Southwest USA & The West Coast (California, Arizona etc) - General Thread

catz1ct

Hi, I want to book a holiday next April for our honeymoon for the following:

LA
San Diego (I want to go to the zoo)
Las Vegas
San Francisco

I want to stay roughly 4 days in LA, and 2 in San Diego. I'm not fussed about the others but I would say at least 3 days in Las Vegas & San Fran.

I really have no idea where to start with this, I was looking at booking it through Virgin Holidays but they seem very expensive and I would rather have a hotel that was cheap & comfy rather than something exuberant like they seem to offer. Does anyone have any advice on where to start looking? It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Murphy_The_Cat

realised wrote: »

Before I book i'm just trying to work out a rough plan. We're starting our trip in Phoenix and spending about 3-4 days there.

Good luck with Phoenix - it was a place that I never warmed to. Perhap consider a couple of days there and then a couple of days in Sedona (gorgeous, but quite dear) or nearby Cottonwood (not as pretty, but quite a bit cheper & close enough to explore Sedona, Jerome & surrounding area.
If you do stay in Cottonwood, the Blazin M Ranch is different, great fun and very memorable. Plus, you've got a headstart on your drive to the GC.)

Murphy_The_Cat

catz1ct wrote: »

Hi, I want to book a holiday next April for our honeymoon for the following:

LA
San Diego (I want to go to the zoo)
Las Vegas
San Francisco

I want to stay roughly 4 days in LA, and 2 in San Diego. I'm not fussed about the others but I would say at least 3 days in Las Vegas & San Fran.

I really have no idea where to start with this, I was looking at booking it through Virgin Holidays but they seem very expensive and I would rather have a hotel that was cheap & comfy rather than something exuberant like they seem to offer. Does anyone have any advice on where to start looking? It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Have a look through the numerous threads on here about holidaying in that area. Some of them run to hundreds of posts and contain a wealth of information. Then, after you've read the thousands of posts, see if there is anything that hasn't been covered for you :beer:

ferf1223

Vikki_74 wrote: »

After reading on the Vegas thread about Marriott's 'best price' guarantee (thanks to duchy who first pointed this out a few weeks back) and using it to bag us a bargain room in Palm Springs I thought I'd have a look around to see what else was on offer from the other hotel chains...turns out quite a bit!

Have to thank Vikki for this...while I've been aware of best rate guarantees for a long time, I've never used one and I kind of forget that they exist.

Found a crazy rate for a specifc hotel we wanted to stay at (just one night) on getaroom.com - but their reviews are awful - too many people turning up only to find no room for them, not worth it.

But in searching for info on getaroom.com - trying to find some justification for using them despite the awful reviews - I came across this post - which I had already read (I have no retention whatsoever, apparently) and realised that the hotel was in one of the groups that has a BPG...so...booked it with the hotel (cancellable, in case it all went wrong), then submitted a claim - fully expecting there would be some reason they wouldn't honour it. Claim accepted this morning.

$279 booking reduced to just over $90 - have already checked on the hotel's website and the price has been reduced on our booking...more than some get this hotel for on priceline, but so much nicer to know that we have our #1 pick (by far) booked over 2 months in advance for a crazy rate and don't have to faff about with hoping we get lucky with priceline.

So thanks Vikki - very much! I would always be a bit careful booking this way, wouldn't ever count on the BRG working - so would always want to have the chance to cancel, but in this case, it did work very, very well.

Vikki_74

realised wrote: »

Before I book i'm just trying to work out a rough plan. We're starting our trip in Phoenix and spending about 3-4 days there.

Then I'm not sure whether to spend a few nights in Vegas (maybe 2 nights we went last time and to be honest, i didn't like it that much) but i'm struggling to think of another place to go, before spending our last week or so in Los Angeles.

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Good luck with Phoenix - it was a place that I never warmed to. Perhap consider a couple of days there and then a couple of days in Sedona (gorgeous, but quite dear) or nearby Cottonwood (not as pretty, but quite a bit cheper & close enough to explore Sedona, Jerome & surrounding area.
If you do stay in Cottonwood, the Blazin M Ranch is different, great fun and very memorable. Plus, you've got a headstart on your drive to the GC.)

I'm with Murphy on this one...we were considering a few days in Phoenix this year after the Grand Canyon but after looking into it I couldn't actually find much in the way of things to do there, other than just seeing another city. Unless there is anything in particular you want to spend 3-4 days there for, I would cut a couple out to spend elsewhere. I like the Sedona suggestion, it does look like a lovely place.

Regarding what to do after the Grand Canyon, I think it depends on how many nights you have. Yosemite was suggested but that's a long drive in the wrong direction if you want to end up in LA - do-able if you have a few days, less worth it IMO if you only have a night or two spare.

Just to throw a couple of other suggestions out there, you could consider driving part of the old Route 66 between Williams (south of the GC) over to its end in Santa Monica which would be do-able in 2-3 nights with a fair bit of driving. If you have longer, heading north from GC and visiting Bryce Canyon & Zion would be an option but you'd need more than a couple of days to drive it all then loop back down to LA via Vegas. Or you could drive to Vegas and pick up a cheap flight down to San Diego to spend a few nights there before heading back up to LA...so many choices!

If you don't have definate plans which require you to spend a week in and around LA, I'm definately in the camp that would recommend cutting your time down there. Having said that, we spent 4 nights there last year and are kind of going back for another 3 this year to do Disneyland (Anaheim, so technically Orange County not LA but still in the area) so I can't argue that there isn't a week's worth of stuff to do! Most of our time there was/will be in theme parks though - otherwise I'd give it a night or two at most.

Vikki_74

catz1ct wrote: »

Hi, I want to book a holiday next April for our honeymoon for the following:

LA
San Diego (I want to go to the zoo)
Las Vegas
San Francisco

I want to stay roughly 4 days in LA, and 2 in San Diego. I'm not fussed about the others but I would say at least 3 days in Las Vegas & San Fran.

I really have no idea where to start with this, I was looking at booking it through Virgin Holidays but they seem very expensive and I would rather have a hotel that was cheap & comfy rather than something exuberant like they seem to offer. Does anyone have any advice on where to start looking? It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Long story short:

Virgin Holidays (or any other company who will put together a package for you) = easy option but more expensive & less control over where you visit and which hotels you stay in. Booking as a package would (or should anyway) give you some protection if anything went wrong with the airlines, flights etc.

DIY = more complicated to book, more decisions to make but you get to choose exactly what you want to do and it will most likely be cheaper (certainly cheaper than Virgin Holidays - when I've looked at their prices I've found them extortionate!). Booking independently puts you at more risk in terms of airlines going bust, flights being cancelled etc as they are not responsible for anything you've paid out for hotels etc booked separately.

I've seen people recommend in the past that a package option is more sensible when looking for a honeymoon in particular to make things less stressful etc. Personally I booked all our wedding and honeymoon in California last year independently and loved every minute of it (the planning and the trip!) but it's personal preference. It may also come down to what you can afford or are prepared to pay for the trip &/or how much value you place on convenience.

As suggested, have a read through some of the threads I've linked to on the first page as a starting point then when you have more of an idea of what you might want to do, feel free to post for more detailed advice.

Hope that helps

Vikki_74

ferf1223 wrote: »

So thanks Vikki - very much! I would always be a bit careful booking this way, wouldn't ever count on the BRG working - so would always want to have the chance to cancel, but in this case, it did work very, very well.

You are very welcome :beer: That's a huge saving, makes my $30 or so look a bit piddly by comparison!

I agree about the word of caution though - I'd only ever try this if the rate booked with the hotel could be cancelled without penalty, just in case they didn't honour the rate guarantee.

catz1ct

Vikki_74 wrote: »

Hope that helps

Thank you for this post. I am a little worried about booking everything independently when it is so much money but I really like the idea of booking everything myself.

I have found a flight from Heathrow into San Fran then out from Las Vegas and into Gatwick for roughly £1300 return for 2 people. I don't think this is too bad.

I think we have decided to do the holiday in this order:
San Francisco (will pick up a hire car here)
Santa Barbara (stay here 1 night on the way down the pacific coast)
Los Angeles
San Diego (Really want to go to the zoo)
Las Vegas

So excited but also quite nervous about booking hotels and getting everything in order

Murphy_The_Cat

catz1ct wrote: »

So excited but also quite nervous about booking hotels and getting everything in order

Always remember the 7Ps :beer:

Vikki_74

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Always remember the 7Ps :beer:

Please Murphy, put me out of my misery - what are the 7Ps?!? I feel like that's some kind of riddle which is completely going over my head