Dealing With Transportation: Part 2 - Getting Around

Our Park Mantra is “Rope Drop to Fire Works”. On all of our trips to any park, my husband and I have always agreed that if we were going to spend time in the parks, we are going to experience as much as we can in the allotted time available.

As previously mentioned, on this trip to California, we would be without a permanent form of transportation. Unlike our trips to Walt Disney World, Disneyland was proving to be a little more difficult to plan. Disneyland is like its own shopping mall. Everything there is within walking distance. So at least in terms of the days we spent at the Disneyland Resort and attending D23 Convention, there was no need for the cost of a car rental or other form of transportation. 

As for the day we were going to visit Universal Hollywood, the situation was a bit different. It turns out that unlike how most of the parks in Florida are mainly in Orlando/Kissimee, Universal Hollywood was closer to Los Angeles. This is about 1 hour away from Anaheim. When looking for transportation, we asked our concierge about what most guests did in this particular situation. They mentioned that Greyhound, a major bus company, offered a service to and from your hotel. The problem was that rope droppers like my husband and I would not benefit from their system at all. A bus will pick guests up at 9:00am from their hotel and drive them to the Greyhound headquarters. From there, they will drive guests to their destination. We would not be guaranteed arrival to the park until after 12:00pm. There was also a chance that we would arrive later depending on how many other guests went on our same route. Guests would also be required to come back prior to 6:00pm in order to get back to their hotel. After finding out this information, we had to look for other options. There was no way that we would be sacrificing time in the parks when we did not know when or if we would come back to visit Universal Hollywood.

I called our hotel again and asked to speak to their concierge. After explaining our situation, he suggested that we use a Select Rent A Car. Select Rent A Car works directly with the Best Western Family of Good Neighbor Hotels in the Anaheim area. Their service includes the following:

·  A pick up from your hotel to their location.

·  Guests are only responsible for the payment of the rental for the car and the cost of any gas used while during the time of the rental.

·  At night instead of having to return the car to their location and walking home, they will allow you to park the car at your hotel. They will pick it up in the morning at no extra charge to you and the hotel will not charge a guest for a parking fee for that night. All you will have to do is leave the keys with the hotel staff and everything else is taken care of.

They also offered us a $5 promotion because of the referral from our hotel. The gentleman who runs the company is very polite and accommodating.  I highly recommend their services.

Next time, I will focus on something that was a first time for our family: Flying.

What have you done during a vacation to get around? Any other recommendations?