California and Arizona holiday itinerary help
 

Hi Fodor's Forums!
I would appreciate advice for our itinerary plans for our holiday to California and Arizona August 2014.
Yes I know Arizona will be HOT but we have no choice but go then due to our kid's ages in school. We are two adults, 2 kids who will be aged 16 and 13 (almost 14) by then. I have been to Arizona in August before. 18 day trip. We have some experience of this area as we visited in 2005 when kids much smaller and did San Diego/Anaheim/Phoenix that time. This time we plan to....

Fly to Phoenix
(we will stay a 3-4 days there as we are visiting friends)
Hire a car and travel up to Grand Canyon (stay/visit Sedona or Flagstaff on way up?) We could take a couple of days to do this ? Jerome worth a visit? Oak Creek Canyon?
Stay in Grand Canyon one night. Looking into one night at the Grand Canyon ranch resort? Would like to experience the 'western' thing!!

After this we will have a choice. Do we drive on via Hoover Dam to Las Vegas for one night to fly from there to LA with someone like SouthWest airlines?
This is quicker/easier than driving back to Phoenix plus takes in more sights?

In LA, we would like to spend 7 of our 10 days here at a nice beach resort. Laguna? Santa Barbara? Newport Beach? Ideally a villa would be great with a pool but it seems these are much harder to come by than in Florida! Or perhaps a resort type hotel which has its own villa/apartments with use of pool etc.
But somewhere closeish to explore a little of LA ie Hollywood, Universal studios etc.
We would spend our last 4 days at Disneyland/DCA (big fans!)
We could always stay on the park for this section.
Fly home from LA.

We are interested in swimming, beaches (including beaches you can actually swim at in California?), museums, native american culture, theme parks and animals.
Any advice gratefully received!

". I have been to Arizona in August before."

Have you kids been to AZ in August? It is running about 112 there now, let alone what it will be in August.

Hi DebitNM , no they have not but as I understand it (from our friends who live there) it is actually cooler than July? I realise it is not ideal but we have little choice I am afraid so....

Look into renting a condo (VRBO.com has lots of listings) and Newport Beach has a lot of them. You can sort by number of bedrooms and other things, many will have pools, kitchen and a washer and dryer.
No need to stay "on the park", Disneyland is not like WDW in Orlando. There are a number of hotels and motels in all price ranges across the street or within a couple of blocks. With four people, maybe look at the Residence Inn Maingate, has free breakfast and free light dinners M-Th. Has kitchens.

I echo what DebitNM, it's an inferno here in August, I can't imagine anyone willingly coming here and I'm a native! That being said, Jerome is really cool and worth a visit, I think kids that age would enjoy it but it's not an entire day, with lunch it's more like half a day. With kids I'd probably head to the Haunted Hamburger. The food is good and if you can snag a table on the patio the views are outstanding. If your kids have more sophisticated taste you can eat at 15 Quince, this happens to be one of my favorite restaurants in the entire state and in my opinion warrants a drive to Jerome just to eat there! There's an old jail, historic buildings, lots of bikers, artists, funky shops, and great people watching. The drive to Jerome is also lovely but if anyone gets car sick this should be addressed before hand, lots of twisting winding roads. Hopefully you are staying somewhere with a pool!