San Diego Zoo and the Road to Disney

Most families with young children would not miss the zoo in the places they visit.  Ours is not an exception.  When we visited San Diego as part of our Pacific Coast Highway road trip, San Diego Zoo was automatically part of our itinerary.   Here’s a little video of that day in the zoo.  I also thought of including my previous blog below, which includes the zoo, our road trip to Anaheim and our choice of hotel in Disney, Anaheim.

San Diego Zoo and the Road to Disney

Day 3.  They say that if there were only two things we’d have time to do in San Diego with children, one of them has to be the San Diego Zoo.  And so on the third day of our Pacific Coast Highway road trip, that was exactly what we did!  We were also driving up to Anaheim after the zoo and so we checked-out of our Hampton Inn accommodation early, and loaded our luggage in the back of our rented 4runner.

Since the day we arrived in California, Benjamin and Joaquin had already been looking out for cars that they see only in the US.  One of them was this Dodge Challenger which was parked across our car at the zoo.

At the zoo, the first thing we did was ride the Alaska Airlines Skyfari to give us a bird’s eye view of the park.  While I and the kids were having fun, Euben was sweating, holding tight and giving out a lot of ohhhs and OMGs.  He’s not a fan of heights.  Poor Daddy.

Here are some of the animals we saw.

San Diego Zoo has an impressive collection of reptiles but I could only manage to take pictures of a few because I was afraid to stand too close to them.  I’m a scaredy cat when it comes to snakes and lizards.

Around 2:30pm we started driving to Anaheim.  We made a few stops for coffee and snacks.  The traffic was good and just after sunset, we had reached Anaheim.   Anaheim was 95mi north of San Diego.

Our Hotel in Anaheim

We checked in at Fairfield Inn Anaheim Resort that night.  Of all the accommodations that I had to book for this trip, the one in Anaheim was the most difficult to decide on.  You see, the next in our road trip was 3 days and 3 nights at Disney California.  And so it was a choice between those nice familiar big names but a shuttle away from Disney and the smaller, not as highly-rated hotels but walking distance.

After a few weeks of research and 4 temporary hotel bookings, I decided on Fairfield and it turned out to be a very, very good decision.

 Our room was basic but big, warm and clean.  It was a comfortable stay for us for the next 3 nights.  What made Fairfield a good choice for our family was it’s close proximity to Disney.   No need to wait in line to take the shuttle.  It was really just a short 5-minute walk to the gate.

Downtown Disney, Anaheim

That night we walked to Downtown Disney to have dinner and look around the shops.  It was a vibrant, crowded and happy place.  We couldn’t find a table for dinner and so we just did some shopping for the boys.

There were a lot of shops for everyone – Anna & Elsa for the little girls, Lego for the little boys, Sephora for mums, Vault for dads, and many more.  The only thing you’ll run out of here is money and time.

We had Pizza Hut in the comfort of our room that night, mainly because we couldn’t get a table in Downtown Disney, but also because the kids were excited to play with their new Lego, light sabers and some other toys.  Did I mention that the Pizza Hut was in our hotel? Yup, that’s another plus for choosing Fairfield.  Anyway, the kids were excited to rest for the night and prepare themselves for Disneyland the following day.

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Disneyland-lovers, do check out our series of Disney California blogs here: Disneyland Day 1, Disney California Adventure Day 2, Disneyland Day 3. 🙂