trip to legoland

[denvergal]

we are taking our 4 and 2 year old dc to legoland in mid may. we still have not booked anything as this is a completely last minute thing and i am so indecisive so i'm overwhelmed by all the info. can someone please help us decide? we will only be staying about 5 days. dh wants to do DL in addition to legoland and sea world. i feel like legoland and sw are more age appropriate but he doesn't want to take the trip there and miss it. so here are my questions:

1. should we fly into san diego and stay there or carlsbad?
2. should we stay near DL and drive into san diego and do 1 day each of LL and SW and the rest at DL or is another combination better?
3. what hotels are good for either of these places? (We would prefer a suite style hotel due to kids napping or anything moderately priced that is still clean)
4. any other advice???

thank you so much in advance! i am just so overwhelmed and confused as we've never been there before!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Legoland was lots of fun and very, very young kid friendly. :) Lots of tame rides and very small park. I do think it is nuts that they charge so much for what you get so if you can find a ticket discount that wouldn't hurt. :)

I loved Disneyland. We just had our 5yo. So glad we went there.

Because we have family in San Diego we just stayed with them and made Legoland a day trip. It took about 30-45 minutes from their house and was totally manageable.

We did fly out of Ontario, CA as opposed to LAX or SD. Great airport b/c it was so small and manageable. Fewer delays and hassles too.

Our itinerary worked well but, like I said, we had family in SD to stay with.

We did Disneyland on our way down from N. California. We drove in on a Tuesday night, did DL on Wed., then drove down to SD right after we left the park at 11pm. We took the next day off! :)

Friday we did Legoland. (This was mid-August, btw). Legoland offers a season pass so there were a lot of people just there to do the water park. The water park was a nice place to cool off so take bathing suits. It really can be skipped though, imo.

It looks like Legoland is only about 40 minutes from downtown San Diego. I would just look for a hotel that is near there or Sea World so you don't have to up root every night. Just pick one in one spot or in a midway area.

This reply is totally stream of conciousness at this point, sorry! Do you want to have the option of having somewhere for the 2yo (and 4yo?) go to nap during the day or will they be ok skipping a nap or napping in a stroller? Keep that in mind when deciding where you want a hotel to be.

The next evening we did the Wild Animal park, which was pretty neat. We debated doing Sea World but we were feeling a bit done with amusement parks by this point. It was a long 2 week vacation and this was the last part of the trip. The WAP was pretty neat because you could get pretty close to some animals on the tram ride. Just throwing that out there to confuse you even more. :) We loved our beach day as well. :)

We drove back up to the Ontario area on Monday. It worked out well to do the trip that way for us. You'll have to make the drive at some point if you want to go to both areas unless you want to look into flying into and out of 2 different airports. We did that and we were able to find a pretty good deal. It makes rental cars more pricey though usually to return a car to a dif't place. (Tip- consider renting a car not at the airport. We saved a ton of $ that way and the hassle was minor. Just send dh or yourself to get the car via cab or public transport while the other stays back with the kids at the airport.)

We only did one day at Disneyland and that was really ok. 2 would have been nice but we had a good day there. a 2 day park hopper could be nice. Consider whether you really need extra days there or if there are other attractions you would want to visit in that area or near San Diego.

Sorry I don't have any hotel recommendations. Btw, I just looked up that it is 22 miles from Anaheim to Ontario. If you consider that airport at all I have a non- recommended hotel there. The airport Best Western was probably the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. Well, I will give you that it wasn't dirty and no bugs but yuck otherwise. Near Disneyland we stayed at the Embassy Suites south and really liked it.

It sounds like a great trip! Enjoy!

Beth

[mom2binsd]

Just take into consideration that a drive from SanDiego (like Hotel Circle area which is central to most SD attractions) up to Carlsbad/Legoland could take up to 1 1/2 hours....traffic is horrendous...same thing driving from Anaheim to Ontario airport....although flying into smaller airports like Ontario or John Wayne (in Irvine-close to Disney) is often easier...LAX is such a pain! The SD airport is much easier to navigate and close to everything.

If you want to email me with questions re specific hotels in the SanDiego area I can tell you which ones to stay away from...there are some that look great on the websites but are in very sketchy areas...

I would maybe suggest staying in SD and doing some or all of Seaworld/Legoland/Zoo and then staying up near Disney for another part of your trip....

[Tondi G]

I would suggest staying in Carlsbad! Closer to Legoland (not a bad drive down into San Diego proper... we just went and had NO traffic at all and made it in 30 minutes or less). I searched long and hard for a hotel and it was a tough call. We ended up staying in San Diego at the Hyatt Mission Bay but next time we are staying up in Carlsbad for sure!

They just built and opened a new Sheraton adjacent to Legoland that looks very nice. On Tripadvisor the West Inn and Suites gets fantastic reviews and would offer a suite for a price much better than you can get for a San Diego area hotel! I think we'll be staying here on our next visit! http://www.westinnandsuites.com/

AS for discount tickets to Legoland. Are you a Costco member? If so there is a costco in Carlsbad that apparently sells short term 3 month memberships to Legoland for less than a two day pass! Might be worth it even for just two days! They also sell discounted one day passes!

If you can swing it I would opt to book a hotel room for one night up in Anaheim so that you can do 2 days at Disneyland/California Adventure. If the Disneyland hotel is too much then check out the Sheraton Anaheim. It will make you day so much more enjoyable to be able to just go back to your room at the end of the day and not have to drive a good hour or more back to Carlsbad! Oh and So Cal Costco's also have good prices on Disneyland tickets as well!

Check Trip Advisor I also found this site helpful http://www.localwally.com/

Good Luck and have a great trip!

~Tondi