San Diego Zoo or Universal?

[mcmel]

PDQ

I'm surprising H with a trip to Nurtured by Nature in June. We fly in to LAX on Friday, fly out Monday. Sunday is full with the otters, but we have nothing planned for Saturday.

Would you rather go to San Diego Zoo or Universal Studios Hollywood?

H and I are big animal lovers (hence the Nurtured by Nature trip), but we also like roller coasters and he loves Harry Potter. I'm reading that the Universal Studios Hollywood doesn't have a huge Harry Potter section like the Orlando one does. And since we're only going to be there 1 day I'm afraid we won't be able to ride many roller coasters (we just got back from WDW 2 days ago and the fast pass lines were still so long that we only got to ride a few good roller coasters a day).

Sorry this is all over the place and thanks in advance.

[bcv513]

Lurker from the app but we loved the San Diego zoo! It was so much more than what I was expecting. We actually did two days there and skipped going to universal.

[alleinesein]

I'd opt for the Wild Animal Park since you will be going to Valley Center for the otters. It will be much closer than the SD zoo.

[alleinesein]

You could spend the night in SD on Saturday. We have some nice hotels on the coast or you could stay out at Harrahs in Rincon and be really close to NbN in VC

[lala]

Wild Animal Park is closer - we were just at the zoo and had a wonderful time but I've heard great thing about WAP, too.

[wannabe]

Universal Hollywood can easily be done in a day. There's only a handful of rides, with at least two of them in the Harry Potter section. The tram ride is about 45 minutes, and a lot of the other rides are simulators - Transformers, Minions, Simpsons.

I prefer it over the zoo, but that's just me.

[sunflowers7]

If nurture by nature is your primary thing I would fly into San Diego or Oc/ John Wayne. That's a long ways from lax

[sunflowers7]

Magic mountain would be the place for thrill rides but summer would mean long lines

[mcmel]

Nov 29, 2016 23:42:06 GMT -5 sunflowers7 said:

If nurture by nature is your primary thing I would fly into San Diego or Oc/ John Wayne. That's a long ways from lax

It was half price to fly into LAX. My hair stylist (lol) actually told me to fly in LAX and drive to San Diego because the 2 hour drive is so beautiful. I would have to pay quite a bit to cancel my tickets (the airline doesn't fly into San Diego at all). You think this is a bad idea?

[sunflowers7]

Dec 2, 2016 22:52:50 GMT -5 mcmel said:

Nov 29, 2016 23:42:06 GMT -5 sunflowers7 said:

If nurture by nature is your primary thing I would fly into San Diego or Oc/ John Wayne. That's a long ways from lax

It was half price to fly into LAX. My hair stylist (lol) actually told me to fly in LAX and drive to San Diego because the 2 hour drive is so beautiful. I would have to pay quite a bit to cancel my tickets (the airline doesn't fly into San Diego at all). You think this is a bad idea?

Are you flying spirit?

[mcmel]

Dec 2, 2016 22:58:10 GMT -5 sunflowers7 said:

Dec 2, 2016 22:52:50 GMT -5 mcmel said:

It was half price to fly into LAX. My hair stylist (lol) actually told me to fly in LAX and drive to San Diego because the 2 hour drive is so beautiful. I would have to pay quite a bit to cancel my tickets (the airline doesn't fly into San Diego at all). You think this is a bad idea?

Are you flying spirit?

Allegiant.

[lala]

We flew into LAX and drove to Anaheim and then a few days later from Anaheim to San Diego. We had no issues and faced little to no traffic. That was all timing I assume - we left LAX and around 9am on a Saturday morning and left Anaheim at 7pm on a weeknight.

[alleinesein]

Dec 2, 2016 22:52:50 GMT -5 mcmel said:

Nov 29, 2016 23:42:06 GMT -5 sunflowers7 said:

If nurture by nature is your primary thing I would fly into San Diego or Oc/ John Wayne. That's a long ways from lax

It was half price to fly into LAX. My hair stylist (lol) actually told me to fly in LAX and drive to San Diego because the 2 hour drive is so beautiful. I would have to pay quite a bit to cancel my tickets (the airline doesn't fly into San Diego at all). You think this is a bad idea?

HA!  There is only one part of the drive that is considered beautiful and that is the 20 mile stretch of the 5 between San Clemente and Oceanside.  If you take the toll road between the 405 and the 5 you can drive through the hills but otherwise the drive is not that scenic.  It is your standard SoCal freeway with views of track houses, strip malls and industrial areas.

You can take the coast highway for part of the way but it is surface streets and will take twice as long.

If there is no traffic you can get from LAX to Valley Center in about 2.5 hours.  It takes me about 15 minutes to get to NbN from my house if there is no in town traffic and I don't hit any of the red lights.  It will probably take you about 30 minutes to get there once you get off the 78.  Be very wary of GPS directions; they sometimes like to route people the long way to get to Valley Center because it is "easier" but it is faster to just drive through Escondido instead of detouring 10-20 miles north on the freeway.