sgromer

We are planning our first family trip to southern CA in July - Saturday to Saturday. Two kids age 16 and11. We know we want to spend time in San Diego visiting zoo and wild animal park, the beaches, LA-Hollywood and Sunset Blvd, stop off to a few wineries for Mom and Dad, and possibly one theme park. Would live to receive ideas on places to stay, things to do and see, and routes. Thanks!

sf7307

How many days will you have not including travel days?

spirobulldog

The water at the beaches are very cold. I see a lot of people swimming, but I didn't last long, even with a wetsuit. Balboa Park(area where zoo is) has a ton of other things to do there to. It's a huge area.

jamie99

Closest wineries to San Diego and LA would be in Temecula. The Wild Animal Park is now called Safari Park and is not in San Diego, but 45 minutes inland from there near Escondido. It gets very hot there during summer, can easily hit 90-100F. I might consider dropping this and instead going to Disneyland. Or if the teens are coaster fanatics, maybe Six Flags in North part of LA, or Knott's Berry Farm close to Disneyland.
You only need an hour or two to see Hollywood, very boring. If you have time and interest maybe combine with a tour of Warner Bros. studio?
All this presumes you have a car.

1JAR

Here are some new family oriented things to do San Diego;

SeaWorld bought previous Knott's Soak City park in South San Diego and will be a tropical updated Aquatica with live animals to open June 1 2013.

http://seaworldparks.com/seaworld-sa...ica-California

SeaWorld will have the new "Madagascar" live stage show with characters such as Alex the lion.

http://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld...adagascar-Live