Exciting family holiday to California next year - please would you look at our itinerary and tell me if it sounds like it'll work?!

[notquitesureagain]

So yes, 2-week family holiday. Our first big family trip together and we won't have the opportunity to repeat it so we're keen to get it right. DH has mostly drawn up the itinerary so far but I'm just a bit concerned that because we've never travelled in the US before we might be missing something. DC will be 5 and 7, we're planning to do the second half of the trip (from San Diego onwards) in a camper van. Any recommendations, considerations, comments gratefully received. Thanks v much indeed

Sat: Universal Studio Tour
Sun: Santa Barbara (whale watching)
Mon: Disney
Tue: Huntingdon beach
Wed: Disney Adventure Park
Thurs: beach day
Fri: San Diego Seaworld
Sat: pick up camper van, Palm Springs
Sun: Death Valley National Park
Mon: Las Vegas
Tues: Grand Canyon
Weds: Las Vegas
Thurs: Mojave National Park 1 day
Fri: Joshua Tree national park 1 day
Sat: Disneyland then fly home

Hi all, thank you so much for the suggestions. I haven't disappeared, just had a hectic day or so and will sit down over the next couple of days and process all this. It is really, really useful to have your tips. Much appreciated.

There's a train service along the coast to San Diego too that might be fun - although I'm not exactly sure where it stops in San Diego in relation to the Zoo, Sea World and the other attractions

You can get a cab quite easily/cheaply to the zoo from the Amtrak station, or to the USS Midway, as they are both quite close to downtown. Sea World is far from downtown though. But as others have said, the zoo is far superior!

We were in California this summer and drove from LA to Santa Barbara. It's a long way and certainly too far for a day trip. I also didn't see any whale watching trips from Santa Barbara and don't think it's the time of year for it.

I second those who have said PLEASE don't go to Seaworld - just google why.

I would ditch Vegas. I've been and we had great fun but we had no children at that time.

Vegas is a city of exploitation - no way I would take my children there - last time I was there for work I looked at it as if I had my children with me - buses drive by with pictures of naked women and slogans of "call xxxx for a good time" and more explicit things - women in the restaurants and casinos have uniforms that would be more appropriate in a s&m venue, people are drunk and throwing up in the street ... I decided the place is really only for adults

I just read that California has an area of 3 million sq miles - compared with the UK, which is just under 100,000. It's 800 miles north to south (around 15 hours' driving, no jams)

San Diego to Death Valley is around 5.5 hours driving. Death Valley, whatever the time of year is HOT. I was there in the middle of November and it was in the 90s. Apologies if I've mis-read your itinerary, but it looks as though, with those timings, you're going to arrive at the Grand Canyon, look over the edge, and then get back in the car to Vegas. It is so immensely awesome, you really want a bit of time there.

We 'did' California two summers ago. It was fabulous. I pruned the driving and spread it out as much as possible but even then, there was a lot of time in the car. What I'd forgotten to factor in was that once you arrive at the various National Parks, you're still driving. Yosemite alone is the size of Derbyshire! LA is made up of over 80 cities merged into one. LA County is around the same area as the whole of London and the SouthEast of England as well.

It's a fantastic place to visit, but plan the road bit carefully. Am

DH and I did a similar trip for our honeymoon but over 3 weeks. It involved a lot of driving which I wouldn't be prepared to do with my DCs now.

Agree with PPs to ditch Vegas as its all very adult oriented with casinos, gambling and prostitution.

Our favourite place was Yosemite, closely followed by Sequoia for the huge trees - all stunning and much more appropriate for a family trip.

I quite liked Death Valley but we went in April so whilst hot, it wasn't as searing as later in the summer. Not sure your children are old enough to find it as interesting though

Also loved the Grand Canyon which we flew across/around on a helicopter - fantastic and definitely worth the money.

Very jealous, it's one trip I would love to do again.

I had no problem taking my DD, then 8y, to Vegas. DD loved it and we had a great time. We went for a wedding so we were there a week. We were on the strip and didn't venture off other than a limo trip to a shopping mall once. We saw the fountains, the flamingos, aquarium, the small theme park style rides, etc and we did a ot of eating out and using the pools. It was incredibly easy to avoid anything too dodgy and other than some blokes trying to hand out cards on the bridges to passerbys we saw nothing more about that. Didn't see anyone overtly drunk or being sick, or anything of that ilk.

Sounds like a great trip, but far too much to pack in to two weeks.would work if you had three. Oh and like others have said Don't go to Seaworld OP.

You can kill two birds with one stone and do whale watching in San Diego/en route so that cuts out having to drive north to Santa Barbara

Looks like a fantastic trip but was others said a lot to pack into 2 weeks. We went for 3 weeks a couple of years ago and did some of the same things but did allow more downtime. We started in San Fran and then flew to San Diego and made our way back to LA. We did Sea World and San Diego Zoo, loved both but if I had to choose just one I'd choose the Zoo as it was fantastic. We did a couple of days at Disney staying in Anaheim so avoided the LA traffic to get there.

We found the driving from San Diego was fine until we hit LA and it seemed to almost come to a standstill and this continued while we were there, huge amount of traffic!

Our DS was 10 when we went and I don't think I'd have wanted to do much more driving then we did.

Even if you can overcome the ethics (blackfish anyone?) Seaworld is still pretty crappy and shabby. Agree the Zoo is a better stop.
Suppose it depends on your DC but in our experience of us road trips it is much better to stop 2-3 nights in a place than travelling 100s of miles every day. I assume Grand Canyon is a heli trip from Vegas and not driving both ways?
Also depends how outdoorsy etc your kids are but mine lose patience pretty swiftly with too much sightseeing/national parks etc. as much as we love them, we find the coast, kid-friendly attractions and the odd sightseeing stop works better. Also a shame to miss San francisco, Alcatraz and Monterey etc. we really enjoyed that part of our trip (admittedly we had much more time).

I live in LA and do my best not to touch the freeways between 7-10am and 3-8pm. Just to give you an insight into the traffic situation