I will be arriving from San Diego.

HunterRes - Agree that JT should have been done between LA and SD. Unfortunately, the Warner Bros tour is avl only on Monday and we definitely want to do it. And the Channel Island cruise is avl only on Wed, which we are taking on our way back.

We are still not sure about the Joshua tree. Please suggest some more things we can do in LA on Tuesday if we ditch JT, As such, we do plan to return to LA in future, and can cover other areas,

Ok

So we don't mess this up

Are you starting in San Diego on Monday and going North to LA then returns to SD on the day before Thanksgiving?

I proudly think Channel Islands is a rare gem but it may not be feasible.

Your Monday plan sounds mostly o.k. If you land at noon, you won't get out of the airport area with a rental car until at least 1:00. I think you might as well head straight to Burbank at that point and check into your hotel after the WB tour. Also you'll be jet lagged by 3 hours, so you'll be eating dinner at what feels like 10:30 PM after a long day of traveling. If your family has the stamina for it that's great. I'm just pointing it out as something to think about. Make sure you have dinner reservations for that night if you want a restaurant experience as lots of places close on Mondays. Otherwise there's a Shake Shack near Hollywood & Vine, which you could walk to from your hotel and use that time to experience the walk of fame on the way. ** edit: I see in a subsequent post that you are driving from SD, so your timing should be o.k. Might still be better to drive straight to Burbank rather than Hollywood though.

Tuesday -- o.k. well, JTree is a heck of a long day trip from Hollywood, but if you really love driving it's achievable. Give it 3 hrs to get there and 3.5 hrs to get back. You're going to hit pockets of commute traffic both ways and there aren't a lot of HOV lanes you can take advantage of. I think there are some FasTrak Express lanes on 10 in the city of L.A. You can't use those unless you have a FasTrak transponder.

Wednesday -- Yes, 7:00 AM should be o.k. for getting to the Oxnard harbor by 8:45. I don't think there will be massive Thanksgiving traffic in the morning. The afternoon drive from Oxnard to San Diego is going to be brutal though. Don't even attempt to take PCH through Malibu. You'll be crawling through the stop lights for an extra hour or more. Take 101 to 405 and then get in the HOV lane and stay there until it disappears in Southern Orange County. That's normally a 5 to 6 hr drive at that time of day (I have no idea where you're getting 4 hrs, that's a middle-of-the-night drive time, not a weekday afternoon drive time) and I would think it'll be 7+ hours on the day before Thanksgiving. I hope to be wrong, that day is really hard to predict, but it definitely seems like more people are planning to travel this year to make up for missing holidays with family last year.

If you can swap your Tuesday and Wednesday plans and head to SD straight from JTree, that might work a little better. You will have to deal with traffic in Riverside, but I think that's likely to be less bad than traffic in L.A. and Orange County and the I-5 in SD County.

What the heck is La Brea Gateway? Born and raised in SoCal and never heard of this. There is a La Brea boulevard that is not really noteworthy and there is a new TV series this season called La Brea but the term is mainly used in reference to the LaBrea Tarpits.

If I was a teen would rather visit Palm Springs than Joshua Tree which is mostly for rock climbing otherwise I find it extremely boring and my late uncle lived in Joshua Tree most of his life. My cousins loved going there, I went once and hated it, YMMV.

Cathy A they seem to be arriving from SD by car, not plane, then they seem to be driving back to SD although it’s hard to tell. I also wonder if they have a morning activity planned in SD before driving to LA or if that’s just where they’re flying into.

OP, you could spend all day in Griffith Park, much more to it than the Observatory. Or visit Santa Monica including Paradise Pier, La Brea Tarpits, Farmers Market and The Grove, CA Science Centre and other exhibits and museums around Exposition Park, Lake Hollywood Park, drive down Sunset Bvde to the coast and Malibu, Grand Central Market, wander around KoreaTown, visit Beverly Hills, Petersen Auto Museum, Beverly Centre, Manhattan Beach, Aquarium at Long Beach, Getty Villa, Getty Centre, Little Tokyo and Olvera Street to name a few. All things I’d choose before a long day trip to JTNP, great though it is.

Monday- SD via desert to drive thru and Instagram. Leave EARLY.

Leave desert no later than 12:30.

I have fond camping memories leaving at 3 am to catch the sunrise and more hours our of the day.

Then do Burbank tour. Maybe have dinner at the Bob's Big Boy in Burbank famous coffee shop and good Burgers.

Around 8 drive to Ventura for an overnight

Tuesday

. Do Anacapa Island the smallest but dramatic island or cruise first am. Return to LA via Channel Islands Blvd PCH Malibu. Have dinner somewhere. Neptune Nets is another icon and super casual. Let your kids roll down the sandunes. Paradise Cove is fun and casual right in the sand.

Drive to Celebrity.

Wed

Do LA until 930 PM and drive to San Diego.

.hope this helps or something better comes along.

Cheers

Theres a Comfort Inn? At Ventura Harbor with good sized rooms on the bottom floor.

A Motel 6 up the road. Then a Marriott. Also one that backs the freeway in town is pretty decent for the price

Hampton Inn at Channel Islands Harbor.

Vivekbrata Basu:

Welcome to the Forum

I'm confused by your itinerary, but most importantly, I'm wondering why you've made Hollywood the center of your visit. It's true that this district (which is one of OVER 100 in the city of Los Angeles) is well-known but focusing on Hollywood is like visiting London and focusing on Leicester Square (if only Hollywood was as nice as Leicester Square).

Hollywood is an older part of Los Angeles (okay: 'old' is kind of vague when one compares the age of, say, London) and the district fell into disrepair in the 60s and 70s. There was an urban renewal of a sorts in the 90s and it does look a lot better than it did but it's not a glamorous place; there are no celebs roaming around in their Rolls Royces here. This is a low/middle class neighborhood with drab 1930s-era office buildings (serving the burgeoning movie industry of 100 years ago) with an occasional historic theatre thrown in. The Hollywood & Highland Center mall is the 'big change' in the neighborhood and, for what it is, it's appealing especially with its motif that salutes the Golden Age of cinema.

But overall, the neighborhood is 'nothing special' (I wouldn't call it seedy but it's certainly older and unremarkable). I, too, had to look up what the La Brea Gateway is and learned that it's the 4 statues of ladies on the island in the roadway where Hollywood Bl & La Brea Av intersect. Perhaps, these ladies are something special. I confess that I've walked by them (and even looked at the signage relating to them and do not recall anything about it).

The rest of the attractions in this area are 'touristy places' (the wax museum, Guinness Records Museum, Ripley's Believe it or Not!), etc. These are not especially interesting to me; you might feel differently. In general, a glance at the courtyard of the Chinese Theatre and a brief walk along the Walk of Fame is probably all you really need to get a taste of Hollywood. That's a visit of about 60 or 90 minutes. If you want something more formal, take a 90-minute walking tour of the area with RedLineTours.com

Apart from that, I would encourage you to explore the second-largest city in America. Thus far, the only place in the Los Angeles on your radar is Hollywood (Beverly HIlls and Burbank are not even within the City of L.A.). That's not to say the WB is a bad place to visit (it's not) but there is SO MUCH MORE to Los Angeles than Hollywood.

Here is a list of several hundred attractions in and around Los Angeles. Check these out and see what might appeal to you.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g32655-Activities-a_allAttractions.true-Los_Angeles_California.html

Link and SCROLL DOWN to the numbered list of attractions.

You'll be heading north to L.A. from San Diego so maybe you'd enjoy stopping in the San Pedro District (L.A.'s port) to check out:

a. The Korean Bell of Friendship

b. Various whale watching Tours

c. The Battleship USS Iowa.

Or maybe stop in neighboring Long Beach and visit the RMS Queen Elizabeth or try out some standup paddle boarding or Kayaking in and around Naples Island -- which is packed with luxury housing positioned along a circular inland waterway. You can paddle through this canal or walk along its banks.

All of these attractions and hundreds more are in the above link. Do not miss out; there is no need to drive for hours out of Los Angeles for attractions. There is plenty to see and do here.

As far as your current itinerary is concerned, I'll reproduce it here and add my remarks (beginning and ending with elipses (...)

Mon 22-Nov:

Arrive LA by noon. Spend some time in the Hollywood Blvd area. Cover La Brea Gateway to Chinese Theater. ... As stated above, about 90 minutes is all you really need in this district...

1:30 PM - Drive/taxi to Warner Bros studio tour. Booked a tour at 3:30 PM. Late lunch at Central Perk cafe before tour. Tour duration approx 3 hours as per their website. ... This is where I start to get lost. First, if you have a car and are willing to drive to Joshua Tree and Ventura (for the Channel Islands) why wouldn't you drive 30 minutes to Burbank for WB?

Second, if you leave Hollywood at 1:30 and arrive at WB at 2 pm, you'll have 90 minutes for lunch (actually about 70 minutes since they want you at the Tour Center about 20 minutes before your tour). If it were me, I'd have a lunch that was memorable. I wasn't aware that they were serving lunch at the Studio but I can't imagine that the food would be anything special. There are lots of places within a few minutes of the Studio that have good food. If you like (or want to try) Mexican, consider Don Cuco (the location on Riverside Drive, a short walk from the Studios), for example.

Alternatively, instead of touring Hollywood until 1:30 pm, leave Hollywood around 1 pm (since you can tour the district anytime -- the Walk of Fame and Courtyard of the Chinese Theatre never close) head to the Beachwood Canyon neighborhood (10 minutes east of Hollywood) and stop at Birds (a unique chicken restaurant) or one of the other restaurants in this district) and then head to Lake Hollywood Park and have a look at the Hollywood sign close-up as well as a view of Lake Hollywood (across the road from the sign) and then head toward Burbank.

Here is a map of such a drive: https://goo.gl/maps/PFC3KeR99xqZWS9E8 ...

7 PM - Arrive back at the Hollywood Blvd area. Spend time between Chinese Theater and Egyptian Theater. Have dinner. ... Or, head back to Los Angeles via the Los Feliz neighborhood which is a much nicer place to explore on foot. There are lots of dining options along Vermont Av and Hillhurst Drive. (two of my faves are Palermo (Italian) on Vermont and the Alcove Bakery on Hillhurst (Southern California fare plus awesome cakes -- try the lemon coconut or the princess cake (marzipan and raspberry -- yum). The drive back to Hollywood is only about 15 minutes. Here's the route from WB back to the hotel via Los Feliz:

https://goo.gl/maps/1LYnNBDxfHuvenFa8 ...

Stay in Hollywood Celebrity Hotel (booked). ... This is a BASIC 2-star property with very good ratings. It's not fancy but it's well-managed.

Tue 23-Nov:

8 AM - Leave for Griffith Observatory. Spend 1.5-2 hours. Our primary objective is to see the Hollywood Sign from there. Leave by 10. ... If all you want to do is see the sign, you've already seen a better view of it from Lake Hollywood. Pick something else from the link above.

In fact, you're apt to find lots of things to see and do in the link above and when you do, you'll give up one of your excursion days to spend more time in L.A.

4 PM-ish: Head back to LA. Spend some time in the mall or tour the Hollywood Wax Museum and the Guinness Museum. Or just take it slow in prep for next day AM. .. See my comments above...

>>>What the heck is La Brea Gateway?<<<

La Brea Gateway is that little structure at La Brea & Hollywood Blvd.

Your Wednesday plan is a nightmare. The day before Thanksgiving is the single busiest travel day in the U.S. I shudder to think how long the drive Oxnard to San Diego could be.

I also would not be on the open ocean on a small boat in November.