Hey everyone! With having spent the past decade at the WDW and Uni parks in Orlando our family has decided to take our first trip out to California and experiencing everything the state has to offer in the southern area. Our trip will be over the course of a week and 4 days have already been dedicated to seeing eveything at the DL resort. The other couple days are in the air and was wondering what your guys advice would be for the best things to do and see in the SoCal area? As huge Uni fans and AP holders we really wanted to check out the Hollywood park but for the price of admission it's seems we would only be paying for the tram tour and waterworld. What would your advice be as we could instead visit seaworld and spend the rest of the day in San diego? What other beaches, attractions, cities or places to visit would you recommend as a must do for this trip? All advice is welcome and thanks again for everything!
1st CA Trip
- Thread starter CPTree
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Are you driving to SD? It's a good 3 hour drive from Anaheim to Seaworld, so take that into consideration. Also the fact that Seaworld SD is much much smaller than Seaworld Orlando. If you were going to SD, I'd say skip Seaworld and do the zoo or the wild animal park (now called "Zoo Safari Park"). I prefer the safari park as it's completely different than the zoo, with open savanna areas and actually jeep tours.
Skip SeaWorld unless you really want to go there. It is a real hike from LA and not nearly as good as the park here. If I were you I would consider visiting Knott's. We went two years ago and hit SeaWorld, SFMM, DL, Universal and Knott's and I think we enjoyed Knott's almost as much as Disneyland and far more than SW/SFMM/USH. It's only because we had free admission to all of them with our passes and connections that we got to visit them all, but if I had to do it again and spend money on the tickets I would just do KBF and DL.
Yes we are driving all around SoCal and considered going to the zoo as an alternative but feel like we would be a little disappointed in the themeing since we've been to Animal Kingdom so many times.
We looked at knotts and loved the few highly themed rides there like voyage to iron reef, mine ride and the log flume. However, even though we are coaster fans we felt like the rest of the park dropped off in theming and reminded us of six flags too much with a bunch of bare coasters all over the place and people screaming everywhere. At least that was the idea we got from the few videos we watched.
I would recommend against Knotts. When we went, we spent a whole day there (terrible planning on our part) and spent most of the time bored. If you do go, plan a few hours max.
We found Knott's was much more pleasant than that. Many people would have a similar impression of IOA if they only saw the Hulk in MSHI. Knott's was the first theme park and inspired Walt to build Disneyland. Ghost Town and many other parts of the park are filled with charm and character that even Disney is lacking.
Alright thanks so much for the advice we will look more into it and for the price of admission I don't think we could go wrong or be disappointed!
- Feb 7, 2014
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If you do go to Knott's, The Mystery Lodge is an absolute must see. It is one of the best original shows in the Southern California area.
Also, The San Diego Zoo is really rather incredible and the variety of animals puts Disney's Animal Kingdom to shame. If you want the theming of Animal Kingdom, the Safari Park has that down.
Also, The San Diego Zoo is really rather incredible and the variety of animals puts Disney's Animal Kingdom to shame. If you want the theming of Animal Kingdom, the Safari Park has that down.
