Southern California itinerary

[YogaThenChocolate]

We’ve booked flights to LA for a two week holiday but no accommodation booked yet. Any thoughts on this as a vague itinerary? Kids will be 10, 6 and 4.

sat: arrive in LAX and stay at airport hotel
sun: drive down to La jolla
mon: La Jolla
Tues - sun: travel on to san Diego for zoo, seaworld, children’s museum etc
mon: travel to Anaheim
tues / wed: Disneyland
thurs - sat: laguna beach
sun: fly home

any suggestions very welcome! Thanks

Make sure you have all of your accommodation reserved before you travel, first because places sometimes get weirdly full (or rooms hit $500 each) due to special events, and second because at the moment CBP are looking for excuses to deny people entry to the US, and "Not having accommodation booked" is enough. (Also scrub your social media of anything remotely negative about the US or Israel.)

You do need to put first hotel on Esta application I think. Disney? 2 days? Not for us. I think I’d go to Santa Monica and highway 1. However you want South of LA which suits your family but there are some good things in LA.

Not necessary to spend an extra night in la Jolla. It is easy driving distance from San Diego. I would recommend staying somewhere between the two and driving to where you want to visit each day. Don't forget the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Sea World while you are there.

Don’t bother with the airport hotel just drive straight to La Jolla. San Clemente is lovely too.

This. You also won't need an entire day to drive up to Anaheim. Even with traffic it's not far.

It’s a 1h 45 min drive from LAX to La Jolla at best, and could be much longer getting out of the city in the early evening, which is about the time OP is likely to have cleared immigration, picked up the luggage and picked up the rental car (most if not all are off site). It will also feel like 2am.

Unless she’s experienced at driving in the USA, OP is wise to stay near the airport.

"Not having accommodation booked" is enough.

Really?

Even if that was true, I don’t expect OP is planning to travel without having pre-booked at least the first night’s accommodation.

I can't post links apparently, but "newsweek germany-tourists-deported-hotel-maria-lepere-charlotte-pohl-hawaii-2062046" will find it.

I'm sure it's less likely to happen to a UK family with children, unless Trump is having a meltdown with Starmer over something that week.

But in any case, finding places full, or only the Four Seasons having space, is a risk, so I would hope OP would book everything before travelling. Most places will let you cancel 48 hours in advance. 🙏

Agree.

Recover in the hotel and set out the next day.

Wrt denial of entry - just have your documents in order and be polite.

That link says that the women were intending to work, but one was travelling on a visitor visa and the other on an ESTA, so they were denied entry. I don’t think OP and her family are planning to work while in California.

To all those suggesting not staying at LAX on the first night, we flew to LAX from Edinburgh via Schiphol last year. We were delayed leaving EDI so missed our connection at Schiphol. We ended up flying via Seattle and arrived 10 hours late at LAX. Our bodies were telling us it was 8am and we had been up for 28 hours.

Manhattan Beach is super close to LAX; I'd stay there first instead of an airport hotel.

Then I'd do Anaheim next, en route to San Diego.

La Jolla is a nice town (we liked the local shops and the seals) but not necessary to stay as so close to San Diego.

I'd recommend the EW Scripps aquarium. It's part of the university and felt slightly more ethical than the zoo/seaworld places.

I was there quite recently.

Lax is not great for arriving international passengers. You can wait a long time in the car park opposite TBIT for a taxi and when you see a taxi sign there’s a long queue and no dispatcher. Taxis and Ubers etc have been confined to the edges of the airport. No good if you have kids and or suitcases. Traffic in and around the airport is horrendous and the freeways seem a lot busier than ever even in quieter hours.

If the airport hotel has a shuttle bus make sure it will collect you from your arrival terminal. Check this and where it picks up before you leave the U.K.

i would also consider a visit to Knotts Berry Farm for the day as it’s near Anaheim rather than doing 3 days at Laguna Beach.

We entered USA yesterday. We had all accommodation booked and we were asked where we were going on our trip by immigration. No problem at all to enter but I would have a clear and booked itinerary.

Thanks everyone for your comments so far. Just to clarify a few things…

We’re flying indirect from Manchester so will be up early (think 5am ish), arriving at LAX at around 6:30pm assuming no delays. By the time we’ve cleared immigration, collected bags (including car seats / pushchair etc), picked up hire car and on the road I guess it will be 8:30ish and we’ll have been up for nearly 24 hours taking into account time differences. The thought of then setting off on a drive in the dark does not sound ideal (especially with 3 tired kids). Plus we’d like to see the view as we go. If we stay at the airport we can all get a decent night’s sleep and then DH can go and pick up the hire car and load it up in the morning, and then we’ll set off, probably incorporating a few stops as we make our way down.

The focus of our trip was always going to be San Diego / South of LA, but we’re flying into LA as the flights were substantially (over £1.5k cheaper).

We absolutely intend to book all accommodation, we travel in April next year. We just need to sort out where we want to be so we can book hotels in the right areas. As a family of 5 we know we have to book early to secure room availability, which is tricky enough to find as it is.

The reason for doing Disneyland in the second week is to avoid weekends in the hope it won’t be quite as crazy with queues but also we arrive Easter weekend, which I think is Spring Break and I suspect it will be super busy in theme parks that weekend (we learnt the hard way many years ago when we went to HK Disney over Chinese New Year!)
J

Where are you initially flying to in the US before arriving in to LA?. You will clear immigration and customs at this first US destination so when you arrive in LA you will be on a domestic flight.

How much time is there between your flight from the UK and this second flight into LA?.

Look at suite based hotels like the Embassy Suites and Courtyard by Marriott (often they include breakfast as part of the room rate).

Carry only what you need. There is only so much space in the hire car.

Do you really need a pushchair?.

I would also not take along car seats-unless it was a lightweight booster seat because a U.K. car seat may not meet US regulations

We’re flying via London Heathrow so we won’t clear immigration until LA. I’ll take a look at the hotels you’ve mentioned, thank you.

We don’t use the pushchair much at home but for longer days out like San Diego Zoo, I think we’d struggle without. Good point on the car seats, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll look at the US Regulations.

You can hire a stroller at the zoo if needed.

Any recommendations on what to do in the San Diego area? Is it worth doing the safari park as well as the zoo, and seaworld as well? We’re not massive theme park fans, but we did feel we should take the DC to Disney seeing as we were there!

Definitely think you're making a sensible choice to stay at an LAX hotel for your first night, given the age of your children

The car hire garages are a shuttle bus ride away from the terminals - you do feel like you've arrived at your local industrial estate once the bus drops you off at your renter of choice. For San Diego, you'd then be going from navigating the "industrial estate" streets - probably in the dark - to joining the 6 lane 405 freeway.

It'll be just so much easier in the daytime after a nights sleep - especially so when everyone's tired, tetchy and you're e driving an unfamiliar car on the other side of the road

You said 2 days at Disney - if you aren’t keen that’s a huge expense. SD is mostly about theme parks and museums in many ways. There’s a wide choice. You can also visit San Diego Old Town which is the historic Spanish district. Very touristy, but lots of restaurants.

If I’m honest, I wasn’t a fan of San Diego. We found it less interesting than we thought it would be. Everyone goes to Balboa Park. Some museums were good and it’s definitely a place for dc, but it was a bit grubby and a pastiche.

The seashore around Point Loma was pleasant for walking and there’s a ferry to Coronado. Sunset Cliffs is pleasant.

Be aware that the sea lions at La Jolla can be ultra smelly. Torrey Pines is pleasant north of there. You should be able to see whales in April too. I’d definitely do this - it’s more special than Disney but choose an ethical one that doesn’t bother the whales.

Legoland is just to the north of SD in Carlsbad.

I think two full days at Disney is sensible if you want to do both parks. It gives you plenty of time and you can take a break in the busiest part of the day if the DC are getting tired and grouchy. Can’t help with accommodation as we’re a smaller family, but lots of hotels within walking distance to the park. Watch out for ‘three days for two offers’ so you can go into one of the parks on your arrival day for a wander, and still have two full days.

If you want to do more LA - we really liked The Garland hotel and I’m sure they had family sized rooms.