Help! California - Disneyland and Universal Studios in just two days

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Help! DH and I are planning a massive road trip with the DC in August. Flying in and out of San Francisco, visiting Vegas and lots of the national parks, lots of driving about.

As part of the itinerary, I’ve got two full days set aside to take the DC to Disney/Universal and I really need some advice please. We’ve booked the hotels/motels and it would be a right pain to move things so it’s not really an option.

I need your advice please on how to do this. DH doesn’t like theme parks but I love them, as do the DC. DS15 and loves thrill rides, Star Wars, Marvel. DD11 loves SW, Marvel, Harry Potter. She says she doesn’t like really big rides but I’m sure she will go on some/many of them if I’m with her. I know they will both love things like haunted mansion, PotC etc. I will love it all!

The day before the planned theme park days, we are driving down from Santa Maria along the coastal highway and I’ve booked a hotel in Anaheim but I can’t imagine we will be able to add that on for extra time at Universal or Disney. I booked the hotel to be near to Disney but didn’t realise that universal studios is the other side of LA which is a pain.

Given we only have two days, I’m happy to pay extra for queue jump tickets which I think is the Genie+ thing for Disney but not sure if universal has one? DH will drive us there and back. We stay at Anaheim for the evening of the second theme park day before heading back on the road the next morning.

Please please can you give me good practical advice! If you can tell me what you’d do in my situation, what I need to know, an itinerary I’d be so grateful. Obviously I haven’t booked any tickets yet.

Thank you in advance!!

Buy the Express pass for Universal and make sure you leave extremely early in the morning to head over to Universal City .
The road there from Anaheim is chronic with LA traffic and you’ll arrive frazzled and be rushing to get to line drop if you don’t .
If you head over there and have breakfast at the bottom of the hill , you can go in at rope drop .

Also buy the Disney equivalent passes and again arrive early for rope drop .
Plan your park route “ plan of attack “ ( both park layouts are on line )

As you enter in the morning head straight to the more popular rides ( we ran ! )

Throughout the day .. when not using the upgrade passes .. look to the single rider queues and go on the rides via that entrance .
We easily get at least 2 turns in each of our favourite rides doing this .

Have fun 🤩!!

Thanks so much @babbi! What's rope drop? Is it just as the park opens or the individual rides? We can definitely run 😅

And would you do Universal the first day and Disney the second? If it makes a difference it will be a Sunday and Monday.

Rope drop is just the front gates opening but the staff do it very flamboyantly for effect !

Do the Universal studios on the Sunday as you’ll drive through much less traffic than on the Monday . It’s a big bonus that way .

Also Disneyland, especially the Magic Kingdom will be quieter on a Monday as the junior guests (US people who live at a drivable distance ) will be at school On the Monday and the park will be more inhabited by real tourists .
it’s generally a quieter day .
(I’ve assumed you are travelling soon , not during the US school break )

Santa Maria to Universal city is around 150 miles. It’s another 45 miles or so on from there to Anaheim.

I would go to Universal studios initially and stay in that general area then travel further south to Anaheim early on the second day.

Magic kingdom is located in Florida. There are 2 separate Disney Parks in Anaheim - Disneyland and California Adventure. Those parks will be quieter on weekdays, weekends will be very busy indeed.

Universal: You can buy early entry to Super Nintendo World and you get into the land an hour early. It’ll be a very early start if you’re driving over but at least the traffic will be better. You can also pay extra for parking right at the entrance which is great after a long day. If you want to ride everything you’ll need the express pass but it’s expensive, I think we paid 170 each maybe - there’s not that many rides in California but the studio tour takes at least an hour if that’s in your plans. If the kids love HP, you can eat lunch in the Three Broomsticks.

One day at Disney is tough.. maybe a park hopper if you want to experience both parks with Genie+ and buy Individual Lightening Lanes for Cars and Rise of the Resistance (Star Wars) - they are not included in Genie+ but can be bought separately.

There aren’t a ton of thrill rides, I can only think of the Mummy in Universal. Incredicoaster in Disney California Adventure is the only ride over 1.2m in Disneyland but it’s fine for 6+ (my 5 year old was only a tiny bit short).

I found Universal overrated and a lot of the rides were dated and rickety. I didn't think it worth the money at all.

Could you change to two days at Disney?

We stayed in Anaheim and drove up to Universal, don’t remember it taking very long and we did everything we wanted to in a day. I am extremely jealous of your trip, we ended up doing Anaheim then driving down to San Diego, which was fantastic, but DH said next time we will drive north, but we haven’t done it yet.

Thanks you all so much!

Interesting @WhereDoBrokenHeartsGo - we went to Warner Brothers HP studio tour in Watford in February and absolutely loved it so if there isn't much else at Universal that is worth it, I'm wondering whether we just do Disney across two days? It would make life a lot easier and I think I could sell that to DD having done HP in Feb.

Apart from the actual studio tour, is there anything else that is a must see at Universal? We aren't Super Mario fans, although the DC have seen the recent film.

Sorry meant to tag @BeauSignoles.

@Mindymomo I've done a bit of the national parks on a tour in my early 20s (Vegas, Grand Canyon and Monument Valley) but DH has done Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, Zion and San Fran which I haven't so he is in charge of the route 😀

It's going to be a lot of driving but currently we are thinking of getting a convertible as we will have minimal luggage. That's what DH and DS want us to book anyway

@babbi we'll be there Sunday 18th-Monday 19th so will probably have some overlap with the US school holidays which unfortunately can't be helped :(

we actually enjoyed Knotts Berry theme park the best out of all the LA parks. DC were a bit younger though - 9 and 12. We did the two Disney parks in 1 day, and Universal in a day too. have a lovely trip. It will be amazing!

That's interesting @iamsoshocked. Shame we won't have time to fit anything else in. Will just have to go back another year...

Because of time and location - cancel universal and go to Knott's Berry farm or a second day at Disney. It takes 2 hours to get from one portion of LA to another.

Born and raised in California and currently living in Orange County, where Disneyland is. Universal is in Los Angeles County and is quite a drive.
I strongly recommend two days at Disneyland if you are based in Anaheim both nights. Do one park per day or park hoppers both days to really maximize your ability to take advantage of crowd patterns in each park (this varies a lot depending on when the parades and light shows are happening).
Take a look at the current rides. Haunted Mansion is closed for renovation, along with a couple others.
California Adventure has the Incredicoaster, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Radiator Springs Racers which are the most popular ride rides. It's also currently Pixar Fest right now, which is fun. But the Genie, but also prepare to buy additional passes for the more popular Star Wars ride and possibly Radiator Sorings.
I'll add more, but have to dash.

Thanks all - this is so very helpful. I've spoken to DD and she's more than happy not to see the HP part of Universal and do Disney for two days. DS isn't here at the moment but he's all about the Star Wars and although I know he'd probably want to go to Universal given the chance, I think he'd also appreciate not having to rush about quite as madly if we had two days at Disney.

I'm trying then to persuade DH to come with us for the second day given there are apparently lots of things to see and do that aren't proper rides? He's seen all of Star Wars and Mandalorian (not a Marvel fan at all - we are so different 😂) and I just think it would be nice for him to come and spend the time with us and especially it would allow us to stay later into the evening when there might be things to see?

Any advice on this? Thanks again all.

We are also doing a road trip to California in August but starting in the Midwest ( where we live)
It is going to be very hot, so hot I would question a convertible for a road trip.
Also on long drives space is really nice, make sure your dc packs or gets a comfy pillow for the car.

We are going to do one day park hopper in Disneyland as we only have a day.
We did really like HP in Universal Florida though.

Thanks @siameselife - I haven’t yet been persuaded about the convertible but DH’s reasoning is that we will get the most amount of wind with the top down… and obviously the car will have air con for driving in the desert… 😬

You will get wind but you are going to have to be so careful not to burn. We once hired a convertible in Miami and even for short journeys found not burning was a challenge.
But I have very Scottish skin so you might find it easier.

Good point, DD in particular is very fair. Thanks for the concern.

As others have said, it will be really hot. There isn't much shade at Universal and we got so hot we went out of the park in the afternoon and watched a film in a (very luxurious) air conditioned cinema. It's easier to keep cool in the 2 Disney parks.

I would also cite wind noise, less luggage space and theft as disadvantages of hiring a convertible.