How long to get from Disneyland to LAX on a weekday morning?

[Figments Friend]

I've never had any major problems with LAX. Getting to DLR I've used a rental car and Disneyland Express and never had a disaster.

Monty, maybe you can answer a question for me regarding the DL Express at LAX.

How do you make the *return trip* back to LAX after your visit?

Getting on the bus at LAX i hear is easy to do, but i have heard little about what to do to RETURN to the airport once at your hotel.
Previous visits i was with friends who picked me up, or i was with a friend who had a rental car.
This time i have to find my own ride...so this will be a new experience.

I am staying at a non-Disney, non-Good Neighbor hotel located directly behind the backside of DCA.
Any insights would be welcome.

I have tried researching, but little has come to light.
Crystal clear regarding getting to DL on the DL Express from LAX - curbside ...pay for your ride and get dropped off at your hotel in the Resort area.
Pretty vauge info however about what one has to do to get BACK to the airport - call ahead for a pick up at your hotel..? Walk over to the DL Hotel and just pay-and go- again..?

I leave in five days...and admit...this has been taxing on my mind.
I thank you ( or anyone else who may have a answer ) in advance.

 

[thomas998]

Heh heh...you need to come to Boston.
They have it there too!


Maybe that is why LAX did not phase me, as i tend to fly out of Logan (BOS) and it is a dumpy, old-school, ancient airport...much like LAX!
Oh sure they have made some nice improvements in recent years in Boston to some of the terminal buildings there ( Term A , and the International Term mostly...) but it is still cramped, grey, and has the visual warmth of a concrete prison.

LAX gave me the exact same impression.

I used to live in Boston, never liked Logan... Used to try to get flights out of providence and sometimes Hartford. Wasn't just the dumpy airport it was the sense that I was landing on an island and the wind seemed to sometimes cause planes to land almost sideways... Scary airport, especially if you were on a smaller plane.

 

[TP2000]

Oh wow...Long Beach is no longer just a little shack terminal now?
Whoa. I was amazed at how TINY that airport was when i first flew there in 2007.
And JetBlue...Long Beach used to be a major hub for them. When did this change..?
Did they hop over to John Wayne instead?

Oops, my mistake. I meant Long Beach is the JetBlue hub on the West Coast, not John Wayne.

Long Beach still has their circa 1940 main terminal for ticketing and some passenger services. But now you walk out to a unique indoor/outdoor terminal that is very mod and yet still small and intimate. It's almost like a hip resort. It has wine bars and iPod charging stations and fire pits and mod furnishings. But you still get to walk out onto the tarmac and climb the stairs to the plane, like it's 1963 and you are Dean Martin or Doris Day on a glamorous California vacation.

Long Beach Airport Passenger Terminal - How Flying Is Supposed To Be In The 21st Century

Ahh... Boston Logan. I lived just outside of Boston for much of the 1980's and kept returning to Boston for business in the 1990's. This was all before the Big Dig, but back then it was really a miserable place to begin or end a trip at. It looked like it was designed by depressed Soviet architects who had snuck across the Iron Curtain looking for work. But at least it had a coherent design theme.

LAX has flourishes of style, mostly in the 1960's Theme Building and the modern signage and wayfinding they've put up on perimeter roads lately. But it's still just an overcrowded 1960's airport that long ago passed the point of needing a deep cleaning and a rethink. At this point it just needs to be bulldozed and started over from the dirt up.

 

[Figments Friend]

Oops, my mistake. I meant Long Beach is the JetBlue hub on the West Coast, not John Wayne.

Long Beach still has their circa 1940 main terminal for ticketing and some passenger services. But now you walk out to a unique indoor/outdoor terminal that is very mod and yet still small and intimate. It's almost like a hip resort. It has wine bars and iPod charging stations and fire pits and mod furnishings. But you still get to walk out onto the tarmac and climb the stairs to the plane, like it's 1963 and you are Dean Martin or Doris Day on a glamorous California vacation.



Ahh... Boston Logan. I lived just outside of Boston for much of the 1980's and kept returning to Boston for business in the 1990's. This was all before the Big Dig, but back then it was really a miserable place to begin or end a trip at. It looked like it was designed by depressed Soviet architects who had snuck across the Iron Curtain looking for work. But at least it had a coherent design theme.

LAX has flourishes of style, mostly in the 1960's Theme Building and the modern signage and wayfinding they've put up on perimeter roads lately. But it's still just an overcrowded 1960's airport that long ago passed the point of needing a deep cleaning and a rethink. At this point it just needs to be bulldozed and started over from the dirt up.

Ha ha ha..nice ! Great way of expressing how depressing it is to begin and end a journey at Beantown*s Logan Airport.
It has definately improved a little over the last few years, but it is still very old school.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion regarding JetBlue*s West Coast hub.
Nearly had a heart attack there, as i loved flying JB to LGB from BOS. Walking off the plane onto the tarmac was a great memory of my first visit to CA...man, i felt like a Beatle !
Many thanks for the great photos too...and a overview of the nice refurb that happened there.

Wow....hearing and seeing all of this makes me now wish i ponied up the extra cash and went with my original plan.

Oh well...maybe next time.

 

[Figments Friend]

I used to live in Boston, never liked Logan... Used to try to get flights out of providence and sometimes Hartford. Wasn't just the dumpy airport it was the sense that I was landing on an island and the wind seemed to sometimes cause planes to land almost sideways... Scary airport, especially if you were on a smaller plane.

You know what else was fun about landing at Logan?
As you approached the landing runway, you swore the plane was about to dip into the Atlantic Ocean.
It really seemed like those wheels were grazing the surface of the water just before touchdown.

I remember telling some friends about this before they ventured out to Boston about that, and when they landed it totally freaked them out. They swore they were about to hit the ocean.

Oh...and the runways are very short there since it is on that *island* of harborside landfill.
Because of the shortness, pilots have to literally slam on the breaks about 20 seconds after touchdown.
Hold onto your drinks....and hats, folks!

Ah...good times.

 

[Figments Friend]

Sounds like we're all in the same boat, fellas. That ticket price difference really adds up when you're taking a family along, too. Being able to get a direct flight to LAX versus the time and headache of switching planes was a big determining factor, as well.

Agree.
That is the only reason i chose LAX this time around...the pricing and flight times availible to me from my Point A to Point B worked better this time around.

 

[thomas998]

Long Beach Airport Passenger Terminal - How Flying Is Supposed To Be In The 21st Century

Hey are those fake flames in the firebox? I mean surely the green brigade in California wouldn't allow such a waste of energy and generation of pollution? I mean are backyard grills even banned out there?

 

[Monty]

Monty, maybe you can answer a question for me regarding the DL Express at LAX.

How do you make the *return trip* back to LAX after your visit?

Getting on the bus at LAX i hear is easy to do, but i have heard little about what to do to RETURN to the airport once at your hotel.
Previous visits i was with friends who picked me up, or i was with a friend who had a rental car.
This time i have to find my own ride...so this will be a new experience.

I am staying at a non-Disney, non-Good Neighbor hotel located directly behind the backside of DCA.
Any insights would be welcome.

I have tried researching, but little has come to light.
Crystal clear regarding getting to DL on the DL Express from LAX - curbside ...pay for your ride and get dropped off at your hotel in the Resort area.
Pretty vauge info however about what one has to do to get BACK to the airport - call ahead for a pick up at your hotel..? Walk over to the DL Hotel and just pay-and go- again..?

I leave in five days...and admit...this has been taxing on my mind.
I thank you ( or anyone else who may have a answer ) in advance.

It's actually very easy getting back as well.

If you know for certain you'll be using the DL Express both ways, you can buy a return fare when you're going LAX-DLR. They'll provide a receipt that shows the round-trip fare.

To catch the bus from your hotel, they have a list of hotels for I think three different routes, they have buses that do each route and then they meet up at the Disneyland Hotel and you switch to whichever bus is going to LAX. Pick-ups and buses to the airports run every hour in the mornings and then every half hour later. No reservations required, but if you're staying at certain hotels they refer to as "on call" you need to phone for pick-up 24 hours ahead.

One thing I will warn you about: There are vans marked "Disneyland Express" that are not associated with the Gray Line company that runs the DL Express service. They drive the same routes looking for people who are waiting for the real thing and offer to take you direct, either for "the same price" or sometimes a couple bucks more if you go direct. It usually doesn't work out to the same price...

Here's the brochure.

 

[Figments Friend]

It's actually very easy getting back as well.

If you know for certain you'll be using the DL Express both ways, you can buy a return fare when you're going LAX-DLR. They'll provide a receipt that shows the round-trip fare.

To catch the bus from your hotel, they have a list of hotels for I think three different routes, they have buses that do each route and then they meet up at the Disneyland Hotel and you switch to whichever bus is going to LAX. Pick-ups and buses to the airports run every hour in the mornings and then every half hour later. No reservations required, but if you're staying at certain hotels they refer to as "on call" you need to phone for pick-up 24 hours ahead.

One thing I will warn you about: There are vans marked "Disneyland Express" that are not associated with the Gray Line company that runs the DL Express service. They drive the same routes looking for people who are waiting for the real thing and offer to take you direct, either for "the same price" or sometimes a couple bucks more if you go direct. It usually doesn't work out to the same price...

Here's the brochure.

Many thanks for this Monty. It helps set me at ease.


I had heard about the bogus 'false vans' trying to cash in on the unknowing waiting at the curb a few months ago. Pretty tricky...
It is the big, brightly decorated buses folks need to look for...not shuttle vans claiming to be the same service.

Thank you for the heads up !

 

[TP2000]

Hey are those fake flames in the firebox? I mean surely the green brigade in California wouldn't allow such a waste of energy and generation of pollution? I mean are backyard grills even banned out there?

Backyard burning of yard waste is banned in SoCal, but barbeques and fire features are fine.

I would imagine the fire pits in the outdoor departure lounges at Long Beach Airport are clean burning natural gas. SoCal has one of the highest penetrations in the country of natural gas lines to nearly every home and business, and has since the 1950's.

My grandparents used to remember fondly (and oddly) how they would burn their trash in their backyard 60 years ago. Coupled with the massive strides in the last 40 years in reducing tailpipe emissions from cars and industry to practically nothing, you get a Southern California air quality index chart like this.

We haven't had a Smog Alert Day in SoCal since the late 1990's, and ozone and voc's in the air are down to nearly nothing here in the 2010's. There's an entire generation of new Southern Californians that doesn't even know what a "Smog Alert" is and how to respond, and can't remember a time when you couldn't see the San Gabriel Mountains most of the year. Amazing!

I was at a Disney fan event a few years ago and one of the panel speakers was the park's official photographer in the 1950's to 70's. During Q & A he was asked what has changed the most at the park and he said "Smog!" to the puzzled audience. He went on to explain that in the 1950's and 60's the smog was always so bad that any official photos taken of Disneyland for postcards or brochures had to be heavily doctored and airbrushed to remove a brown dingy sky and add a blue sky with appropriate shadows and tint to most outdoor photography. He was envious of modern photographers getting to work with clear skies over the Magic Kingdom now, and that's how you get photos like this with distant mountains that most tourists in the 1950's didn't even know existed!

 

[tare]

I didn't think lax was bad at all. More convienent to fly into sna just depends on $$$$

 

[Monty]

Many thanks for this Monty. It helps set me at ease.


I had heard about the bogus 'false vans' trying to cash in on the unknowing waiting at the curb a few months ago. Pretty tricky...
It is the big, brightly decorated buses folks need to look for...not shuttle vans claiming to be the same service.

Thank you for the heads up !

Actually, the big buses that were in use last month were plain white with no colourful marking at all.

But they had signs in the front window and were the big highway tour bus style vehicles.

 

[thomas998]

Backyard burning of yard waste is banned in SoCal, but barbeques and fire features are fine.

I would imagine the fire pits in the outdoor departure lounges at Long Beach Airport are clean burning natural gas. SoCal has one of the highest penetrations in the country of natural gas lines to nearly every home and business, and has since the 1950's.

My grandparents used to remember fondly (and oddly) how they would burn their trash in their backyard 60 years ago. Coupled with the massive strides in the last 40 years in reducing tailpipe emissions from cars and industry to practically nothing, you get a Southern California air quality index chart like this.

We haven't had a Smog Alert Day in SoCal since the late 1990's, and ozone and voc's in the air are down to nearly nothing here in the 2010's. There's an entire generation of new Southern Californians that doesn't even know what a "Smog Alert" is and how to respond, and can't remember a time when you couldn't see the San Gabriel Mountains most of the year. Amazing!

I was at a Disney fan event a few years ago and one of the panel speakers was the park's official photographer in the 1950's to 70's. During Q & A he was asked what has changed the most at the park and he said "Smog!" to the puzzled audience. He went on to explain that in the 1950's and 60's the smog was always so bad that any official photos taken of Disneyland for postcards or brochures had to be heavily doctored and airbrushed to remove a brown dingy sky and add a blue sky with appropriate shadows and tint to most outdoor photography. He was envious of modern photographers getting to work with clear skies over the Magic Kingdom now, and that's how you get photos like this with distant mountains that most tourists in the 1950's didn't even know existed!

Didn't think it going to generate any ozone... I was thinking more in terms of the carbon footprint of something that is completely pointless in terms of providing any benefit to anyone. Of course the reality is that when you see yellow flames it means the natural gas is producing carbon monoxide which frankly I wouldn't want in an indoor area.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

LAX introduced me to my very first panic attack ever the last time I went to DL. That was inbound. Outbound was a whole new level of anxiety that I'm still not entirely over.

Holy crap. I'll gladly pay the $1000 difference (and I'm by no means 'rich') to avoid that place again.

Luckily my 'home' airport- Pittsburgh International- is pretty nice.

 

[Figments Friend]

Just returned from a venture and came in and out of LAX.
Bus trip was about 40 minutes each way...not too bad.


Had no issues at the airport...i must just be hitting it lucky.
Still i hope to fly elsewhere next time. I really miss Long Beach, but maybe SNA is in the cards for next time?