Just booked DLR for late June! Any suggestions for a hotel for our LA days?

[Artygal90]

I'm so excited! I had a March Disneyland trip booked because my family wanted to go with me and my son, but was feeling kind of eh about it because I just went in July. THEN, I read about all the new (for us) stuff coming for the 70th anniversary this summer and decided we should change our dates from a short weekend trip at Spring Break to a longer visit combined with our family reunion the week of July 4th.

I put together a very persuasive Power Point presentation for my family and they agreed it would be fun to make the trip a longer family vacation. We fly into Long Beach on Friday June 27, do Disneyland/DCA June 28-30, and check out of the Disneyland Hotel on Tuesday July 1 after a character breakfast for my son's birthday (what are everyone's thoughts on Goofy's over Storytellers?). After that, we'll have about 48 hours before we need to be on a plane to our family reunion on Thursday July 3. Looking at the flight schedules and prices, we probably will need to fly out of LAX or maybe Burbank.

LA activities on my family's list include The Getty Center, the WB Studio Tour, the La Brea Tar Pits, and LACMA. Probably other stuff too, but I feel like it would be very ambitious to get that whole list done in a day and a half so I'm going to try to get them to prioritize. The toddler and I will happily tag along to any of these, although I feel like he wouldn't enjoy the Studio Tour as much.

What part of town would be best to stay in considering the above activities, short timeline, and our flight out on Thursday? Between points and discount Hilton rates, I have access to free or cheap Hilton/Hyatt rooms in Glendale, Hollywood, the area around LAX (El Segundo, Manhattan Beach), Burbank, and Downtown LA. I know these are somewhat spread out, so can anyone help me narrow down my search?

I know this is the Disneyland forum and this is more of an LA question, but this one is much more active than the other forums so I'm hoping to get more feedback here. Thanks for any input!

 

[LKing]

I put together a very persuasive Power Point presentation

LA activities on my family's list include The Getty Center, the WB Studio Tour, the La Brea Tar Pits, and LACMA. Probably other stuff too, but I feel like it would be very ambitious to get that whole list done in a day and a half so I'm going to try to get them to prioritize. The toddler and I will happily tag along to any of these, although I feel like he wouldn't enjoy the Studio Tour as much.

How old is the toddler? What do they like to do? LACMA, Tarpits, Peterson Automotive Museum and the Academy of Motion Pictures museum are all on the same block. The toddler might (??) like the tarpits and maybe Peterson, but not the Academy Museum or LACMA. Farmer's Market and The Grove (shopping, including American Girl store) are about a mile away.

The Getty has outdoor gardens and fountains that might be entertaining for a young one, but it will probably get tiresome if the other adults are inside looking at art.

There is a California and the West forum. It doesn't get a lot of action, but you might glance through some of the threads there. https://www.disboards.com/forums/california-the-west.131/

 

[Artygal90]

How old is the toddler? What do they like to do? LACMA, Tarpits, Peterson Automotive Museum and the Academy of Motion Pictures museum are all on the same block. The toddler might (??) like the tarpits and maybe Peterson, but not the Academy Museum or LACMA. Farmer's Market and The Grove (shopping, including American Girl store) are about a mile away.

The Getty Center has outdoor gardens and fountains that might be entertaining for a young one, but it will probably get tiresome if the other adults are inside looking at art.

There is a California and the West forum. It doesn't get a lot of action, but you might glance through some of the threads there. https://www.disboards.com/forums/california-the-west.131/

I forgot about Peterson! That would be a hit for sure. He will be 3 and is obsessed with cars. He loves running around outside, reading books, looking at animals, and playing with anything with wheels or a motor on it. The beach probably would be a hit too, although I don’t know if anyone else wants to do that this trip. I’ll check out the other forum! Thanks!

 

[ShoeCello]

I forgot about Peterson! That would be a hit for sure. He will be 3 and is obsessed with cars. He loves running around outside, reading books, looking at animals, and playing with anything with wheels or a motor on it. The beach probably would be a hit too, although I don’t know if anyone else wants to do that this trip. I’ll check out the other forum! Thanks!

The good news about La Brea Tar Pits and LACMA are that they're both next to each other and there's a park/grassy space in between the two, with plenty of space for a toddler to run around or for you to picnic somewhere there (you can use Google Streetview to view the pedestrian paths between 6th and Wilshire and get a sense). You can actually see many of the excavations for La Brea from these pathways without needing to pay admission to the Page Museum (though the museum is fascinating! It's small but worth doing), so you could play things by ear depending on how your family and toddler are doing that day. There's also plenty of food options around that area.

 

[moorish]

Are the locations you mentioned the only options you’re considering for hotels?

I think, if flying out of LAX, I’d try to find a hotel in/around Beverly Hills and do the LACMA/tar pits/Peterson Museum/Farmer’s Market area and maybe the Getty if ambitious. I would skip WB Studios in this case.

If you’re flying out of Burbank, then I’d stay in Burbank and would be more likely to focus on WB Studios tour and fill in other activities around that as time allows.

What I wouldn’t do is try to do LACMA, Getty and WB Studios in 1.5 days - especially if not already staying very close to one of them and then needing to get to an airport across town. We were in LA this summer before visiting Disneyland and cross-crossing across the city can suck up a lot of your time. We chose an area to visit each day. It meant skipping some things on the list but it was more fun and relaxing that way.

I hope you have a wonderful time! We loved our trip this summer!

 

[Artygal90]

Are the locations you mentioned the only options you’re considering for hotels?

I think, if flying out of LAX, I’d try to find a hotel in/around Beverly Hills and do the LACMA/tar pits/Peterson Museum/Farmer’s Market area and maybe the Getty if ambitious. I would skip WB Studios in this case.

If you’re flying out of Burbank, then I’d stay in Burbank and would be more likely to focus on WB Studios tour and fill in other activities around that as time allows.

What I wouldn’t do is try to do LACMA, Getty and WB Studios in 1.5 days - especially if not already staying very close to one of them and then needing to get to an airport across town. We were in LA this summer before visiting Disneyland and cross-crossing across the city can suck up a lot of your time. We chose an area to visit each day. It meant skipping some things on the list but it was more fun and relaxing that way.

I hope you have a wonderful time! We loved our trip this summer!

We are definitely considering other locations- but I would love to find a place that is both cheap and convenient to what want to do, especially after spending $$$ to stay at the Disneyland Hotel.

I’ve been informed that we don’t need to do the WB Tour so that takes a bit of pressure off.

 

[LAS2AMS]

Gotta be honest… nice hotels near DLR are very reasonably priced - often bargains. Nice hotels near West LA (the touristy part), not so much.

In a past life, I regularly stayed at some of the more inexpensive hotels near DLR: We use to regularly Priceline the Travelodge (now Ramada), for example. Personally, I would never stay in similar type (or better) lodging in West LA. People on here like to justify their Disney habits by insisting Anaheim isn’t safe, which is a load of horse poop, but most less expensive hotels in West LA are located in areas where you may get robbed if you’re not careful (granted, there’s a very very small chance it will happen, but it’s non-existent at DLR).

I often recommend people looking for a really nice hotel at a reasonable price, stay near the DLR and make the commute.

If the nice hotels in West LA exceed your budget, I strongly suggest staying elsewhere near DLR and use the savings to maintain the budget.

 

[LKing]

I have access to free or cheap Hilton/Hyatt rooms in Glendale, Hollywood, the area around LAX (El Segundo, Manhattan Beach

I don't know which hotels you are looking at in Glendale and/or Hollywood. Both Hyatt and Hilton in El Segundo are geared towards business travelers. Hilton Garden Inn in Redondo isn't the safest location, nor is Homewood Suites in Redondo.

 

[Artygal90]

I don't know which hotels you are looking at in Glendale and/or Hollywood. Both Hyatt and Hilton in El Segundo are geared towards business travelers. Hilton Garden Inn in Redondo isn't the safest location, nor is Homewood Suites in Redondo.

Good to know! I can’t recall the exact ones in Glendale. In Hollywood we were considering the Hampton Inn on Vine (not super close to what we want to do but <$200/night for us).

Edited to add: I went back and looked. In Glendale we are looking at the Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, or Hyatt Place - although, since we seem to have settled on not doing the WB Studio Tour, probably Glendale is further than we want to be from the activities on our itinerary.

 

[Artygal90]

Gotta be honest… nice hotels near DLR are very reasonably priced - often bargains. Nice hotels near West LA (the touristy part), not so much.

In a past life, I regularly stayed at some of the more inexpensive hotels near DLR: We use to regularly Priceline the Travelodge (now Ramada), for example. Personally, I would never stay in similar type (or better) lodging in West LA. People on here like to justify their Disney habits by insisting Anaheim isn’t safe, which is a load of horse poop, but most less expensive hotels in West LA are located in areas where you may get robbed if you’re not careful (granted, there’s a very very small chance it will happen, but it’s non-existent at DLR).

I often recommend people looking for a really nice hotel at a reasonable price, stay near the DLR and make the commute.

If the nice hotels in West LA exceed your budget, I strongly suggest staying elsewhere near DLR and use the savings to maintain the budget.

We will definitely consider that. We haven’t discussed what exact budget we are looking at for our West LA hotel - probably it is more than I’m thinking, and they’ll be happy as long as it’s less than the Disneyland Hotel at $600/night (a splurge for us, only possibly because we are splitting it 3 or 4 ways).