California flights etc help

[Dinkydoos]

Hi there
Have got a bit carried away and seem to have changed a fairly low key trip to NYC area into a cAlifornian odyssey.....
I have a quote for 2 adults and 2 kids (10 and 8) school summer hols for:
Birmingham direct to New York ( staying there a week as have relatives with a summer house on an island)
Then fly direct to San Francisco a week later and then after another 15 nights fly back from Los Angeles to heathrow. The flights plus a SUV car for all the time is £4500. Does anyone know how that seems, I didn't think it was too awful seeing as the lowest New York return I could find was £650 each.... But would hate to overpay.
And anyone any itinerary ideas, hotel, places tips for california who have been recently, I know loads of you had a thread and we're going this year so any info about what worked or not would we great.
Rough plan is
San Fran 4 nights
Yosemite 3 nights
Monterey 2 nights
Big sur 1 night
Santa Barbara or somewhere 3
La 2 nights

Any advice appreciated ( especially as I told DP we would just have stick at going to my relatives place and have a relatively low key holiday!)

dingit thinking about traffic generally - the traffic around LA and SF (and other largish towns) is awful but also fairly predictable - two huge periods of congestion, morning from 7 to 9.30, afternoon from 3 to maybe 7.30. That tends to be on the major freeways, if you're doing a lot of your driving on the 1, you shouldn't have problems. But worth looking into ahead of time since you can work out what and when to avoid.

Oh well, dh can do a few laps of the m25 to practice.
Sadly we have to go in August due to the constraints of gcses.

Hello all again. How's planning going?
Has anyone been to evergreen lodge outside yosemite? Wondering if a better idea is to do 2 nights at curry village and then do 2 at evergreen as sounds like kids would like it so would be good for DS 10th birthday? Only thing is it's not in the valley so driving back in would be a pain... But would we need to? Then again, a family cabin is minimum 320 dollars, so for a couple of hundred more per night ( yes I know!) I could do the 2 nights at the awahnee which I have always wanted to do.....
Anyone any opinions

If you don't stay at the awhanee, at least try and go for lunch, it was highly
recommended to me.

Ok experienced road trippers. How do you cope with luggage? Sadly I was thinking about this in the middle of the night.
Do you haul all your suitcases into the hotel. Or do you split stuff up so you leave some in the car. Can't even remember what dh and I did when we went alone. The logistics of four of us is

I wouldn't want to leave anything in the car overnight. When OH and I went to California there were only two of us and we had one large suitcase each, plus a hand luggage bag and my handbag.

Just read the thread and making myself very excited.

We're planning a similar trip for the last two weeks of August next year. So far have booked dog sitter to house sit but nothing else yet!

Our plan is 15 nights, including a 3 night stopover in New York to visit friends, to include LA, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas. Have been to San Francisco, Alcatraz, Yosemite with dh so although the dc haven't, dh and I would rather cover new areas than revisit, so will stay towards the bottom bit of California.

We have to include theme parks (unfortunately for me!), even though we have done a Florida holiday before.

I'm planning to actually start booking things up in the following week so shall definitely be picking out some ideas from this thread. Thanks for the thread OP

Personally I would give Las Vegas a miss and do San Diego instead.

We left some stuff in the car. Vegas was the worst. Absolute mission from car to hotel room. Rest of it wasn't so bad.

I shall definitely start leaving dirty washing in the car. Even the bears won't want that!

Yosemite photo for you! Amazing!

And Grand Canyon!

I would give both the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas a miss particularly in August because of the high daytime temperatures.

Las Vegas is best in April time when its not unbearably hot.

Interesting a few people have said to give Las Vegas a miss. Hmm, might have to rethink that one. We'll definitely have to see the Grand Canyon though-it's the main reason I want to go to the States. Good to have the heat pointed out though, we'll have to factor that in.

The climate in San Diego is perfect at that time of year - not too hot and not too cold, plus there is lots to see and do.

Thanks, Bun, shall have a look at going there.

We are doing:

Fly in San Fran
3 nights San Fran
2 nights Yosemite
1 night ????
7 nights Santa Barbara
Fly out Santa Barbara

For our sixth night we are thinking we should drive from Groveland / Yosemite to either Carmel or Monterey. I've read on here that Carmel seems to be better rated. What do people suggest?

We have done the Laguna Beach/ Newport beach area in both 2011 and 2013 and so have covered LA/ Santa Monica/ San Diego already.

The rental accommodation we wanted in SB required us to take seven nights but we might be able to stay over somewhere really cheap if we head to LA for the day and don't want to rush back. (The seventh night worked out completely free at SB so while I don't like the idea of paying twice I probably will be able to cope with the idea of a very basic motel.)

We usually hire an suv because of all our crap luggage.

In la why not do the theme parks? That's what we did as kids when I went with my mum and dad, did the same with dh too. Disneyland is great and there's six flags for adrenaline junkies.

Santa Barbara is lovely and the zoo is very nice.

Yosemite is MASSIVE! Plane to spend a few days there.

San Francisco. You must do Alcatraz, book your tour tickets before you leave the UK.

San Diego is lovely. We did a Segway 2 hour session at Mission Beach boardwalk and that was an amazing highlight. Probably better than any theme park but mine are teenagers...

Check out deals at the Omni Hotel directly with the hotel esp if you have some keen sportsmen in your midst as it is next to the San Diego padres baseball team at Petco park. Also next to GasLamp District but be sure to get a high up room. We are staying at the Omni in San Fran because of our great experience with Omni in San Diego

Six Flags & Knotts Berry are alternatives to Disney. You can get fab deals on both if you look for online saver deals and print off coupons.

I'd say Disney = Waitrose; Six Flags= Asda and Knotts Berry = Aldi!

Would seriously recommend staying in Orange County/ Anaheim as it is central for everything So Cal.

The last time my husband and I were in San Francisco, we bought a CityPass, which covered all of our bus/trolly/cable car fares. Plus it includes a ticket to the Monterey Aquarium (which is far better than the Aquarium on the Bay, so if you're going to be in Monterey, I'd save the ticket for that one). You don't have to purchase it in advance - just buy it at a kiosk where you would normally buy a cable car ticket. www.citypass.com/san-francisco?creative=60764585309&adpos=1t1&mv_source=rkg&device=c&network=g&matchtype=e&gclid=CMno8_XH-sECFQVlfgodXXoApg

Just to resurrect this thread ( can you tell I'm excited), you ladies have given some wonderful tips.
Can I ask about shopping? Do you? And what's good to buy.mits some years since I've been to USA, and not with teens.
Hope you don't mind me using your thread Dinky.

What shops do you and your kids go to in the uk and we will try to work out the equivalent in US?

The drive from S to Santa Barbara is lovely so doubt book hotels, you'll get those arms you can instead stay in Othery lovely places one a night , such as San Lois obispo and morro bay!

Quiche, they are not really into any designers as such. Although ds would probably like to get trainers or vans, and dd has mentioned make up. I expect they will also come home with California emblazoned on something.

Mine have been twice in 2011, 2013 and now going in 2015.

What we tend to do as a family is to get our zip code of where we'll be and then in advance of leaving find the local shopping malls relatively close by via google etc. Then one of them works out which shops are going to be in the mall by finding the mall guide...

They like the Target supermarket as it's like tesco with much cooler stuff (including make up) Abercrombie & Fitch, Pac Sun, Brandy Melville, Nordstrum, Barnes & Noble, Gilly Hicks and the NIke Outlet. They also insisted once on going to a mall which had a Cheese Cake Factory so they could get dinner there...

Outlet malls are also favourites.

This time we have very few shorts and swim wear that are going to fit so I suspect we will be hitting the shops at the start. Two years on mine might be after different things.