County for something to keep you close to Disneyland. Newport Beach would be another good area for beaches. I think Pasadena is a great option around Universal Studios or Santa Monica to get you close to the beaches there.

 

[AnnaLadner]

Never done a airbnb in LA (local) so I'll let others speak on that

But just an FYI USH is about an hour to almost 2 hours from DIsneyland depending on traffic.

Disneyland is more then enough for one day but if you want to check DCA it's also has a lot of unique attractions and WOC is an amazing nightitme show.

USH also offers a pass where you can get into Super Nintendo World an hour early and are 25 bucks but very much worth it because if you get those done and the lower lot rides right after park opening you will still see low wait times for most rides in the upper section of USH.

I didn't even think about DCA, I am realizing that DCA has the Cars Land which is the main reason the kids want to visit. Is this something we could do using a park hopper in one day or should we devote a separate day to each park?

 

[AnnaLadner]

Yeah, the distance to both parks is pretty large and traffic will never be easy. Are you staying anywhere else around LA or is this just a fly in to do the 2 park days and leave? If it's the latter then I would do a night at a Harbor Blvd hotel and a night at either the Sheraton or Hilton in Universal City.

If it's the former, I would suggest a split stay. Look in Orange County for something to keep you close to Disneyland. Newport Beach would be another good area for beaches. I think Pasadena is a great option around Universal Studios or Santa Monica to get you close to the beaches there.

We are wanting to explore LA a little as well as each park so I think a split stay is probably the best option. I'm from New Orleans so I wasn't even considering the traffic situation in the mix. I am beginning to think I have a LOT more planning to do!

 

[JerrodDragon89]

I didn't even think about DCA, I am realizing that DCA has the Cars Land which is the main reason the kids want to visit. Is this something we could do using a park hopper in one day or should we devote a separate day to each park?

If you have time 2 days but if you can't then you could get a park hopper (the parks are within maybe 500 feet from one another unlike WDW)

If you get to the land when it opens normally in the summer its about an hour+ wait, its the ride that most people go to at the start

If you have extra money for it you can also buy Lightening Lanes and get on in a few minutes.

Flo's V8 Cafe is a fun place to eat and the land is really cool at night with all the Neon signs.

 

[mdmost]

We are wanting to explore LA a little as well as each park so I think a split stay is probably the best option. I'm from New Orleans so I wasn't even considering the traffic situation in the mix. I am beginning to think I have a LOT more planning to do!

LA traffic can be amazingly heavy, especially when you want to get somewhere.

We did a similar trip on our first time to DLR. We stayed at the Howard Johnson on Harbor Blvd for our entire trip and did 3 and a half park days. In the middle, we did a beach day in Santa Monica combined with going to Griffith Observatory. We then spent the other part of our half day at Huntington Beach as the kids wanted to go back to the beach again. It was a great trip.

I would recommend doing a bit of bookending of your park days. Do one early and the other late. That way you're not trying to criss-cross LA back and forth. If you're flying into LAX, I would stay up that way and do all the things around there like Hollywood, Santa Monica, Universal Hollywood, etc. Then head south and do your Disneyland day and anything that you wanted to accomplish around the area.

What are some of the things you want to see and do? Trip planning is something I really enjoy helping people with so if you want any advice, this is a great place for it.

 

[AnnaLadner]

If you have time 2 days but if you can't then you could get a park hopper (the parks are within maybe 500 feet from one another unlike WDW)

If you get to the land when it opens normally in the summer its about an hour+ wait, its the ride that most people go to at the start

If you have extra money for it you can also buy Lightening Lanes and get on in a few minutes.

Flo's V8 Cafe is a fun place to eat and the land is really cool at night with all the Neon signs.

This is so helpful, thank you!!!

 

[AnnaLadner]

LA traffic can be amazingly heavy, especially when you want to get somewhere.

We did a similar trip on our first time to DLR. We stayed at the Howard Johnson on Harbor Blvd for our entire trip and did 3 and a half park days. In the middle, we did a beach day in Santa Monica combined with going to Griffith Observatory. We then spent the other part of our half day at Huntington Beach as the kids wanted to go back to the beach again. It was a great trip.

I would recommend doing a bit of bookending of your park days. Do one early and the other late. That way you're not trying to criss-cross LA back and forth. If you're flying into LAX, I would stay up that way and do all the things around there like Hollywood, Santa Monica, Universal Hollywood, etc. Then head south and do your Disneyland day and anything that you wanted to accomplish around the area.

What are some of the things you want to see and do? Trip planning is something I really enjoy helping people with so if you want any advice, this is a great place for it.

At this point I am not 100% sure yet. I have gotten as far as flying in to LAX and wanting to do a day at UH and DL. After that, I have absolutely NO clue. We travel a lot but I'm intimidated by LA and NY because there are just so many things to choose from!

 

[mdmost]

Here's some suggestions:
Northern and Coastal LA: Santa Monica Pier, drive up the PCH to Malibu and specifically go up to Pepperdine University as that's a great view of the area. Have In and Out Burger. There's also the Getty Museum but I'm not sure how much kids that age would be into it.

Central LA: Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Warner Bros Studio Tour, Universal Hollywood, Griffith Park (has the original bench Walt Disney sat on and dreamt up Disneyland), Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory. I recommend Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for breakfast. Dodger Stadium if your kids are into baseball. There's lots of museums on the USC campus such as the California Science Center, La Brea Tar Pits.

Southern LA: Disneyland, Long Beach (Queen Mary, Korean Bell of Friend), Anaheim Stadium if they're into baseball. There's also a kids museum around there but I've never visited.

 

[DLgal]

Ok, so first of all, LA is HUGE. You are really going to have to sit down and plan a LOT more than you have so far. Make a list of the things you want to see/do. LAX is about 45 minutes away from USH and USH is an hour+ from Disneyland. Disneyland is about an hour+ from LAX. Don't be fooled by the distances in miles. Here, we discuss distance in terms of time to get between 2 places.

Disneyland is not in LA. It's in Orange County. Plan 2 days there if Carsland is a priority. You can't only go to DCA and skip Disneyland. You can get park hoppers, but both parks are full day parks at this point (for first timers).

USH is a one day park. I recommend staying nearby so you can walk over. Pick the Hilton Universal City as your home base for any LA/Hollywood related stuff. Its a good central location.

I'd move to Anaheim for the Disney portion.

I'd start the trip with Disneyland if you are flying via LAX. It is much easier to get back to LAX for your return flight from an LA area hotel, rather than dealing with traffic from Anaheim.

If you want to see Beaches, do that in Orange County also. LA beaches are meh.

I would personally not recommend Air BnB in this area. It's illegal in a lot of places so some may be shady listings. There are also a lot of scams here with listings that are not real. The better (safer) neighborhoods typically don't allow short term rentals. You can easily end up in a very sketchy area, and with kids that would be a huge issue for me. You have to really know the neighborhoods here.

 

[SG131]

I second what DLgal said. You really should try to get one day in DL and another in DCA. As far as LA, we were able to do the tar pits, the chinese theater/walk of fame, and Griffith Observatory all in one day in LA and didn't feel rushed, but we spent a lot of time in the car. Even though those things were only a few miles apart traffic was brutal. Any days devoted to sightseeing will mean hours in the car even if you think you're sticking to sights that seem close together. I wanted to do a day at Universal, but it would have taking 1-2 hours each way from our hotel in Anaheim, so we skipped it. It definitely makes sense to do a split stay based on your interests.

 

[AustinTink]

I third all the suggestions from DLgal. You will definitely need more time for DLR and California Adventure than for Universal.

You can do a full Orange County beach day and hop from beach to beach along the PCH. We did that on one of our first trips and loved it.

And if you’re driving south you might as well go to Carlsbad and go to Legoland. Your 12 year old might be on the edge of too old, but they can take one for the team.

And if you’re in Carlsbad, you might a well drive on down to San Diego… see where I’m going here? There is a Southern California City pass that includes Disney, Universal, Legoland and the San Diego Zoo that would be worth looking into.

 

[DisneylandFan22]

You can definitely do Universal in a day and feel satisfied, but spending only one day at the Disneyland Resort might make you feel like you are missing out and it is not enough time, especially if Carsland is a priority.

 

[bcla]

I didn't even think about DCA, I am realizing that DCA has the Cars Land which is the main reason the kids want to visit. Is this something we could do using a park hopper in one day or should we devote a separate day to each park?

My family has done both. We had park hoppers most visits, but one visit it was just two days where I saved a bit with one park per day where we did DCA first then Disneyland Park. Park hopping is nice sometimes, especially since DCA always almost always closes early (although it didn't on New Year's Eve one year for the countdown) and the last couple of hours at Disneyland can be surprisingly efficient. Once we actually got in after 10 PM (long story) and ended up just the kid and me tried to make the most of those two hours. There were almost no lines and I think we managed to do Dumbo, teacups, It's a Small World, Pirates, and finally got in line for Peter Pan before closing at midnight. The latter was where we got in line five minutes before closing and that did have a rather long-ish line and where the ride was reset and cycled without riders, where we didn't board until maybe 12:40.

One of my more interesting visits was in 2003 when I was actually in town for another reason, but my cousin and his family were also in town and asked if I wanted to join them. We were staying with my other cousin living in OC and she and her husband had resident annual passes that allowed them to pay for a discounted "blockout" ticket, but where the next day was included with their pass. But we went to a ticket window and asked what kind of discounts they could do. The best was as a guest of a Southern California resident they could sell me a ticket for the price of single day admission that could be used to access DCA and DL for one day each. They could be the same day (effectively a single day park hopper) but could also be used on separate days.

But yeah - park hoppers are nice. Sometimes it gets gets a bit boring and then there's another place to visit. And these days DCA is really nice with all those new rides and Avengers Campus.