We had a 2 day ticket for Universal Hollywood because it was buy 1 get 1 free, had a fab day and did everything we needed, wasn't planning on going back but had a few hours spare the next day that we ended up going back and did our favourite rides again, especially Jurassic Park, this was about 5 pm on a week day last September and when we came off you could just go round and get on again as there was no queue, it was great! Never went to Disney. So much to do ( we were in LA for 4 days as part of a road trip from San Francisco to Laguna Beach).
Spent a day exploring eg walked up Hollywood Blvd, checked out the Chinese Theatre, drove along Sunset Blvd, drove around Beverly Hills and I got my pic taken in front of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel(from Pretty woman). Drove up to the Griffiths Observatory - this gives pretty good views of the Hollywood sign plus over LA itself.
Another day we did some pretty random stuff eg my DH is a big film fan so visited places from his favourite films, such as the street Marty McFlys house is in from Back to the Future, also visited a restaurant he had looked up from the show Man versus Food! If you are at all into films and TV shows then the studio tour at Universal is fan, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did!
Re driving our sat nav kept us right.
You aren't far from Crystal Cove State park, we spent a day there and it's lovely. Our boys loved the beach, the beach there is the main one used in the film Beaches, including the cottage the 2 characters stayed at. The cottage is still there, it's number 13 in a set of cottages the state park are renovating and it's part of a conservation programme, you can stay in some of them and they were in the process of turning cottage 13 into a Beaches museum when we were there.
I'm very jealous, I would love to go back. If you are interested I can pm you a link to my Facebook and you can look up my pictures!