Yep, I'm a Disneyland dummy! ;o)

[lisalonglash]

We have changed our plans from WDW to DLR (mostly because we can easily drive there from Vancouver, BC). While I'm sad about not going to Florida again, I'm looking forward to our California vacation!

First some info:

~ We are 2 adults and 2 children (will be ages 10yo and 7yo at time of trip)

~ We're looking at something like Jun 15-21, 2009 for the Anaheim portion of our trip

~ We would like to take advantage of the birthday celebration deal, so June 19 needs to be one of our park days.

Now the questions LOL:

~ Which GOOD NEIGHBOUR hotel(s) are the closest to Disneyland (really would prefer within walking distance) and the cheapest for our family of 4? We will need secure parking and really would like to have a hot tub at the hotel

~ Is the City Pass a good deal? We are planning to visit Disneyland, Legoland, San Diego Zoo and Universal Hollywood while we're there

~ Should we just use the hotel at Disneyland as our base and visit San Diego, etc. from there or should we move to a San Diego hotel for a couple of days for the San Diego stuff?

~ What else should I be looking into for this part of our trip?

Thank you for your help - I love how the DIS members help each other

 

[Disney Dreams]

~ Should we just use the hotel at Disneyland as our base and visit San Diego, etc. from there or should we move to a San Diego hotel for a couple of days for the San Diego stuff?

Yay for a Disneyland trip. Let me try to help with this question. How many days are you planning on spending doing SD things?

If you are just going to go to SD for 1 day, you could just use Anaheim as your base. If you are planning on being there longer, the drive could get old very fast. It is about an hour and a half drive with no traffic. To maximize your SD excursion, you would need to get a very early start if driving.

If you were just 2 adults (i.e. easy to relocate mid-vacation), I would say book a place in SD and enjoy - it's a wonderful place. With kids, I don't know if re-locating gets to be a hassle (I am kid-less).

Also, you didn't ask about this, but.... I would look into the Wild Animal Park as opposed to the Zoo. The Zoo is incredible and great to visit. We think the WAP is one step better.

- Dreams

 

[disney-inspired]

Yes I definitely think the city pass is worth it!

that's all I can really help you with, sorry!

 

[disney-super-mom]

I think your kids would like staying at the Howard Johnson more than the other Good Neighbor hotels because it has the new "Castaway Cove" water play area (there's a hot tub in Castaway Cove as well for the parents ). June will be plenty warm enough for playing in the water or swimming. It's about an 8-10 minute walk to/from the front gates of the parks. It's not as close as other hotels across from Disneyland, but it's probably the nicest (and it's certainly within walking distance). We stay here quite often.

Another hotel that many here recommend is the Candy Cane Inn. They have their own private shuttle that runs to/from the parks every 30 minutes, continental breakfast, and a cute pool and hot tub area. It's also about a 8-10 minute walk to/from the parks.


If you're planning more than one day in the San Diego area, I would make hotel reservations there as well. The drive is a bit long from Anaheim.

 

[bumbershoot]

The SD trip is long and boring. And fast and scary if you're not used to driving in southern CA. If you'll be there more than one day, move hotels.


Here is a map. The place you'd enter if you stay on Harbor is the little yellow lines to the right of Entrance Plaza.


In terms of walking, the HoJo parking lot is maybe 10 minutes away from those little yellow lines, especially if you cross Harbor at Manchester, and walk down Harbor on the park-side of the street. Less frustrating, too, without other pedestrians to get in your way.

So don't let the apparent far-away-ness of it fool you...hojo is very much easy walking distance. If you check out hojoanaheim.com and look at their discussion boards, you can find info on their rates during your trip, and if you are going during a time with the very special Entertainment Book rate. And if that rate is offered during your dates, you can find the info on how to get the book, etc.

But if you truly want THE closest, you can see those on the maps and check out their costs!


To see if the City pass is good for you, check out their website and see how much it would be "a la carte". Legoland is not included in that pass. Doing the citypass is probably best b/c it gets you what you've mentioned (plus seaworld), minus legoland, but obviusly you can buy legoland separately.

But just to make sure, and just in case there are other things you want to do that you didn't mention, there's also the Go! card that does include Legoland, the zoo, the wild animal park, and many other things that you might want to do but didn't mention.

Looking around there I notice that they say legoland is 59.95 for an adult, and a one-day card is 59.99, but the go card includes "a savings of $6.95 for adult and $3.45 for child at the new Sea Life Aquarium", so if that's important to you you might want to check it out.

I've never used that card, by the way, but it intrigues me.

 

[kiwitravel]

If you can get HoJos at the entertainment rate then its good value and a great place to stay, if you can't then we would stay closer especially with a 7yo who's feet may be tired at the end of the day. We have stayed at Tropicanna and it has a good pool and hot tub, tends to be a little cheaper than Hojos (Ent rate excepted) and all rooms have fridge and Microwave (not all Hojos rooms have microwave). It is 5 minutes closer to DL which is a significant difference with younger kids. Includes a free breakfast but its not too flash, we used to stock up on the pastries and fruit for lunch and just have the coffee and juice with our own cereals.

Have also stayed at the Carousel next door, we liked it better but it had no hot tub and only a small pool. We are considering Camelot as well for our next trip, have heard good things about it...

 

[lisalonglash]

Thank you all so much for your input! You've given me some fantastic information

Keep telling me stuff - I need to know everything

 

[c&m]

We've driven from BC to SoCal before. It is a very long drive. I have noticed low fares flying out of Seatac to LAX (I'm seeing $59 each way during BC schools' spring break).

With all the attractions in San Diego, you may want to stay there. I used Priceline.com to get the new Sheraton Carlsbad Resort and Spa for $125 per night. This hotel has its own entrance into Legoland. This hotel is also a 5 minute drive to the Carlsbad premium outlets (good shopping!!!). We also really enjoyed taking the kids to Old Town and to Moonlight Beach in Encinitas.

Also, do you collect Airmiles? If you have a substantial number of points, you can get DL passes, Legoland passes, or the SoCal City Passes.

Have fun planning!

 

[trish4bruce]

I saw your post on the Canadian board. We went to San Diego for our honeymoon in July of 2007. We loved San Diego what a beautiful city. We went to the SD Zoo it was awesome just be prepared for a lot of walking up and down hills at the zoo. Another touristy activity we did was take a trolly bus and this was a excellent way to see all the tourist spots. You are able to get on and off at diffrent stops throughout the day. It went to a lot of great places. We left San Diego and drove to Anaheim so we could go to DL. I would reccommend that if you are going to San Diego you stay in a hotel. As someone already said it is a long drive and although distance wise it should only be about 2 hrs traffic made it much longer. In Annaheim we stayed at the Candy Cane Inn and would reccomend it for sure. Having the dedicated bus was excellent and made it convient to go back and forth fro mthe park to the resort. The rooms were also very nice.

 

[donkthemagicllama]

I seem to be in the minority around here, but I've stayed at the Carousel and Camelot hotels, which are right across the street, about as close as you can get, and had great experiences at both.

Camelot even has a rooftop pool and hottub you can watch the fireworks from. Granted, it's nothing like the cool pool area at HoJo, but I'd stay at Camelot before HoJo...

 

[disneychrista]

You have many many choices for hotels within walking distance. The closest hotel would be the Best Western Park Place, which is literally directly accross AT the crosswalk. But any of the hotels on Harbor are walking distance. The HoJo is actually the farthest walk of the Harbor Hotels.

 

[lisalonglash]

Wow! Thank you all so much for your advice/suggestions! I have a lot to think about now while I plan this trip

 

[nhanifan]

I would stay in SD if I were you. If you have a Costco membership look into getting the Legoland tickets there and the 3 for 1 pass this includes Sea World, Zoo, and Wild Animal. You do get many advantages with the 3 for 1 pass like we did not have to pay for somethings at WAP like the tram tour that alone would have cost us about $28 and that card lets you go back to any of the 3 parks as much as you want within a certain amount of time so that was nice.

 

[WeLoveTheMouse]

We just spent Wed and Thurs at DL and stayed at HOJO. We are WDW vets and this was our first trip to DL. First, let me say...we loved it!!!! We miss a few of our favorite rides. When people talk about the walk back to the hotels, it is nothing. We stayed at HOJO which is the longest walk and it was shorter than the walk from a WDW value hotel room to the bus stop. It is nice to be able to walk back and forth between the parks and the parks seem more compacted. The atmosphere is so much more relaxed too. It seems so different but we love both.

 

[mesnowwhite]

Yes change hotels if you are going to be in San Diego for more than 1 day. There's more stuff to do in San Diego than in Anaheim (other than Disneyland) IMHO. The Zoo and the Balboa Park area will take up one day in themselves, and Legoland is another all-day event. You should also go to the beach in San Diego area (any of the beaches are great, you might enjoy Mission Beach which has an old-style wooden rollarcoaster right on the boardwalk, or La Jolla Shores which has a playground area near the beach.

 

[BC Disney Lover]

I think that the Citypass was a great deal for our family. We also went to Legoland. We didn't schedule any rest days so we were so tired by the end I was glad we flew down rather than drive. We stayed in San Diego for 2 days, packed up our rental van went to Legoland, then continued to Disneyland.

We also travel from the lower mainland and have driven once and flown twice out of Seattle. I don't think we'll drive again for awhile. Our next trip I'm looking at flying with Alligent because they are out of Bellingham and very reasonably priced.

We have stayed at Hojo, Camelot and Carousel. We loved the price at Hojo and didn't mind the walk. We loved the space at Camelot because we had 2 adults, 2 teens and 3 kids in one room that trip. The carousel was alright, but I'd stay at Hojo's over it.

Hope you have a great trip!

 

[lisalonglash]

Yet more wonderful advice! Thanks all!

I was looking at a site recommended by a few DISers - www.getawaytoday.com and found some great deals for DLR packages. Has anyone here used that site to book DLR (or wherever) packages?

 

[Hound 109]

We have changed our plans from WDW to DLR (mostly because we can easily drive there from Vancouver, BC). While I'm sad about not going to Florida again, I'm looking forward to our California vacation!

First some info:

~ We are 2 adults and 2 children (will be ages 10yo and 7yo at time of trip)

~ We're looking at something like Jun 15-21, 2009 for the Anaheim portion of our trip

~ We would like to take advantage of the birthday celebration deal, so June 19 needs to be one of our park days.

Now the questions LOL:

~ Which GOOD NEIGHBOUR hotel(s) are the closest to Disneyland (really would prefer within walking distance) and the cheapest for our family of 4? We will need secure parking and really would like to have a hot tub at the hotel

~ Is the City Pass a good deal? We are planning to visit Disneyland, Legoland, San Diego Zoo and Universal Hollywood while we're there

~ Should we just use the hotel at Disneyland as our base and visit San Diego, etc. from there or should we move to a San Diego hotel for a couple of days for the San Diego stuff?

~ What else should I be looking into for this part of our trip?

Thank you for your help - I love how the DIS members help each other

I agree that spending a couple of nights in SD would be preferrable to schlepping back & forth from Anaheim.

Since you are WDW vets, you might want to review this thread...it's the primer:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1162599


& you should review the rest of HG's threads as well:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1520483


& looking at your DS's character....he might enjoy this:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1478699


Several good hotel options mentioned by others above (all on Harbor Blvd)....most importantly (imo) stay at a Harbor Hotel that is recommended by folks HERE & that is within walking distance. Don't always believe the hotel websites (regarding quality & walking distance)....best to stick with the opinions found here.

Have a great time planning a visit to Walt's Park.

 

[BC Disney Lover]

I was going to buy our passes through getawaytoday.com but then decided to look into prices here instead. I found a great deal at flight center without buying a package, it was a lot cheaper considering the exchange rate.

 

[Brady's Mom]

Yet more wonderful advice! Thanks all!

I was looking at a site recommended by a few DISers - www.getawaytoday.com and found some great deals for DLR packages. Has anyone here used that site to book DLR (or wherever) packages?

I have used getawaytoday before and had very good success with them. They are very customer oriented and answered any questions that I had. However, I found that I did better money-wise when I followed the advise here and booked my stuff separately. I got a better rate at HoJo by calling them (and using the ent. card), booked tickets separately and car rental, etc. I did use GAT for park tickets in Dec. because they came with 2 MM's and that was a bonus, but now they don't offer that anymore - so I would probably buy my tickets off of Disneylands website since you can print them out at home and bring them to the entrance gate instead of the ticket booths. Saves a big step, imo.