We have decided to visit Legoland and San Diego Wild Animal Park after our 4 night stay in Disneyland in December.
I am looking for a Hotel and wondered if anyone had any advice as to some nice ones in the Carlsbad/around Legoland and Wild Animal Park area. We have decided not to go into San Diego and save that for another trip.
Any adivice or suggestions? I don't need a luxury hotel just somewhere nice and clean and quiet.

OH!! I know!! I just looked for a hotel or any accommodations for our stay. We have 3 kids, most hotels I found had only 2 beds. I just booked a condo in Oceanside. If you have 4 people, you could get a 1 bedroom for around $100 a night. Ocean views and fully equipped condo!

Here's my thread on places I was looking and I think it's near the last page I give the listing for the condo I rented. If you're interested in other condos, you can email me direct and I'll give you all the info I have. I am trying to put a list together of some choices.

http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?t=60021

I've found that most of those have minimum stays. If that doesn't work for you I can recommend the Red Roof in Carlsbad. It's right off of the Palomar Airport Rd exit. Your basic, very basic, Red Roof Inn room. Outside entrance, plain room, very clean. Staff was nice. Yes the rooms are outside entrance, but ours even faced the freeway & we didn't hear noise from it.

We booked through hotels.com, don't know if they're still doing this, but we were able to print 3 free coupons to local restaurants with our reservation (they're entertainment books coupons), & tried the Greek place across the street because of this & it was great.

I think last Nov we paid $60/night, there were two of us in the room.

Thank you both for the information. Whittibo I read thru your whole thread...whew you had a time of it finding a place. I think at this point we are looking more for a hotel then a condo although it sounds like you found a great deal. We are at this point planning on driving down from DLR Wed eve. with arrival probably around or after 8pm and then doing Wild Animal Park on Thursday, Legoland Friday and leaving friday night or early early Saturday am so we will not be spending a good deal of time in the Hotel.
Thanks again.

I found TripAdvisor to be a HUGE help while I was looking for rooms. Our biggest problem was our party size. Seems nobody could accommodate 5 and still be under $200. But you can go to www.TripAdvisor.com and look up any hotel you find, read the reviews. I thought reserving through GetAwayToday would insure me a good/clean room, but turns out, they have some, not so great rooms on their list. :s

Staying in a condo will save us money on food too, since we will be able to prepare our own meals. We stay at Residence Inn in Garden Grove while we're going to Disneyland, for the same reason. We will have spent over $4000 on rooms and tickets, if we had to eat out every meal, I would have to cut the length of our trip down to about half of what we will be staying.

Maybe "Lake San Marcos Resort in Carlsbad"? Looks nice, cheap and close to both attractions. Anyone been there?

Maybe "Lake San Marcos Resort in Carlsbad"? Looks nice, cheap and close to both attractions. Anyone been there?

I haven't stayed there, but I know the area very well and have eaten at the Quail (used to be Quail's Inn.) It's been around forever, but it looks like they have been sprucing it up lately. It's situated in a older neighborhood with a lot of retirees who like to drive their golf carts around.

It's about 15 minutes away from Legoland and the 5 freeway and 15 away from the 78 freeway.

I have looked into the San Marcos Lake Resort and it looked good. I read some negative reviews on tripadvisor though (although everyone has their opinions so :)
It is about half way between both parks and a good price.
Another one I have looked at is best Western Escondido...looks nice on the internet anyway.
I used to live in San Diego...many eons ago (like 15 years ago) and it amazes me how much they want for a hotel in Carlsbad...lol.