My husband and I will be in LA Thanksgiving weekend to see the Notre Dame game. Looking for suggestions on places to stay and things to do. Hotel price can be in the moderate range (up to $200/night). Things to do - looking for stuff in the immediate area. We've been to the surrounding areas, and many other parts of CA but never to LA -- so we're looking to do the LA 'highlights'. Thanks.

Is the Notre Dame game at the Rose Bowl? If so, plan to spend some time in Pasadena's Old Town. Nice little restaurants and some fairly good shopping. You might also like to see the Huntington Library and Gardens in nearby San Marino. The UCLA team spends the night before their games at the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. It's really a beautiful old hotel with great service and our favorite anywhere in LA. Have fun.

I would like to second KAM's suggestion
of the Ritz, if only for a drink, a lovely hotel with a lot of class. Also, if the game is indeed at the Rose Bowl and if you are interested in museums the Norton Simon is gorgeous and small enough to really enjoy. The gardens at the Huntington Hartford Library in nearby San Marino are world class and although Old Town is a bit commercial there are still plenty of non-chain restaurants and shops. If you are in LA proper and want a hotel with an old world, almost haunted feeling, try the Chateau Marmount on Sunset. It's very European, no lobby, small bathrooms, caters to a quieter sort of celeb ( think "theatre" or at its seamiest "druggie" crowd) and is steeped in atmosphere or the Hollywood Roosevelt, restored to its Spanish Mission grandeur, with a good cabaret scene, and right on the struggling boulevard.

Michele

If you like musicals you might want to make a night of it and see The Lion King at the Pantages. Tickets can be gotten over the internet.

The game is against U$C at the Coliseum just south of Downtown LA. Not the best neighborhood. If you have a rental car, I would stay on the west side. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, or maybe South Bay beach areas (Redondo, Manhattan or Hermosa Beach). If you don't have a rental car, you can stay in a downtown hotel like the Bonaventure (Westin?). The "in" hotel right now (from what I read) is the Mondrian. Probably pricey though.
Things to do: Venice Beach to view the freaks, Getty Center (great art and even better views), Museum of Tolerance, Old Pasadena, Santa Monica beach and pier, Universal Studios, Disneyland. Right at the Coliseum are a couple of museums, Science and Industry (with an IMAX theater), and Natural History. LA County Museum of Art is not too far away either.

everyone is talking about the getty museum but i understand that you need to get advance tickets.

Sally, you only need to call ahead for parking reservations not for people! You can get a taxi and not worry about it at all. Even if the game is at USC you could stay in Pasadena. It's probably the nicest, closest area. There will be more traffic coming from the Westside than from Pasadena. The area around the Colisseum is perfectly OK for a game--we've been there many times and it's actually great fun and a beautiful traditional campus. SC fans really get into the game and the band is a kick! A fun place for dinner after the game is the Pacific Dining Car in downtown--a very old famous steakhouse and a favorite of SC fans. Have a great weekend. P.S. If you do decide on Pasadena, fly into Burbank if you can. Again, less congestion.

I'm going to LA in September and called the Getty Museum about a parking reservation, I was told that after Sept.9 they will no longer take reservations for parking on the weekends. The person I spoke to said that the museum opens at 10am and they start letting people in the parking lot around 9:30am.-she said it's best to get there before noon when the crowds start getting large.

Thanks for the advice about the LA area. I'm going to the Michigan/UCLA game on September 16. Go Blue!!

In April we stayed at an amazing hotel in West Hollywood called Le Montrose Suite Hotel. Their rates through their website www.lemontrosesuite.com were excellent and their service was outstanding. Who else has rubber duckies in their pool? We found out on that trip that if you were a college or university student you automatically got to park at the Getty, you just had to show you school i.d.

Last Thanksgiving weekend, I got a fantastic three-night rate (about one-third their usual rate) at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena. It's quite close to the I-110, and thus an easy drive through downtown L.A. to the Coliseum. Even if that rate is not offerred this year, I recall that serveral other hotels were doing the same thing for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

If you want to be closer to the stadium, a friend in town last weekend stayed at and raved about the Wyndham Checkers, a beautifully restored old downtown hotel. If you like art museums, the Museum of Contemporary Arts also is downtown, near the Music Center; it is within walking distance (a long walk) of, or a two-stop subway ride from, the downtown hotels. The museum has recently undergone renovation of its permanent displays--currently, there are refreshed exhibits of Warhol and Jasper Johns.

I think Venice Beach is a must see, and not just simply to see the "freaks," as mentioned above. It is a unique place to be sure, but everyone I've taken there has wanted to go back when they came to visit again. If you go to Venice Beach, go after noon on the holiday Friday or on Sunday--that's when most of the street performers are around. Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade are adjacent to Venice and are nice to visit as well.

Go early to the game (expect to pay fifteen dollars or more to park in a high school lot or a store lot or a large yard). As mentioned above, the area north of the Coliseum is very nice. The interior of the Museum of Natural History is beautiful. The Science and Industry museum is new.
Between the museums and the Coliseum is a huge rose garden. It's a great area for a stroll.

If downtown or Venice don't appeal to you, ditto kam's Pasadena suggestions, especially Huntington Library.

In addition to those mentioned above, there are some convenient hotels on Wilshire Boulevard between L.A. and Beverly Hills--Marriott has two locations, I think. I've stayed at one for a reasonable rate. There are some good downtown restaurants; the Water Grill (seafood, fairly expensive) on Grand Ave. comes to mind. A great inexpensive place is Versailles on La Cienega, between the I-10 and Olympic Blvd. It's a small Cuban restaurant--very popular and very inexpensive. Fodor's, of course, has a comprehensive list of restaurants and hotels.