Seriously, you need to get a car. This is Southern California we are talking about and it is required.

When you have 2 people in the car the LA freeways generously provide "diamond" lanes. This is to encourage car pooling and 2 in the car qualifies. Take advantage of this whenever possible. There will be less frequent traffic tieups. Do not concern yourself with speed limits...go with the flow.

The LA region is most definately not a walking type of place, mostly because of vastness.

Jenya_san,

I visited San Diego and L.A. last September for the first time. The driving greatly concerned me, too. I'm from a "small town" in the midwest and spent a lot of time imagining the horrors of the freeways. I can honestly tell you it was one of the easiest "big city" driving experiences I have ever had. Granted, there were some other adults in the car with me who helped with the navigation, but the freeways really are marked well and there is a good amount of warning time to make your exits. San Diego was especially easy to get around, I was there in the middle of the week. Drove to L.A. on a Friday and got smack dab in the middle of 5:00 traffic. It was slow going but not difficult to make your exits. I was a little concerned about making my way to L.A.X. for the flight home, but it was also a breeze.

Don't totally disregard the idea of renting a car yet. Just prepare yourself with good maps and review them before you head out each time, write down important names of streets/freeways/exits on a sticky note and put it on your steering wheel. Ask your daughter to help keep an eye on the signs with you.

Have a fun trip! I really enjoyed mine.

I think this thread is going 'round in circles. You have already made it clear that you do NOT want to drive. So, what do you really want to do? Stay in one hotel the whole visit? or change hotels? Are you on a budget? What sites do you really want to visit? Do you want to go to the beach? Do you and your daughter like museums? How about Mexican food? Would you like to get tickets to a TV show? There are so many things to do in the LA area. Your original post said you wanted to go to Disneyland, Universal, & Hollywood. The city is full of shuttles and tour groups. Your hotel can arrange for these, or you can contact them directly. Many will pick you up at your hotel. The real problem is selecting what you want to see and do. The transportation is solveable once you know your itinerary.

If you are only having one day at Universal make sure you get VIP passes. The tickets can be purchased on the net from the Universal website. When you arrive you swap them for a pass. You walk straight past all the queues on EVERY attraction and get VIP seats at all the shows. We managed to get on everything on the Saturday we went in October. It is well worth the money.

I thought of something else you might like to do. You could spend the night on the Queen Mary, which is docked in Long Beach, or you could take a boat trip over to Catalina and either do a day visit or spend the night. I think either of these things would be fairly unique experiences for both of you.

After reviewing all the responses again and again I came to the conclusion that the best and maybe easiest way for us to do this trip would be to postpone it from spring break until summer one. First, it will give me more time to research on what is available and what we actually want to do. I agree with babs001that it’s not easy to decide where you want to go and what you want to see when you run into so many choices that California has to offer, especially if you lived in US only for four years in isolated city in Alaska without many opportunities to get out. Second, it will allow me to save up more money not to be on a budget during the trip and be able to afford different package tours. Third, I will have time to get used to the idea of driving, studying maps etc ( only in San Diego though). Tracy2cents, heavens and Idnas71 talked me into that. And lastly, my daughter loves swimming and though we are surrounded by water it is too cold for swimming even in the summer. After reading some posters in this site about California I found out that it’s too cold for swimming in the ocean in March in California too. All of this makes me think that summer trip would probably be a better idea and with the suggestions from all of you it is much easier now to pull this trip off. Thank you all for your time and wonderful ideas. You are great folks! Check back with me every once in awhile, I am sure I will have a few more questions for you to answer. See you on Fodors. Jenya

I have been wondering what you had decided to do. I know you will have a wonderful time when your vacation finally arrives. As for driving...if you believe you can do it you'll have more success! My suggestion is to pick routes that, most of the time, keep you on the regular city streets and not on the freeways. But it's not horrible most of the time - just really crowded! Keep us posted.

You know there is a charge to change your airline tickets?