More commonly done on the East Coast is possible on the West Coast
Whenever you heard about a land and sea Disney Vacation, it’s usually at Walt Disney World and Port Canaveral. In the past month, we found that it is possible to do on the West as well.
What is a Land & Sea vacation?
A Land & Sea vacation is when your whole vacation has the 2 components back-to-back. As the name suggests, one component is on land while the other is at sea. It really doesn’t matter what you do for those components, but most commonly, a land and sea vacation consist of a cruise vacation and a land vacation where the cruise embarks/disembarks.
While there is no hard rule on if the cruise should come before or after the land portion, we recommend cruise first then land after. This is because cruise debarkation happen very early on the last day of the cruise. It’s definitely no fun to have to wake up early just to get kick off of a cruise ship just to head home. So a land portion after the sea portion keep the fun going!
Disney Cruise + Disneyland
Land & Sea works a bit differently than one in Florida. That’s because in Florida, you can add ground transportation to your Disney Cruise, also know as ground transfer. Although you can do it for San Diego, they only offer transfer to and from San Diego Airport and the Port (not ideal for people who travel there a day before). Ground transfer in Florida has options between 2 destinations – Disney World Resort Hotel or Orlando International Airport. While there are 2 debarkation ports on the west coast on Disney Cruise Line, San Diego is the only one that makes sense for a land and sea Disney vacation due to its proximity to Disneyland in Anaheim.
Amtrak to get to Disneyland from Port of San Diego
As we mentioned above, we recommend doing the cruise portion first then travel up to Anaheim for the land portion. At the end of your cruise, you will be debark at Port of San Diego. While the seaport is relatively close to San Diego International Airport, Amtrak is actually a much better choice in our opinion. Amtrak station is conveniently located 2 blocks away from the cruise terminal. Yes! Within walking distance! While you can argue that taking a short plane ride up may be quicker a train ride, we think using the train option involves less stress for this transfer when making your way up to Disneyland.
The specific line we use is the Pacific Surfliner. You can’t mess it up, it’s the only line there. Since San Diego’s Amtrak station is a terminus (end-of-the-line) station, there’s also no mistake in which direction of the train to take. When you book tickets online, be sure that you are picking stations, San Diego Santa Fe Depot (SAN) to Anaheim (ANA).
We highly recommend you buy tickets ahead of time even though you can buy tickets on the day of travel; you don’t want to be stuck at the Amtrak station instead of spending that time in Disneyland right? We also recommend going for Business Class, which is only about $10-$20 more than Coach. It comes with nicer seats and priority boarding. The train ride takes about 2 hour; so the total travel time is about 2.5 hours for this portion. (Tip: Sit on the left side of the train if you want views of the California coastline.)
Arriving at Anaheim, Amtrak will drop you off at the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) where it is a short Uber ride or bus ride away. If you opt for bus, take the OCTA Route 50 (More info can be found on Disney’s website: https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/getting-here/by-train/). This portion highly depends on Uber availability or bus arrival times. Plan for about 40 min – 1 hr for this.
In total, we spent about $100 for 2 for this portion using this method.
How does the travel timeline look on ground transfer day?
First, we usually opt for Express Walkoff debarkation method at the end of our cruise, which means that we walk off with all of our luggage with us (DCL has an option to pick up luggage the night before debarkation and for you to pick up at the port) and no visiting breakfast in the dining rooms. San Diego has better food and coffee anyways.. With that in mind, here’s how our usual timeline look like.
- 7:30AM – Express Walkoff for Debarkation
- 8:00AM – Complete debarkation process/exit San Diego cruise terminal
- 8:00AM – 9:00AM – Grab breakfast and maybe a take out to eat for lunch (We highly recommend Portal Coffee or Bird Rock Coffee Roasters)
- 9:30AM – Arrive at San Diego Santa Fe Depot Amtrak station
- 9:45AM – Board train
- 10:00AM – 12:00PM – Train Travel
- 12:00PM – 12:40PM – Uber/Bus to Disneyland
And there you have it, in the park by 1:00PM! Of course, if you’re ambitious and want to buy tickets the day of, there is a 8:00AM train, which shifts your schedule up by 2 full hours. But in our opinion, you’ll cut it very close. If the cruise ship has problems docking or if you are selected for extra screening during debarkation process, you are in serious risk of missing the train. So even though spending the whole morning doing a ground transfer may seem long, remember that you are on vacation! But then again, since when is a Disney vacation relaxing?