My family of 4:kids ages 12 and 15 want to visit Los Angeles and San Diego for a week in February. Any suggestions on where to stay and what to do.

I would stay at the Catmaran Hotel in San Diego. Right on the Bay and a block to ocean and the boardwalk where they can skate, ride bikes, lots of restaurants around.

No one can give you ANY sort of useful advice w/o more infor from you.

- Like hotel budget??
- What sorts of things do you enjoy?? Like -- are you going to the theme parks, or not?
- You obviously picked LA/SD for some reason(s) so what have you already researched/decided to do.

Thank you 4Janet for the suggestion for the Catmaron Hotel. I will look into it.

Would staying in Santa Monica be too far from LA? I do not know this area at all. I'm sure my kids want to do the studios, etc We were thinking of the Huntley at Santa Monica Beach.

Hi hemb..
Catamaran Hotel is a good place to stay and you can go to Belmont Park that the kids would love and that is on the boardwalk..roller coaster and wave pool.
Also, Sea Lodge in La Jolla..it is oceanfront and is a great location and the Birch Aquarium is up the street..

www.ljbtc.com
www.belmontpark.com
www.aquarium.ucsd.edu

Have you done any research at all? And I'm including poring over the information here on Fodor's. Let's start with this very general (but at least scale) map:

http://www.laalmanac.com/LA/lamap2.htm

Santa Monica is within the city of Los Angeles. It's surrounded on three sides by LA city. The fourth side is the Pacific. The studios, theme parks, etc. are all a healthy drive from Santa Monica. However, it's a nice city all in all, and when people think of "LA" as a concept images of Santa Monica often come to mind (FULL DISCLOSURE: I work in Santa Monica).

The Huntley, although a very nice hotel, is inland, up a bluff and three blocks east of the beach (I look over my shoulder and see the Huntley right now-- straight ahead, I'm looking at the beach and ocean).

Southern California is a huge area, and I would say there are thousands of interesting things to see and do. Maybe tens of thousands. And only a few of them are theme parks. So you're going to have to help us out a bit so we can direct our suggestions more effectively.

Stay at the Beverly Wilshire in LA. Take the kids shopping for designer clothes on Rodeo Drive. Rent a private guide to see Disneyland, then spend the rest of your time touring UCLA, USC, Loyola Marymount.

In San Diego, stay at the Hotel del Coronado. An oceanfront suite will be the best for 4 of you. You can charter a boat for fishing and scuba, then tour UCSD, San Diego State and other colleges nearby. Maybe hit the clubs in Tijuana one night, as they have no age limit.

How's that sound?

I think TXgrandma is off her medication.

EVERYthing in LA is far from EVERYthing! But Santa Monica is, imho, the best place to stay in LA. No, it's not "typical" LA, which is what makes it so pleasant. West LA is by far the most "fun" part of LA (again just my opinion). Westwood (community around UCLA), Santa Monica, Palisades, all that stuff is stuff teens like.

The LACMA is a great museum, if you can drag teens there.

The Silver Lake area is cool, too.

Oh, and TXGrandma must have grown up in Beverly Hills in the 50s, since it's those natives who consider Rodeo Drive a complete joke.

If you click on TX's name to read his/her posts, the overall picture is not very nice.

I think TX is being sarcastic.

Or trying to be.

Whatever you plan to do in SoCal in Feb, like going to the beach. You may want a back-up plan. Sometimes Feb is nice sometimes it's cold and the beach is dreary.
What type of things do you enjoy doing? What are the kids interested in?

Well to let you all know, this is where I started with my research. I'm just beginning... I'm not too worried about what we are going to do, I'm tryng to wrap up where we are going to stay.

Thanks TahitiTams for mentioning the Catamaran. Its nice to hear it from 2 people. Looks like it might work for us; near beach, activities, etc.

Now I'm confused about LA. Since I don't know the layout of the area (thanks for the map links - that helped) I'm stumped. We will be touring studios, museums and such. I'm sure my 15 year old daughter will want to star search, etc. I don't want to be in a dump or sleazy hotel but don't want high end either.

Hoping to put together a package through Expedia. LucieV, any hotel suggestions in Santa Monica besides the Huntely? under $300/night would be nice.

Has anyone seen the Farmer's Daughter hotel? Just curious, saw it online somewhere and it looked crazy but fun.

Txgrandma - thanks for the candid advise. We might do some college looking while we are in CA. She's got a few years yet but no time like the present...

Hey hemb..
No problem on the advice for the Cat Hotel..they also own the Bahia Hotel on Mission Bay too.
The Farmers Daughter Hotel is directly across the CBS studios in Hollywood and it is perfect if you are going to the Price is Right..(have to be 18 years old) but I would stay in West LA..Santa Monica would be perfect!

www.catamaranresort.com

Sorry, I meant no harm. Trying to use humour rather than rudeness to make a point, and I guess I've been gonged.

Just that when someone says, "Any suggestions on where to stay and what to do", without any parameters, are there any wrong answers?

A few suggestions on things to do..

Must see places for a first-time-to-LA
1. Hollywood and Highland- Walk of Fame- Grumman's Chinese theatre- Kodak theater (This is all together, so you can keep half to one day for this, depending on if you want to take a tour of the Kodak theatre, etc.)
2. Universal Studios! Make sure you start with the Studio tour first- then go to the lower lot and cover the theme park back to front.
3. Santa Monica pier and 3rd street Promenade ... enjoy the live music and strolling through the shops in the evening
4. USC area- The Science museum, the museum of natural history and a couple of other museums are all located close together.. so you can spend a day in this area
5. DIsneyland- There are 2 parks, and you will need 1 day to cover each park. If you have only 1 day here, and Since your kids are 12 and 15, I think they will enjoy the California adventure more
6. San Diego Sea World - Go Shamu!

I would suggest that you split your trip so that you stay in the Los Angeles area for 3-4 days, where you will be closer to activities 1-4 and then stay the rest of your trip in Orange County/ Anaheim area which will be closer to activities 5 and 6.

Also, the worst thing is to get stuck in traffic in LA during rush hour... so make sure you check the traffic before getting on the road!

Have fun!

We spent a few days in LA with our 10 and 12 year olds this summer (part of a larger trip) so can offer a few suggestions.

It's not in West LA (which I think is a good suggestion for a hotel location) but we stayed at the Hilton Universal Hotel which worked well for us. We arrived late the first night and had a nice room. Spent the next day at Universal Studios which was a 2 minute shuttle ride (we actually walked back--only five minutes) from the Hilton. Had dinner at the Hollywood/Highland mall and visited Mann's Chinese Theatre and Walk of Fame which is adjacent to the mall. It was a ten minute ride from the Hilton.

The next day we toured Rodeo Drive area, Beverly Hills, Hollywood Hills (doing the star homes tour thing--don't think the kids thought that was very interesting) and then drove up to Malibu. Actually stayed with friends in Pacific Palisades that night but going back to the HIlton wouldn't have been bad.

Just some thoughts. Personally, I'm not a big fan of LA and it was a bit of a let down after San Francisco and Yosemite. But you may all like it better and it's definitely something to see. Wish we had had time for San Diego. Next trip.

ccrosner brings up an interesting point. LA is much harder to appreciate than San Francisco and Yosemite, where all the nice and pretty things are all in one place. LA is huge and sprawling and contains nuggets of fantastic stuff amid a lot of mediocrity or worse. LA is more of a treasure hunt; SF and Yosemite are more like theme parks where it's all conveniently laid out for you. And that's not a bad thing.

San Diego is superficially a mini-LA-- just as sprawling, just as sun-kissed. As with LA, those outer appearances are deceiving. Millions live and work here without the Botox parties, multiple divorces/partnership dissolutions and "botched plastic surgery/repressed false memory therapy nightmare" one-person studio-theatre showcases. A week is enough to scratch the dazzling, tinselly surface; the underneath is often sordid (yeah!), more often warm and wonderful, and for those who can handle the challenges it's a great place to visit and live.

LOL rjw..
San Diego native without botox, divorce, false memory or a one man stage performance..