Our trip consisted of pretty much the same as what you want to do. I also have an 8 and 10 year old. My other son is 17 and my husband was there are well.
We did San Diego, LA, and Disneyland. We left on 7/25 and returned the morning of 8/11, a little over 2 weeks, but we also drove on 7/25 and part of 7/26 and part of 8/9, a full day on 8/10 and we got back at 7 am on 8/11.
We bought the Citypass from the Sea World website and the LA Go Card from smartdestinations website. The Citypass came with the 3 day Disneyland park hopper, 1 day at Universal Studios, and 1 day at Sea World with the option to upgrade to the San Diego Zoo and I think Legoland. We thought about it, but the kids said they didn’t want to do anything thing that they could do at home, such as the zoo. I told them this one was different, but they still didn’t want to go. We also had to decide between going to Universal Studios for a free day or Sea World. Depending on which park you buy your ticket from, you will get the 2nd day free if you activate your card there first. The LA GoCard covers admission to both Legoland and Universal studios, so that’s why we chose Sea World. You should checkout the smart destinations website. I believe there were 37 themeparks/museums/ and or attractions that you could receive admission to for one price. We tried to do as much as we could. I think we got our moneys worth. We purchased the 7 day pass. There is also a San Diego card, which I believe includes the San Diego Zoo and some of the attractions that were on the LA card.
Our first few days 7/26 to 7/31 we stayed in San Diego at a place called Heritage Inn. I think I prepurchased it on tripadvisor, maybe in May. It was a little older hotel, but really close to where we wanted to be which was Sea World, Belmont Park/Mission Beach, and the San Diego Bay. It provided the basics which was fine with us. Using the Go LA card we did a full tour of the San Diego Bay on a cool little tour boat and went to Belmont Park/ Mission Beach afterward. My kids had so much fun at Belmont Park and enjoyed the beach. Belmont Park had about 10 rides which includes a roller coaster. You get an unlimited ride wristband with your Gocard. Everyone enjoyed the Bay tour was well. The next two days we went to Sea World. We activated our City passes here and got an extra day at Sea World, that is why we did 2 days there, one was free. We actually really enjoyed Sea World. It was our first time there. It was really the highlight of the kids trip. They enjoyed it more than Disneyland. We were able to do the Dolphin and Penguin Encounters as well as Breakfast with Shamu, Queue pass, and All Day Dining. I know there is a lot of controversy going on with Sea World right now, but I don’t know… we decided to give it a chance since there are 2 sides to every story. I have seen the Blackfish movie and I was reading the other day about some changes that they will be making……I love elephants and would never step foot in a circus, so I understand if people have reservations about Sea World.
We went back to Mission Beach/Belmont Park on our last night there. We all played minigolf there too. It was fun. Of course I had the highest score! It is so nice and there is so much to do. You may want to spend more time in San Diego. We wish we would have stayed at least 5 days. We are going back to California in Summer 2016 and plan to spend at least that much time there, plus Disneyland and extending it to San Francisco.
We left San Diego the morning of 7/31 and used our Gocard to go to Legoland. We upgraded our tickets to get into the waterpark and aquarium . We had a lot of fun. If you decide to do all of them, I would allocate 2 days. We felt really rushed. Also kids eat free after 5:00 pm. We took advantage of that.
We checked into the Best Western in Los Alamitos. I think I purchased this through my CPA society discount page. It was around 99 per night. I was really nice. Breakfast got kinda old though since we were there for 10 nights. Parking is terrible though.
The next day was Disneyland. I won’t go into a full trip report, but we used the Citypass for this. We did eat breakfast at Ariels Grotto and really enjoyed the breakfast and character interaction. One thing, I hated the organization of World of Color, we even had a fastpass and it was terrible We couldn’t see anything. We used our extra magic hour on this day and was the 1st in line for Soarin. For some reason I love the California one more than Florida.
The next day which was Friday we used the Gocard to the California Science Center, Aquarium of the Pacific and Santa Monica Pier/ Pacific Park and the hung around the beach. We also had Bubba Gumps for dinner on the Pier. We thought Santa Monica Beach was dirty. There were trash and cigarette butts in the sand. Oh… the kids hated the sand here too. It was hard to build a sand castle. They really liked the Pier though. Next time I think we will skip Santa Monica beach and just go to the beach near our hotel. It was about an 8 minute drive. We stayed near Seal beach and didn’t realize how nice it was until before we were about to leave to go home.
The next day was Hollywood/ LA. We purchased tickets for a TMZ tour, which was hilarious, but we did not see any celebrities this time. Our tour guide was a man from the show that had an English accent. Had lunch at the Hard Rock Café. We also used the Gocard to do a Movie Star homes tour and also used it for Madame Toussauds Wax museum, which was fun. There are several other Hollywood attractions that you can use the Go Card for.
The next day was a Sunday and we did Disney California Adventure. We loved it.
Monday we finally went to Universal Studios using the Go Card I believe. We could have also used the City Pass. They have a really cool backlot tour. It was very interesting.
On Tuesday we drove to Valencia and went to Six Flags Magic Mountain using the Gocard. Words of advice…. You are literally climbing up and down a mountain the whole time! I hated that aspect of it. Also if you can I would buy the Disney equivalent of the Fastpass. It was well worth it. This place has huge lines!
Wednesday was our last day at Disney. We split it between the 2 parks, but stayed in California Adventure until about 4. I cant remember which day off hand, but my daughter and son did Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. We also went to Café Orleans on the last day and did the Fantasmic dessert party on day 2 maybe and Goofys Kitchen on day 1. I mentioned Ariels Grotto earlier, but I think that was on day 2 instead of 1.
We absolutely loved Disneyland. It’s like all of the rides that we love from Disney World in one area. Definitely not as much walking as Disney World because literally the parks are right across from each other. On two of the nights we were there we were able to ride all of the “mountains” in the last hour to hour and 15 minutes.
Thursday we used the Gocard to go to Knottsberry Farm and Knotts Soak City. We loved it. We also got a fastlane pass were because the lines were long. We went to the waterpark first and didn’t arrive to the main park until about 4. We were able to ride everything up to about 8, then we ate dinner at the famous Ms. Knotts Chicken restaurant which was really good. We will definitely spend more time here next time. At the waterpark we pretty much did the lazy river and the wave pool and maybe 2 slides since the lines were too long.
On Friday we went back to the California Science Center to look around and go to the Pompeii Exhibit. It was really interesting. We planned on going back to Hollywood, but literally got stuck in traffic for 3 hours! We got off unfortunately downtown and was stuck there for a while. LA is too crowded for me. Lol. I live in Oklahoma and we go at a slower pace. So stressful to me. We had prepaid dinner reservations at Medieval Times, so I decided to book it there. We made it in time
It was an interesting dinner show and we all loved it. The horses are beautiful. Not sure if we will do it again. It seemed like the horses reins were pulling their mouths too tight and they always had saliva coming out of their mouths…. I don’t know….The trainers also had whips.
On the last day we discovered Seal Beach. We went early and hung out there for a few hours. It was beautiful and quiet. Too bad we didn’t go sooner.
On the drive home we also stopped and looked at the Meteor Creator in New Mexico. It was interesting.
All in all we had a wonderful trip. Its more driving than Disney World, but we actually liked it better. Next summer we plan on going to Cape San Blas for 4 days and then heading to the Orlando area for Disney World/Universal Studies/Islands of Adventure. We are also adding Busch Gardens and Sea World Orlando and some waterparks. We plan on doing the Disney Youth Program for our park tickets and the Orlando Flex pass for the other parks.
Last year we did 6 day waterpark and more/park hoppers to Disney World using the Disney Youth Program and we just bought 3 day tickets from US/IOS. We stayed 2 weeks in Kissimmee and a week at Siesta Key Beach.
Let me know what questions you have. This is a very condensed version of my trip report that I haven’t started yet. I am still making my notes