First time visit to Disneyland (1st week of December)

[daisydog]

see fantasmic

see the holiday lighting on IASWH

read Darkbeer's sticky on how to use fastpass

take lots of pictures

get to DL early if you want to beat the crowds, especially on the weekends

[Abominable Snowman]

That sounds like an fun, but exhausting, week!

[TP2000]

I agree. You'll most likely be disappointed with Universal Studios and Sea World.

Not unless he is comparing them to the Universal Studios and Sea World out in Orlando. Compared to the Orlando copies, those two parks are either very different, or noticeably superior in their SoCal guises.

As for the touring plan, it sounds good to me as long as everyone involved are theme park fanatics. Although you might consider cutting out the Sunday visit to DL/DCA in favor of a day spent down in Laguna Beach or Newport experiencing the SoCal beauty and infamous OC lifestyle. Coming from the Midwest however, those OC locales are very, very different than Illinois and offer up some fabulous scenery and exotic and legit surf/beach culture.

Or maybe spend Sunday morning/afternoon having brunch down in Laguna and poking around town or down in the tidepools at Crystal Cove State Beach, and then spend the evening at Disneyland doing a few favorite rides and seeing the Christmas fireworks and Fantasmic! when its less crowded than Friday night?

I do have to agree that your SoCal touring plan is heavily tilted towards theme parks. It would likely be interesting and a nice change of pace to spend a day, or at least a good chunk of a day, down along the Orange County coastline seeing how the real SoCal lives.

[PragmaticIdealist]

I think it may be difficult for a person who has never visited southern California before to know how sprawling and varied it actually is. A person could spend multiple lifetimes here and never experience it all. So, for that reason, I would recommend sacrificing Sea World and Universal Studios for sight-seeing, recreation, and absorbing some of the local culture. There are many places beyond L.A. and Orange Counties that are worthwhile, too, and all of them are within about an hour of each other.