One day, where would you go?

ExcitedMama

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 29, 2013
We have to go to San Diego in a couple weeks from the northern Central Coast which is a looong drive, and even longer depending on traffic. Looking at our schedule it looks like the best bet is leaving on a Friday and returning either the next day or Sunday. I hate the idea of back to back driving. I want to do something on Saturday to break it up. What would you do? We’ve tagged along with DH on a lot of his work trips in the last few months and hit pretty much all the theme parks (DL, USH, LegoLand, SeaWorld, SD Zoo and Safari Park). One trip I spoiled DD at the American Girl Store and Bistro. Disneyland looks pretty pricey and probably crowded on a Saturday. Don’t know if I want to splurge on USH for my HP loving and thrill loving son again when DD can’t ride the HP ride and doesn’t like thrill rides. We’ve spent about a month in SD now so there’s really nothing that stands it to do again since we’ve done it so much now. We live a few minutes from beach cities so that’s not too exciting. Anything fun that we should consider between LA and SD?
 
It may depend on the ages of your children. There are a number of lesser known things. There is a reservation only exotic animal rescue place in San Diego county called Lions, Tigers and Bears. There's also our mountain town, Julian, which is basically a bunch of places selling apple pie and gift shops with some stuff thrown in for younger people (gold mine tour). If your children are on the younger side, they could get bored there quickly.

San Juan Capistrano has the Mission and there's a Tea House close by for a fancy afternoon tea.

Have you done Knott's Berry Farm? There are several family rides there. There are also a lot of roller coasters, but there's plenty to do without going on roller coasters.

Tour the Queen Mary and/or the Long Beach Aquarium in Long Beach. They share a parking structure, so you could go and just visit one or both places.

I like the La Brea Tar Pits, but that won't take a whole day and it's kind of in the middle of a gross part of the city (Los Angeles).

I know you've already done Disneyland, but since they are going to rip out part of Downtown Disney, it may be fun to spend an afternoon there eating at Rain Forest Cafe and seeing a movie. Those will be gone soon. You can still meander on the Hotel grounds and eat/shop there, too.
 
Great suggestions from cruisehopeful. Knotts is a good idea, as they have plenty of rides for all ages and it's cheap compared to Universal or DL ($45 tickets online and tons of places sell discount tickets). We just went on Sunday with my brother who's visiting from Tennessee, and we had a group of 12 with ages 3-70. Everyone had a good time and it was not very crowded at all (max wait was about 30 min for one of the big roller coasters). My boys love the historical ghost town section and we all love the boysenberry treats.

Mine also love the Tar Pits, we take the metro and explore all the city museums. They love the Natural History Museum and Science Center as well. They find Julian and the missions boring no matter how much I try to keep them interested! I've never been to the Aquarium of the Pacific but the kids have been with others and enjoyed it, and the Queen Mary is interesting as well. For something totally different, I know the Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead resorts and snow parks are open now. My kids love going up there and snowboarding, snow tubing or even just exploring the mountain towns.

Good luck, I know that drive can be horrible and doing it on back to back days is the worst!
 

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