Need road trip tips (LA-Yosemite-LA)

lmhall2000

May the road rise to meet you....May God hold you
Joined
Aug 11, 2002
This is our last family vacation before all our kids leave for college...(empty nesters :() I am trying to pack a load into these days!

Aug2: fly LAX-rental car to Courtyard Theme Park...park...walk over to park. (9:30 am) we have 3 day tix that earn us one EMH but I had planned to do DL (Wed) CA (Thu) DL (Fri)...none of those let us use an EMH at opening, should we switch and do CA-DL-DL, is the EMH that good or are we better to go to park that doesn't have it that day?

Aug5: Early 6am departure (mainly bc my grumbling travelers will sleep through most the Drive) to Sequoyah, then on to Yosemite staying at Half-Dome Village for 3 nights. Planned out our hikes and Tioga Road Drive.

Aug8: early morning departure headed back to LA area. I need to use my Hilton points and stay at beach hotel, the best one I found was Huntington Beach...is that one worth driving 40 minutes south of LAX? We need to be at airport by 7:00am and return rental. The kids really want a beach day and most other Hiltons are a good walk to beach either in Santa Monica or Manhattan? The Huntington one would be free for the night with points so we'd just pay for parking.

Any tips on stops/food/things we may need, we have no checked bags and each has a small back pack, figure we'll buy snack foods/cooler for Yosemite.
We are used to driving 13 hour days getting them to college, so the drive doesn't bug us..any bit worth doing PCH if it makes Drive 2+ hours longer?

Kids were in LA 18 years ago, but none remember it, trying to make this one to remember :)
 
Hmm, the PCH where it gets really pretty is further north and probably more than 2 hours out of your way. Since you need to get east of 99, so you would probably end up cutting through Paso Robles(wine country in central CA). If i was doing that drive i would rather stay in Santa Barbara but that would be too far to get to LAX that early. Have you looked for a Hilton near Malibu or even further up towards point mugu? That way you could get some scenic drive and beach day that way while not being too far from the airport, a couple hours.
 
Hilton is pretty limited, there is one at Pismo? and Santa Monica, but several reports of homeless people and panhandlers along those beaches...someone's car was broken into while valet parked and all their luggage stolen...I have the Sea View Inn booked at Manhattan Beach, but it's $400 for the night, free sounds so much better but is farther south. I don't mind rising early to get to airport, but is Huntington Beach a nice one?
 

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