Beach trips and Disneyland

[DisneyDelirious]

I think my wife is on board with a trip to DL next year. She is asking me about beaches in the Anaheim area. We probably won't rent a car, we will just take the Disneyland Express from the local airport to the hotel. How close are some decent beaches, any great ways to get there and/or taxi estimates?

 

[Californian Elitist]

Seal Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach are some of the closer beaches to Disneyland.

Seal Beach:

Laguna:

Newport:

Huntington:

 

[tare]

Seal Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach are some of the closer beaches to Disneyland.

Seal Beach:

Laguna:

Newport:

Huntington:

We are planning to hit most if these. At seal beach will there actually seals there in late september?? Also which beach is best for tide pools and when??? Thanks in advance raven. You have been a ton of info so far!!!

 

[Californian Elitist]

We are planning to hit most if these. At seal beach will there actually seals there in late september?? Also which beach is best for tide pools and when??? Thanks in advance raven. You have been a ton of info so far!!!

I'm from and live in Los Angeles, so I'm a lot more familiar with the Southland beaches. I'm sure @TP2000 can answer your questions better than I can.

 

[TP2000]

We are planning to hit most if these. At seal beach will there actually seals there in late september?? Also which beach is best for tide pools and when??? Thanks in advance raven. You have been a ton of info so far!!!

Seal Beach doesn't attract any more seals than the average SoCal beach. You might spot some there, but you probably won't. The best beach for seal watching isn't in Orange County, it's down in San Diego at the La Jolla Children's Beach; except the seals and sea lions took over a few decades ago and the children don't get much chance to get into the water there because the seals are in the way.

Tide pools? That's easy much closer to Disneyland. You'll want to head to Crystal Cove State Park, which is about a 30 minute drive from Disneyland and on Coast Highway between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.

You park in the State Park lot up on the highway, and then hike down a short trail down the bluffs and to the beach area. There is a broad sandy stretch, but south of that is the tide pool area and it's very accessible to get to with kids. The park rangers are there during peak seasons to offer info about the sealife you see in the tide pools, and it's just a nice place to spend the afternoon. http://www.crystalcovestatepark.com/

If viewing the tide pools is important to you, you'll want to consult the tidal charts close to the day of your visit as you'll obviously want to time your visit as close to low tide as possible. At high tide the tide pools are largely inaccessible or underwater.

Crystal Cove State Park - 30 Minutes From Disneyland

As it's a State Park, there are no real dining or tourist amenities in the park aside from restrooms and the usual State Park information boards and a Ranger Station. For food before or after your visit to the park, you can head a few minutes north or south on Coast Highway. Very close to the park is a famous locals hangout, the Shake Shack, where surfers and families stop for delicious handmade shakes, cheeseburgers, and tuna sandwiches. It's got a nice patio on the cliff with a million dollar view of the Pacific Ocean, all for the price of a $5 milkshake.

A couple miles further south on Coast Highway, and you enter famous Laguna Beach. It's artsy and a bit funky, but definitely upscale. Lots of bistros and cafés and fancy restaurants can be found in Laguna Beach, amidst the art galleries and boutiques in the downtown district and/or along the Coast Highway maid drag.

If you want to find a place suitable for children, a great option is south of Laguna Beach's main business district at the Ruby's Autodiner. All-American road food and burgers, but done very nicely and with great quality in a fun diner theme. http://www.rubys.com/

By the time you got to the Autodiner you are now really in South Orange County on Coast Highway, and it would be about a 45 minute drive back to Disneyland taking into consideration the slower speed limits of Coast Highway and the stop lights in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach before you could get back to the freeway to speed you inland to Disneyland. But it's a great day trip from Disneyland that you can spend anywhere from a few hours to an entire day on if you want.

 

[teacherlady19]

Do look at the tide schedules before you try to go tidepooling. We were disappointed about 10 days ago, when we were going to the tidepools at Cabrillo National Monument here in San Diego. Low tides were at 6 am and 6 pm, and the tidepools were closed at both hours.


Donna

 

[Cosmic Commando]

OK, so the children go to Seal Beach and the seals go to the Children's Beach.

@TP2000 , about time you showed up in this thread!

 

[DisneyDelirious]

Thanks for the great beach info. Public transportation options for any of these locations?

 

[TP2000]

Public transportation options for any of these locations?

I would doubt it. Orange County has a bus system, OCTA, and there may be a route or two down to Laguna Beach on Coast Highway. Maybe there is a stop near Crystal Cove State Park? http://www.octa.net/

To get to La Jolla you can take the Surfliner from Anaheim to San Diego. But once in San Diego you would need to find a city bus from the Santa Fe Depot back up the coast to La Jolla. http://www.amtrakcalifornia.com/

 

[Ryan120420]

Thanks for the great beach info. Public transportation options for any of these locations?

Yes. You can get to Huntington, San Clemente, and OceanSide Beach using public transit.



Option 1.


Take OCTA bus 50 to Katella and Beach Boulevard. Then Connect to OCTA Bus 29 to Huntington Beach.


OR

Option 2.


Take LA Metro 460 from Disneyland to La Palma and Beach Boulevard (Knotts Berry Farm). Then Connect to OCTA bus 29 to Huntington Beach.





You could also go to San Clemente Beach using public transit.


Take Metrolink train from either Fullerton Station or Anaheim Station to San Clemente Pier or San Clemente Station. The beach is steps away from either station.

You could also get off at OceanSide Station, the beach is only 2 blocks away from the station.


And if you go on the weekend, it will only cost $10 to get there using Metrolink.




LA Metro:

http://www.metro.net/riding/maps/

OCTA:

http://octa.net/eBusbookJune2013/

Metrolink:

http://metrolinktrains.com/schedules/line/name/Orange County/service_id/1152.html

 

[tare]

Seal Beach doesn't attract any more seals than the average SoCal beach. You might spot some there, but you probably won't. The best beach for seal watching isn't in Orange County, it's down in San Diego at the La Jolla Children's Beach; except the seals and sea lions took over a few decades ago and the children don't get much chance to get into the water there because the seals are in the way.

Tide pools? That's easy much closer to Disneyland. You'll want to head to Crystal Cove State Park, which is about a 30 minute drive from Disneyland and on Coast Highway between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.

You park in the State Park lot up on the highway, and then hike down a short trail down the bluffs and to the beach area. There is a broad sandy stretch, but south of that is the tide pool area and it's very accessible to get to with kids. The park rangers are there during peak seasons to offer info about the sealife you see in the tide pools, and it's just a nice place to spend the afternoon. http://www.crystalcovestatepark.com/

If viewing the tide pools is important to you, you'll want to consult the tidal charts close to the day of your visit as you'll obviously want to time your visit as close to low tide as possible. At high tide the tide pools are largely inaccessible or underwater.

Crystal Cove State Park - 30 Minutes From Disneyland

As it's a State Park, there are no real dining or tourist amenities in the park aside from restrooms and the usual State Park information boards and a Ranger Station. For food before or after your visit to the park, you can head a few minutes north or south on Coast Highway. Very close to the park is a famous locals hangout, the Shake Shack, where surfers and families stop for delicious handmade shakes, cheeseburgers, and tuna sandwiches. It's got a nice patio on the cliff with a million dollar view of the Pacific Ocean, all for the price of a $5 milkshake.

A couple miles further south on Coast Highway, and you enter famous Laguna Beach. It's artsy and a bit funky, but definitely upscale. Lots of bistros and cafés and fancy restaurants can be found in Laguna Beach, amidst the art galleries and boutiques in the downtown district and/or along the Coast Highway maid drag.

If you want to find a place suitable for children, a great option is south of Laguna Beach's main business district at the Ruby's Autodiner. All-American road food and burgers, but done very nicely and with great quality in a fun diner theme. http://www.rubys.com/

By the time you got to the Autodiner you are now really in South Orange County on Coast Highway, and it would be about a 45 minute drive back to Disneyland taking into consideration the slower speed limits of Coast Highway and the stop lights in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach before you could get back to the freeway to speed you inland to Disneyland. But it's a great day trip from Disneyland that you can spend anywhere from a few hours to an entire day on if you want.

This is really awesome information!!! Thank you so much for taking the time. You have basically planned a day out for us with this post!!!!! Thanks again!!!

 

[TP2000]

tare, it's my pleasure. SoCal has a lot of great options for families, and Disneyland makes a great base camp to work from. Within 60 minutes drive of Disneyland you've got a fabulous array of world class cultural offerings, natural splendor, and famous man-made wonders. Drive 90 minutes out from Disneyland and that gets you to San Diego or Palm Springs, and the options just doubled.

In 1953 Walt Disney hired a guy from Stanford named Buzz Price to choose a location for Disneyland that would be at the center of Southern California's growing population for decades to come. Buzz Price identified a few hundred acres in Anaheim alongside the under-construction Sana Ana Freeway, and the rest is history. 60 years later that location in Anaheim is still a wonderfully central location to all that Southern California has to offer. A visitor would be wise to take advantage of that.

 

[tare]

@TP2000 you should write a travel book. You are a wealth of information!!!

 

[Rufus T Firefly]

I have long suspected that TP stands for Travel Professional.

 

[TP2000]

I have long suspected that TP stands for Travel Professional.

It doesn't. I picked that name in the mid 1990's on the old alt.disney.disneyland usenet message boards, long before websites like this existed.

TP2000 stands for.... wait for it.... Theme Park 2000!

Are you all disappointed? You have to understand, back in '96 the whole "2000" thing seemed very futuristic and cool. And I was accessing usenet through my original CompuServe account on a 14.4K phone modem. And I wasn't clever enough to come up with some Disneyland-based nickname or handle. We were talking about Disneyland on those old usenet forums, and Disneyland is a theme park, so I thought it was really clever to choose TP2000 as my usenet nickname.

By 1998-1999 I had a new 28K modem and the Disneyland online chat was moving to privately owned websites like Mouseplanet and Mouseinfo and Laughingplace, and I signed up for the discussions there using what was then a still-current usenet name. I stopped posting on usenet around late '99 or early '00, about the time I got my first 56K modem, but the nickname stuck on websites like this one. And so here we are in 2013, an even more futuristic and exotic year than 2000 was, and I'm still TP2000.

Also, I'm not writing a book. I'll just post helpful info when I can here, like so many of us do.

 

[DisneyDelirious]

Thank you for the highly detailed responses. Now we just have to pick the dates to visit. I would like to go in June or July (avoiding 4th)but after Grad nights. Looking at 10 days in the area and 5 park days. I'm thinking park days will be Mon-Fri.

 

[TP2000]

Thank you for the highly detailed responses. Now we just have to pick the dates to visit. I would like to go in June or July (avoiding 4th)but after Grad nights. Looking at 10 days in the area and 5 park days. I'm thinking park days will be Mon-Fri.

What you'll want to do is avoid the Annual Passholders by going once the major summer blockout dates begin for SoCal and SoCal Select levels of passes. Check the Disneyland.com AP calendar and plan your visit accordingly, avoiding almost all of June.

You will also be surprised to learn that much of the July 4th period is very slow, once you get into the third tier of AP Blockouts for the Deluxe level. The 4th and the dates around it on the weekend are surprisingly light because Socal, Select and Deluxe APs are blocked out, and Disney employees are also blocked out on major holidays from getting in for free. That just leaves people paying cash-money to get into the joint, and the crowds are low because of that. The one exception is the night of July 4th inside Disneyland, where everyone wants to be on Main Street USA for the big fireworks show at 9:30. Otherwise, the Disneyland Resort is a breeze and lightly attended on the days around the 4th when all the blockouts are in effect.

Saturdays in June/July/August also have the lightest attendance of the week due to Deluxe APs being blocked out. SoCal beaches are the very busiest on Saturday because the locals all flock to them. You would be wise to consider a beach day on a weekday, and save a Saturday for Disneyland/DCA.

Check the Disneyland.com AP calendar and try to plan your visit on the days when the most amount of Annual Passholder levels are blocked out. It's crazy, but it works.

 

[Rufus T Firefly]

It doesn't. I picked that name in the mid 1990's on the old alt.disney.disneyland usenet message boards, long before websites like this existed.

TP2000 stands for.... wait for it.... Theme Park 2000!

Are you all disappointed? You have to understand, back in '96 the whole "2000" thing seemed very futuristic and cool. And I was accessing usenet through my original CompuServe account on a 14.4K phone modem. And I wasn't clever enough to come up with some Disneyland-based nickname or handle. We were talking about Disneyland on those old usenet forums, and Disneyland is a theme park, so I thought it was really clever to choose TP2000 as my usenet nickname.

I'm very disappointed. If TP doesn't stand for Travel Professional then I was hoping that you were Tom Petty.

 

[teacherlady19]

I remember the usenet boards, though I never participated on the Disney one. However, I was active on the Disney "echo" on FidoNet in the 90s.


Donna

 

[TAMarie]

In addition to all the good info already posted, there's also the OC Beach Bus Tour. It picks you up at your hotel and lets you make 2 stops, so you could try 2 beaches. You can book it as an add on to a DL package. Heck, there's all sorts of places you can visit without renting a car(Universal, San Diego, etc)and Disney or your travel agent will be happy to add it on to your reservation.

The Ultimate Southern California Beach Tour. Five "Off & On Along the Way" stops and 2 five minute photo stops on this 62 mile scenic tour of Orange County and its beautiful beaches. See and experience Huntington, Newport and Laguna Beach. You can shop, browse, dine, swim, people watch or just "Chill" along the beautiful California Coastline! Our OC BEACH TOUR picks you up in a custom Woody Bus* and our "Off and On Along the Way" tour allows you to choose up to 2 stops along the way to visit for about 3 hours each. Return to Anaheim after 3 hours, 6 hours or 9 hours – it's your day and it's your choice!