A rainy day outside so I'll spend a bit more time talking about my favorite subject. Disneyland.
On trips past we have made our way to Disneyland in various fashions. For the first many times we made the trek to California we drove. The primary advantage that driving has over flying is its cost. We drove the car down on one of our earlier trips.
When you're in a car you need to book hotels along the way. We went in favour of making a rough map-quest trip plan but we didn't book any accommodation prior to leaving home. That just left it open so that we could go as far as we could each day and then stop at a comfortable time. We had a pretty good idea how far we'd get each day and we didn't have any trouble finding a room. Most of the time we could stop at a Best Western or Motel 6 for a reasonably priced and clean room.
Now the downside to 2 and a half days in the car is that your kids need to be seasoned travelers. Our two girls were ages 5 and 11 when we drove down in the car. As you can see from the above photos we had plenty of things to keep them busy. Electronics were a life saver. That being said they did like to get out of the car every time we needed to get gas, stop for a meal or buy the odd thing here or there but they were quite happy.
I do recall that we had a tiny plastic potty in the trunk of the car on this trip because you never know when a five year old has to pee. It's not always at a gas station although that's always encouraged, but sometimes its just in the middle of no where. On this road trip I think we did need to use it twice on the side of the highway and both times we were so glad it was handy!
I should also mention that when we drove down in March for spring break, it is winter through many northern states that you will drive through. You need to have winter tires and be prepared for those road conditions even though when you get to southern California you'll be right into summer like conditions.
What else do I need to tell you about taking a car to Disneyland??? One of the positives is that we were able to bring lots of things to keep the kids busy, we were also able to bring a fair amount of stuff home from Disney. Trunk space is much more accommodating than a suitcase.
This will over lap a bit on a future post about accommodations at Disneyland but once we arrived at our hotel, which this trip was the Holiday Inn on Walnut street, we just parked the car and didn't need it again until it was time to drive home. Our hotel was actually very close to the Mickey and friends parking structure which ran a regular tram to the park. So even though we weren't across the street from Disney or on Disney grounds our commute over to the park never took us very long. That was pretty neat.
It cost us about 8 tanks of gas to travel in this fashion perhaps about $320 dollars? We needed two hotel nights on the way down and on the way back that adds about another $120 x 4 = $480 but overall if you've got the time, a road trip is a great way to see the country and get to Disneyland.
No comments:
Post a Comment