San Diego to LAX info

My husband and I are doing the Serendae 14 night PC in April. We are considering doing either 2 nights and fly our of SD on SW or the red eye out of LAX and fly song. We have more miles on Delta so this will most likely be the way to go. What hotles are close to both Seaworld and the SD Zoo. How far is the animal park? Does AMTrak go from SD-LAX. We really don't want to rent a car if possible.

Lexi

To get from LAX to San Diego, you need to rent a car or take a cab or shuttle into downtown LA (about 20 miles) and catch the Amtrack train there at Union Station. There used to be an "Airporter" shuttle through Cloud 9, but they stopped that service last year. I priced private shuttles/limos a while ago and they were running $200/person and more. The drive is 2 1/2-3 hours (if the traffic is not bad, using car-pool lanes and the toll road).

The Amtrack train comes right to downtown San Diego about 200 yds from the cruise ship terminal. You can take a cab or the city bus to the zoo from there. You can also take the Old Towne Trolley, which stops at many San Diego sights. You pay one price for the day, and can get on/off at any stop. It does not go to the WAP or Sea World, but does go to the Zoo. You can get more info here:

http://shophta.com/acb/stores/15/product1.asp?SID=15&Product_ID=12&kc=y

If you want to go to the Wild Animal Park, I would rent a car. It is about 40 miles from downtown, and would take you all day on the bus, and be expensive in a cab. There are many hotels downtown (about 2 miles to the zoo) or in Mission Valley (about 3 miles to the zoo, 35 miles to the WAP, 3 miles to Sea World). The Sea World Comfort Inn & Suites in Mission Valley is centrally located. No restaurant, but a free continental breakfast. There are easily 20 hotels/motels in 2 miles along Hotel Circle in Mission Valley, of all prices, so I would check these out if I were you.

for their 1/23 cruise. They are flying into LA to visit us first before heading off to San Diego.

So they can take Amtrak from Union Station to Downtown San Diego. As you said, the train station is 200 yards from the cruise ship terminal, will they be able to walk to the ship's terminal from the train station or do they need to get a taxi?

Short of driving them to San Diego ourselves, it's a relief to hear that we only need to drive them to the Union Station.

I want to plan out their trip from LA to San Diego cruise ship terminal as clearly as possible so they don't get lost. They are seasoned cruisers but it's their first time in San Diego.

TIA>

Unless they are pretty fit, and want to make multiple trips with their luggage (I assume they have more than a small carry-on each for a longer cruise), I would recommend they take a cab from the train station to the cruise ship terminal. It should be less than $5 but they should plan to tip well as the cab driver will NOT be happy with such as small fare!