Hello Ducks fans,
My wife and I are planning a family trip to California for the late December / early January timeframe, and have a few questions for you:
1. Current plan is to fly to LA on Dec 28th, spend a couple days around Hollywood / Beverly Hills and then drive down to Laguna Beach on Dec 30th (which is a Monday). Question -- how long would you expect that drive to take? Will traffic be horrendous and if so is there any particular time to make the drive that would be best from a traffic pov? Traffic is at it's worast from 7:30am-9am and then 4:30pm-6:30pm
That will be a long drive . I would plan for an hour an a half- two hours
2. We'll spend a few days at some resort near Laguna Beach and my kids are keen on doing some water sports in the ocean -- boogie boarding and maybe a little surfing (kids are 11 and 14). I realize that the water will be pretty cold at that time, and we'll absolutely need wetsuits... but will it be too cold even with wetsuits? I guess I'm assuming the water temp will be around 60 degrees, is that way off? Way off . The water temp in the winter will be around 50 degrees. not too cold with wetsuits. People do it every day.
The Laguna coast is very rocky though. I would recommend Newport Beach or Huntington for body surfing. You might want to check the beach websites, many black ball surfing.
The best surfing in SoCal is Tressels in San Clemente
Trestles Beach, San Clemente, CA - California Beaches
3. Any particular resorts at or near Laguna that you'd recommend for it's beaches? We typically stay at pretty high end places, so I price is not something I worry about too much (you can't take it with you!).
The Montage. High end but as beautiful as it gets
Thanks in advance, looking forward to visiting your part of the world!