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

[remfam5]

We just did our trip to DL and San Diego in November. We were actually very close to buying the city pass, then decided against it because we wanted a more "relaxed" trip. We felt like trying to get to all those places would be exhausting!

Our kids are 11/girl & 9/boy.
We had no idea that we would LOVE California adventure so much! The kids are getting older and little braver-- so those rides were tons of fun!

5 days at DL was probably one too many... could have done it all (and then some) in 4 days.
We left for San Diego and stayed 4 days. Loved the Paradise Point Resort! It's a little older but the grounds are BEAUTIFUL! It has a few pools, with the main one being the biggest.
We spent 1 1/2 days at Sea World-- took our time and saw all the shows too! Then we spent an afternoon touring the USS Midway aircraft carrier. Highly recommend this! The hubby and kids loved it! I enjoyed it too!
We were also able to spend time at Mission beach having fun on the beach.

So my suggestions: Make sure you really want to tackle all those different parks and plan accordingly and definitely stay in San Diego (if you decide to fly down... we rented a car at John Wayne and dropped in San Diego--no drop charge on Alamo).

Have a GREAT time!!

 

[Teki]

Ramada inn Maingate I think is the best located good neighbor, but they all have a trolley type system. you can used your DLR hotel as your base, but traffic between there and San Diego can be tough give your self plenty of time. The City pass is a pretty good deal if you plan to do all those parks.

 

[c&m]

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?

We used GAT for our July 2008 trip. It was a great deal for what we got. They also had a special promotion at that time where you'd get a $50 gas card from Chevron with a purchase of a DLR package (hotel+tickets). Also included in the deal were a couple of Disney pins, lanyards for the family, and a coupon book (coupons for 10% off Goofy's Kitchen, Storytellers Cafe, and discounts off the admission of SoCal attractions). All those freebies and coupons amounted to some big savings, so we went with them. For our March 2009 trip, I'm not seeing any special promotions.

We were very pleased with the service. We would definitely do business with them again if they had a special promotion. We won't be using them for our March 2009 because we found a better deal on the Hilton hotel website -- $105/night at the Hilton Garden Inn with free breakfast versus $103/night on the GAT website for room-only and no breakfast.