Disneyland/Universal/Disney Cruise trip

[AJ1983]

Hey everyone! We are planning a trip to California in 2025, and I am just starting the pre-planning since I know nothing about travelling there!

We are definitly doing 5 days at the Disney parks, so 6 or 7 nghts at a Good Neighbour hotel. We want to do 2 days st Universal Studios plus the Warner Brothers Studio tour so thinking 3 nights at a hotel on that area. We would also be interested in a 5-7 night Disney cruise out of San Diego. If we don't do a cruise I would likely do 5 or 6 nights in LA and do other activities.

We are NOT planning to rent a car, and will be using shuttles/private car service/Uber to get us to and from the airport(s) and between Anaheim-LA-San Diego.

Any suggestions for best order to do these three parts of the trip? I don't really want to start with the cruise in case of flight delays, but would consider flying in the day before the cruise and overnighting in SD.

Any advice is appreciated

 

[vacay77]

What airport will you be flying in/out of? That might determine the order of the events......

Also, I'd probably do the cruise last. I did land/sea at Disney World and it was nice to relax on the cruise ship after all the walking we did at the theme parks.

 

[China Expat]

If you fly into LAX or Burbank airports, start with Universal and Warner Bros studio tours, stay near UNiversal. Then transition to ANaheim, and lastly the cruise.

 

[ktlm]

You could look into flying into LAX and flying out of San Diego. The Hilton at Universal is walking distance from Universal and only about a 10 minute drive to Warner Brothers. From there you can move down to the DLR area, and from there down to San Diego for the cruise.

 

[Rolem]

One alternative is Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner. You can fly into Burbank for Universal (Amtrak station is near the airport), catch the southbound train to Anaheim (take the ART shuttle at the transit center), and then the Surfliner down to San Diego (station is within walking distance of the cruise terminal). Fly home out of San Diego (the airport and cruise terminal are close). Depending on your schedule the California Rail pass might work. I think it has a 21 day use period.