A Little Last Minute (California) Trip Planning

Ok, so here’s the scoop… we’ve been watching and waiting eagerly for our Disneyland first trip since the Before Covid times and I need help picking what to do on our non-Disney day (a Sunday/Monday before our Disney days start and then the following Saturday just before our final day in the parks).

We’ve always had APs so any plans that we think about making for things outside of Disneyland Resort usually get quashed because it’s money we’d have to spend on top of what we already spent for an AP and since the AP money is already sunk (and we love the place) might as well stick to Disney. This trip since the AP cannot exist, we have ALL THE options we usually don’t pick open to us and now I have too many choices, so what would you do?

We are me, DH and 4 kids ages 9,8,4,1. Current rough trip plan:

  • Drive into Cali overnight Sat 6/12 to arrive Sun 6/13 and have a chill day, maybe hit up the beach until hotel is ready and/or wander Old Town in San Diego. Stay Sun night in San Diego.

  • Mon 6/14 San Diego Zoo, drive to Anaheim after day at the zoo. Check-in late evening to our hotel on Harbor.

  • Tuesday-Friday- four days of Disneyland with park hoppers planning to be there each day open to close & take breaks inside the parks, with the littles sleeping in strollers to maximize what will probably be our only trip until they bring back an AP at some point.

  • Saturday break day- this is the big question mark.

  • Sun 6/20- Final day in Disneyland (our anniversary/Father’s Day)- again planning open to close.

  • Mon 6/21- maybe shop a little in Downtown Disney (and eat breakfast somewhere in it) before driving home to be back at a relatively respectable hour for some sleep before work on Tuesday.

So for our break day: Do we chill at the hotel (will be nothing fancy but will have a pool and that will be enough to entertain kids for a bit and this also gives us the flexibility to just have a lounge pool day if that’s what we want and if we need to break up the monotony we could always wander Downtown Disney/World of Disney/Lego Store as our kids love all of that (and we wouldn’t have much time for this beforehand with the plans as they are). Or do we find at least one other activity to venture out to do. I want it to be restful so I’ve kind of quashed plans for another theme park, especially ones with a longer drive (ahem, looking at you Universal and Legoland). But I also haven’t completely ruled them out because the kids would just LOVE either of those, as we are big fans of both Harry Potter and all things Lego in this house and the kids haven’t done any of that. It just wouldn’t be a rest day like I had initially intended the day to be, should we decide to those. And if not those things, what else is there: a baseball game? an OC beach? How about Knotts? Is that even a fun park with kids? And would Saturday be a foolish day (aka busy) day to squeeze it in?

And for the San Diego time: are there any really glaring pitfalls in thinking that doing the zoo and then a drive to Anaheim that night won’t be too strenuous? I know it’s a lot of walking- DH & I have done the zoo a couple of times, but the last time we did it the oldest two were 23 months and 3 months and we’ve done it as newlyweds without kids and would love to see it again. But both those trips were full on San Diego so we didn’t drive up to Anaheim after, so am I underestimating it? And if that does sound too strenuous- what better options are there for before our Disney stuff (we’d be driving through central/Southern Utah on 1-15, through Vegas and then into SoCal- any national park stuff -Bryce, Zions, in Utah isn’t directly in our path and DH & I aren’t so sure about staying a night in the area as they are MUCH more relaxed than we plan to be on Covid precautions- so Disney and California seem to be better option on that front, at least until the kids can have their turn to be vaccinated). Anywho. Any input on any of these ramblings would be wildly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

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I’m very much looking forward to you finally getting back to Disneyland! It’s been way too long!

As for Saturday, it really seems like you could use a rest day, though being so close to the end of your trip, maybe you’ll wish you had something fun to do. I would recommend planning to do a resort day, but have the option to do something in the afternoon / evening if you’re bored. Like mini golf, a movie, Medieval Times, etc.

If you are going to do another theme park that day, I’d recommend Universal. It doesn’t take too much will power to keep that a half-day park and just go to the Harry Potter areas and maybe Jurassic World ride or something, if the older members of your party want to.

Legoland is too far and you’d be exhausted by it. Unless you went while you were already in San Diego, I’d skip it (as much as your kids would love it, I’m sure).

I have never been to the San Diego Zoo - I’m sure your plan will work as long as you aren’t too ambitious in what you hope to accomplish while there. Going to a theme park on a travel day is always going to have some uncertainty.

Good luck! Make sure to tell us about your trip!

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I will definitely plan to report back as much as I can when I can! It’s like a reversal of everything hard and sad and not fun that was this 15 months and that’s just from the planning of a trip again.

Thanks for affirmation that Saturday should stay low-key. I am in love with the idea of keeping it a resort day with a very tentative evening plan. I think I just have this vision of being contained in the square footage that is a hotel room, that’s probably not super child-proof, with one bathroom for six of us, and two wiggly toddlers and wishing I had taken them somewhere, anywhere to not feel trapped with insanely bored children. So definitely will look at what we can do in short/on the fly should it start to get that way.

And on Universal, maybe just maybe the older kids will convince me that they need Butterbeer in their lives and I will say, after this year you’ve earned it and we’ll do an abbreviated Universal Hollywood day. My hesitation with Universal (and has been for like the last 5-6 years) is that I look at the height requirements and get in this mindset that the kids that aren’t tall enough for most of it, could just be at Disney and Universal will just be miserable for them. And then I start thinking about how much not a deal it is to pay for just one day park tickets where half of us might be miserable and I give up planning it. So I just need to win out over that mindset… before all the kids are teenagers.

In all honesty, if Disney would sell me a sixth day without it being another $600 for the family, I would probably still go to the parks on Saturday and feel less stressed about only having 5 days with shorter operating hours. But hey, we’ll get out of our Disneyland resort comfort bubble one way or another this trip. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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The drive to Universal from Anaheim is not fun. However it might be better on a Saturday than a week day. For me (but I’m old :wink:), after four full park days I need a rest day. I was thinking the beach would be fun, but maybe not restful with two toddlers!

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We know the drive from Anaheim into downtown Hollywood (specifically the El Capitan/Ghiradelli Soda Fountain store attached to it) all too well & we pass right by Universal depending on the exit we take to get there and I agree that the drive between is not anyone’s idea of fun. But since @Jeff highlighted that a half day is quite easy to stick to with it, I’m more inclined to drop in, spend some time getting butterbeer and Forbidden Journey, play with wands and head back to the hotel for rest.

The beach always sounds so nice, and I love looking at, listening to, smelling, and dipping my toes into the ocean but yes, the toddlers definitely has the potential to take it up a few notches from the relaxing soul-filling activity that I envision when I think beach.

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I hope you guys have a great first trip back! I don’t have many suggestions for your rest day, since my kids haven’t been little in way too long (:cry:).

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I can’t believe how grown up they are! I hear that Carson is looking at colleges (when did that happen?!?!?!?!?). Have you ever done the drive between San Diego to Anaheim after a day doing San Diego things, is it a headache?

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Yes, Carson will be a senior in the fall and off to college next fall. Not sure how that happened! He wants to go to school in San Diego, but we will see if that pans out. We have driven from SD to Anaheim several times, the best driving is generally between 9am and 2pm (or at least it used to be), or after 7pm. If you are going to do things in SD, I would have dinner there in SD and then head to Anaheim to avoid the worst of the traffic. So maybe leave SD around 7pm? I love SD, the Zoo is awesome.

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Good luck with Carson in his search this year- wherever he ends up!!
That sounds like a perfect plan to eat and then drive after up to Anaheim- thanks! Tom & I love San Diego and the zoo too and have been meaning to get a trip back there with the kids, but there’s just never enough time!!

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I totally agree with @Wahoohokie regarding the drive from SD Zoo to Anaheim. Have dinner in SD before leaving for Anaheim after 7 pm.

There are many people who work in SD and live in Orange County, where Anaheim in located. DD’s boss lives in Orange County and commutes everyday to work in San Diego. People also live in San Diego and commute to Orange County for work. We have been up and down the corridor between Orange County and SD a lot in the last 3 years. DD22 graduated from UCSD in March 2020 and DS21 just finished his junior year at UC Irvine. 70 miles between the 2 campuses. In SoCal, people are either stuck in traffic or driving 90 miles an hour! In the best of traffic, it takes us 65-70 minutes to get between the two campuses. The Zoo is further south than UCSD, and Anaheim is further north than UC Irvine.

It has taken us up to 2.5 hours to drive between the two colleges in bad traffic, which can happen anytime.

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Perfect, this is just the kind of advice that I was hoping for. I know my parents used to take us back and forth between San Diego and Anaheim like it was nothing when we would vacation in California (Dad was born in San Bernardino and grew up on & off in SoCal so he probably did that growing up too). I just wanted to check (now that me or hubby will the ones to actually do that drive), it really wasn’t that big a deal.

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I’d consider Knott’s. I’ll admit we’ve never done it, so I don’t have any firsthand experience going at all—let alone with kids those ages. But Camp Snoopy is supposed to be great, and they have the new Beary Tales ride as well as lots of food and shopping. For the ticket price and proximity to DLR, it may be an easier way to do something different without a major time or money investment. Otherwise, I’m in full support of the resort/Downtown Disney day!

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I went to Knotts (and Universal Hollywood) ages ago as a part of a trip to lots of Southern California with my high school’s AP Biology trip. I LOVED Knotts but of course at 16 didn’t pay any attention to anything kiddie focused so I have no idea lol. I was deathly bored at Universal but it’s been so long that it’s most definitely not the same park. We’re still really up in the air about this day and may just make a game time decision once we get through 4 full days of Disneyland.

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When in doubt, Disneyland! :joy: If you do USH, I’ll be curious to hear what you think. I’ve done it without my kids, but haven’t felt inclined to take them.

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If Disneyland would sell me another day (without it costing $600) it would be Disney in a heartbeat :rofl::rofl::rofl:
(Also at this point there’s no availability for 6/19 but if it did open up, then DH would absolutely push for another Disney day- even with the steep cost. And I might be happy to go along, maybe that’s why we’re leaving it up to a gametime decision :thinking:)

For USH, if it were just my older two, we’d for sure go this trip somewhere. We are all huge Harry Potter fans and would be able to entertain ourselves fully with that. With the younger two I am hesitant to subject them to a day of essentially watching from a stroller while everyone else has all the fun. DS4 is 41" without shoes so I do think that at least opens Minions for him (and maybe other things) but I don’t know how happy he would be to see others of us going on main Harry Potter ride and him not because he is also a Harry Potter fan after being exposed to it so much from the rest of the family.

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I was just looking at the wait times for USH, and they look atrocious right now with all the distancing measures, etc. It’s like a 2-hour wait on average for Jurassic World, and 80 min for Forbidden Journey. After 4pm, it seems to dip down to more reasonable times (i.e., 40 minutes for Forbidden Journey).

So if I were going to go to USH, I’d have very reasonable expectations, try to just do a few hours in the evening in only the Harry Potter area, not really even attempt to do anything else at all. If that doesn’t sound fun, I’d find something else (or add a day to your DL tix :joy:).

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If we were to go to USH, it would be very much a let’s drink butterbeer and enjoy what we can (interactive wands if that’s going on) and take turns doing FJ with the older kids. I’ve really sold them on the queue for it being just as good if not better than the ride, so they’d probably be pretty happy to wait 40 min. But that means that someone is outside waiting with the two littles and that’s a little less fun.

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At UOR, all of us were able to go through the queue together and they had the usual rider swap waiting room just before the loading platform. Everyone enjoyed the queue, including littles (it was only 20 minute standby wait at the time we went).

I doubt USH is doing the same procedure due to CA restrictions, but might be worth looking into.

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oooOOOoooo this is very promising. By the time we would theoretically go, the CA restrictions will be lifted on capacity, so if that’s at all a possibility it changes the ballgame. I remember when DH & I went to UOR just us seeing all the rider swap rooms and thinking how neat they were (slightly made us regret leaving the one DS we had at home, but not to terribly much as he was only 10 months old).

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One thing that did turn me off on USH for this trip is that I couldn’t figure out on their site how to purchase tickets and make reservations for after 6/15 being out state. All the ticket options had you pick CA resident or out of state, but could only be bought for 12+. But I did give up pretty quick so it could be there with some digging. And they did have a bunch of announcements about passholders not needing reservations anymore, so maybe they are moving away from that with the lifting of restrictions.

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