If you are in the Anaheim Resort area during the summer, can you get to San Clemente Pier during the summer by bus for less than $5 each? Open up the OC Bus app and open your web browser as we are going on a bus trek from Anaheim & Orange to San Clemente all by bus and summer shuttle bus service of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente. It is also important to see what transit options there are since some guests want to take transit, not having to pay an excessive amount of money for ride share, and you get to see the cities from a new point of view of not zooming by car. Not having to deal with car driving, traffic, cost of gas, ware & tear of the car, finding parking, and parking fees – priceless! The next paragraph is the quick overview, stay tuned for the full detailed information about the journey.
- Quick Travel Summary
- AI Disclaimer
- Segment 1: OC Bus 47 from Outlets at Orange to the Cannery Restaurant in Newport Beach
- Segment 2 OC Bus 1: Newport Beach to Laguna Beach & Newport Beach Balboa Peninsula Trolley
- AntSol Travel Tips: Newport Beach’s Corona Del Mar & Newport Coast
- Segment 3: City of Laguna Beach & Laguna Beach Transit Trolley Buses
- Laguna Niguel Trolley
- Salt Creek Beach
- Segment 4: Dana Point Trolley
- Segment 4: San Clemente Trolley & San Clemente Pier
- Segment 5: San Clemente Pier and the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner from San Clemente Pier (SNP) to Anaheim (ANA)
- Conclusion
Quick Travel Summary
You can take the OC Bus 43 to Costa Mesa, an hour bus ride if you go down Harbor Boulevard if you are staying in the Anaheim Resort area. OC Bus 47 that goes more a direct route from the resort area at Katella & Anaheim to the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, featuring many restaurants, bars, beaches, and piers, is the perfect route to the beach from the resort area. Then take OC Bus 1 down the Pacific Coast Highway to high end shops & restaurants of Fashion Island shopping center, the local high end shopping & restaurants of Corona Del Mar, and the protected buff & beaches of Newport Coast. Then deboard in Laguna Beach at the bustling Main Beach, eat lunch at the many cuisines of Laguna Beach, and then take the Laguna Beach trolley styled buses to Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point. Then take the North Dana Point trolley to Dana Point Harbor to see the many boats docked at the harbor and the redevelopments of the harbor’s shopping center. After that, take the South Dana Point trolley to San Clemente for their trolley. Then San Clemente trolley north goes through a neighborhood and then to the Outlets at San Clemente. At the Outlets transfer to the south trolley to the San Clemente Pier. Then take one of two northbound Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains that stop at the San Clemente Pier station back to Anaheim. Did you get all of that? Don’t worry I’ll go into detail next!
AI Disclaimer
At AntSol Travel, we believe that AI can be used as a tool for improving things here & there on articles, but should not be used as solely to produce the creative process. I am using WordPress Jetpack AI plug in to improve a few things in the article like improving the title, wording suggestions, feedback about the article, and art for fun. It created a pretty good picture of the prompt ‘Orange County’s Coast by bus’ but the bus is stuck on the railing & should call an AI generated tow truck.
Now back to reality.
Segment 1: OC Bus 47 from Outlets at Orange to the Cannery Restaurant in Newport Beach
To start my adventure, I took the OC Bus 47 from The Outlets at Orange as it is a closer stop to me than the Katella Avenue & Haster Street stop for the Anaheim Resort Area. I arrived at the Outlets at Orange bus for the 47 bus at 9:40 am for the 10:08 am bus, which leaves time for me to run to the public restrooms. I definitely needed to take advantage of public restrooms during my challenge. It was 9:50 am, shopkeepers or opening time staff were preparing for the shopping day.
At 10 am, people are lining up at the door and in the drive thru despite In-N-Out Burger opening at 10:30 am, one of the newest locations that opened in late July. At the Outlets at Orange bus stop, the OC Bus 57 to Newport Beach at Fashion Island Transit Center, departs which we will meet up on another bus on my trip there with the OC Bus 1 line later. I am going to take the next bus, the 47 bus to the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach.
The OC Bus is the countywide bus system for Orange County by the Orange County Transportation Authority, the county transportation authority. The OC system was a merger of several municipal bus agencies in 1972. OC Bus system funded by Orange County’s taxpayers for their fixed route with 52 routes, operations for some routes are by Keolis and paratransit services by Transdev. OCTA also allocated funds with various tax revenue for transit services and road improvements for the county, which all the local beach city shuttle circulars we will take later.
My OC Bus 47 arrived at 10:08 am and bought a day pass via OC Bus app for $4.50, or one bus is $2. I am taking the bus to the end of the line in Newport Beach at Balboa & 23rd. It is 13 miles long, hour & ten minutes via bus due to stops, or 37 minutes by car.
On Fairview Street in Santa Ana is one of the OC StreetCar stops, which will open for service in 2025!
At Fairview & Adams, the bike lane is wide & marked for a few blocks, then disappears to a gutter lane. The gutter lane is really narrow afterwards, especially how frequent buses are along Fairview in Costa Mesa, I would not want to bike along here.
In the older suburbs of Costa Mesa near Fairview Park, we turn left from Wilson to Placentia. If you exit off here, you can walk half a mile up the street to the Orange County Model Engineers club. You can ride their rideable model trains on the third weekend of the month, which was just last weekend.
Made it to Newport Beach on one bus from Anaheim/Orange to Newport Beach! Now walk to the Cannery Restaurant! Made it to our favorite restaurant, the Cannery Restaurant! Offering water front view, great fish & steak options, and valet parking for only $8. It is closed for lunch on Mondays Or Tuesdays. I’ll get lunch in Laguna Beach. It is an easy recommendation for guests at my hotel in Anaheim if they want to get away from the coast for a bit while staying in Anaheim. Now to walk to the Pacific Coast Highway.
Segment 2 OC Bus 1: Newport Beach to Laguna Beach & Newport Beach Balboa Peninsula Trolley
Right down the street from the Cannery Restaurant is a stop for the Newport Beach Balboa Peninsula Trolley. It is a fully enclosed shuttle bus with wheelchair lift & bike racks that only runs weekends only during the summer while the other cities run daily during the summer with trolley-like designed buses. The route was initially considered in 2011 as the Balboa Peninsula neighborhood of Newport Beach was always busy with traffic congestion as people were going to the beaches and restaurants. In 2015, OCTA was taking input from cities for local bus circulator services, Newport Beach inputted for this service, and then approved & opened service in June 2016.
The service goes from the Avon Park & Ride lot, off of the Pacific Coast Highway, and then goes down Newport Blvd. & Balboa Blvd. to the Balboa Fun Zone, passing by many beaches & restaurants of the peninsula.
On Newport Blvd., we are going on the Pacific Coast Highway to Laguna Beach. I wanted to take the Balboa Peninsula trolley, but it only runs on weekends and holidays during the summer. The OC Bus 1 does not come for another 30 minutes, which comes every hour. I walked down the PCH in the meantime.
There are marina walkways, however, they are mainly closed off for boat dealerships and boat slip rentals. I feel like l am not supposed to be here, so I’ll wait at the bus stop.
At Pacific Coast Highway & Sea Scout, car drivers go over 45 mph and bikes can use the full lane. I would never bike the PCH since it does nothing to protect you from the cars. Time to wait for the OCBus 1 in the shade.
My bus has finally arrived! It will take about 35 minutes to get to Laguna Beach. The 47 bus did not have working USB chargers & WiFi but this bus does! Since I posted on Instagram and took pictures, I was constantly draining my phone’s battery, and the USB chargers were a lifesaver.
At the stop at Newport Transportation Center, it is down the street from Fashion Island Shopping Center. It is the transfer point for the OC Bus lines for 1 on the Pacific Coast Highway, 55 to downtown Santa Ana, 57 that stops by the Outlets at Orange & ends at the Brea Mall, and 79 to Tustin. I can also take 57 from the Outlets at Orange, but I wanted to stop by the Cannery Restaurant and arrive hypothetically for the Newport Beach Balboa Peninsula shuttle. This is also a bus operator switch station as well for the next operator. This is due to the OC Bus 1 line going from Cal State Long Beach to San Clemente, 42 miles long, about 1 hour 40 minutes by car, nearly three hours by bus with stops.
OC Bus has free Verizon Cellular WiFi at pretty fast speeds. On SpeedTest.net, the service tested 33 Mbps download and 22.8 Mbps upload speed. It is good if everyone is just browsing the internet, but video streaming lower bandwidth for everyone else. After the new bus operator settled in their seat, they continued on our trip down the Pacific Coast Highway to Laguna Beach.
AntSol Travel Tips: Newport Beach’s Corona Del Mar & Newport Coast
Next Newport Beach neighborhood was Corona Del Mar, Spanish for Crown of the Sea. It is home of many high end restaurants & business, including one of my favorite restaurants, Bandera, an American cuisine, known for their chicken & beef rib combo, formerly called the “cluck & moo”. However, they have a dress code of not looking like you came in from the beach and/or Los Angeles Angels baseball game.
Across the street, if you watch Netflix’s Selling Sunsets, a reality series that takes place at the Oppenheim Group real estate brokerage firm, as camera crews follow the work & leisure time of the real estate agents selling multi million dollar homes in Orange County. Of course, the producers have put in some drama to make it interesting.
The next neighborhood is Newport Coast, known for their multi million dollar homes built on to the San Joaquin Hills, but you can get a glimpse of the high end life for a weekend at Marriott Newport Coast Villas, part of Marriott Vacation Club, all units are spacious two bed two bath villas with full kitchen & living rooms in 1,200 square feet of space. Across the street is The Resort at Pelican Hill, a high end golf resort that management was recently changed to Marriott International, but the Irvine Company still owns the resort, like how the Anaheim Marriott is managed by Marriott International but owned by someone else.
Across the PCH is the Crystal Cove State Beach, a popular place to go to the beach, rent out one of their freshly rebuilt cottages, and take in the views of the Pacific Ocean from the top of the bluff.
At Crystal Heights Drive is the Crystal Cove Shopping Center with many high end stores & restaurants as well, so fancy it has an Aston Martin luxury car dealership. You do the rich & fancy people watching at Javier Restaurant, a high end Mexican Restaurant, the food is good, but you can admire the houses on the hillside that you know you can buy and see the rich people that make for good people watching at Javier’s as well.
Then the Pacific Coast Highway dips down and you can see the beach & ocean from the bus. After that, we headed into Laguna Beach & their trolley bus service.
Segment 3: City of Laguna Beach & Laguna Beach Transit Trolley Buses
*Ding,Ding,Ding* Welcome to our first trolley bus segment of summer trolley buses. We first arrived at Laguna Beach’s Main Beach in the downtown area on the Pacific Coast Highway. I was taking the OC Bus 1 line that goes along the PCH route and deboard at the Main Beach, but traffic goes from six to four lanes, causing bottlenecking and slow downs from the traffic signals.
I deboard at PCH & Ocean Avenue and I wanted to check out the Laguna Beach Visitor Center to get more information about the Laguna Beach Trolley, located up Forest Avenue. While I was there, the volunteer informed me about the trolley system.
The volunteer staff said that the trolley is free to ride, funded by Measure M tax, a half cent transportation tax called OC Go, and operated by LAZ Parking. There are ten buses running during the summer, but cuts service to two outside the summer. The main route, the Coastal long route, connects Cliff Drive to the Dana Point shuttle at the Ritz Carlton & Salt Creek Beach, a seven mile ride. The Coastal short route ends at Providence Hospital, a five mile ride. Since parking is hard to come by downtown, there is the Canyon route where the shuttle stops at a park & ride lot along Laguna Canyon Road, and you can take the shuttle in. Lastly is the Summer Breeze route, where the shuttle picks up passengers at a park & ride lot in Irvine and takes the passengers to Laguna Beach. After that, I thanked the volunteer for the information and went to get lunch.
At Forest & PCH, a block was completely pedestrianized for the shops & restaurants with parklet seating for restaurants from the 2020 changes. Bollards are even in place to prevent rogue cars from entering. One of the restaurants along Forest Avenue caught my eye was MOULIN, a French Bistro. Moilon caught my eye for its three C’s that I happen to get coffee, croissants, and crêpes, the staples of the AntSol Travel diet. It is a counter service restaurant as you order at the counter, receive pastry upon payment, coffee from the coffee counter, and get a number for my table to wait for my crepe.
The coffee was good but I accidentally put way too much creamer to get any coffee flavor notes, which was not much otherwise. The croissant was delicious & flaky. I sat on one of Moulin’s main restaurant patios, which also have parklett seating as well. After ten minutes, I got crepes with apricot jam, which was delicious! Who else thinks it is delicious as well are the pigeons, I nearly kicked one of them since they were so bold looking for crumbs.
After eating, I went back to the Laguna Beach Transit stop at the Pacific Coast Highway for the Long Coastal route to Salt Creek Beach & the Ritz Carlton. At the bus stop, a couple of the short route buses came by and the long route bus arrived, which I boarded. Thanks to OC Go and city revenue, all four cities of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente operate their shuttles for free for residents & visitors to park your car & ride along the coast to your destination during the summer!
All the buses for Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente summer shuttles are by Hometown Manufacturing, who make them styled to be like old time trolleys primarily for touristy areas, all of them seem to be the Villager model that can fit about 30 people if the wheelchair area was not being used. All buses do have a wheelchair lift per Americans with Disabilities Act. The front half of the bus has windows, while the middle has clear roll up vinyl that rolls up so you can feel the wind your hair, and the back it the wheelchair tie down bays with fold out seats. The seats & interior veneer are all wooden for a rustic look of a turn of the century trolley.
Boarding at Main Beach, I boarded with four other passengers. A couple blocks up, fifteen passengers boarded, but there was plenty of room for twenty in total. Then we cruised down the Pacific Coast Highway with a few requested deboarding and boarding.
A major stop for deboardings was at Pacific Coast Highway & Aliso Way, a stop for Aliso Beach, one of few beaches that are right off the PCH. Many of the beach areas are located behind beachfront homes & hotel resorts via publicly accessible stairways.
Twenty five minutes later, we arrived at Salt Creek Beach and Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point. This is the transfer point for the Dana Point trolley and city of Laguna Niguel Trolley.
Laguna Niguel Trolley
Laguna Niguel trolley has this handy map of all the summer shuttles services. This included Laguna Niguel that goes up Crown Valley Parkway to Crown Valley Park that is the trolley’s park & ride to Salt Creek Beach and the greater OC beach trolley network. Laguna Niguel uses a regular enclosed shuttle bus with wheelchair lift and bike racks. They do not allow e-bikes & surfboards.
The Dana Point trolley also connects to the San Juan Capistrano trolley as well, which uses a Hometown Villager trolley bus. While we wait for the Dana Point Trolley, let’s check out Salt Creek Beach.
Salt Creek Beach
Salt Creek Beach is a protected marine reserve but is an active beach area that is down a steep hill from the Ritz Carlson, the public parking lot, and the trolley stop. If you bring tons of beach gear, you’ll have a bad time. There are public restrooms and a snack bar as well before getting to the beach.
The grass before getting to the beach Salt Creek Beach’s Bluff Park by the OC Parks, where they hold their summer concerts. That Thursday was going to be a Jimmy Buffett tribute band playing, Jimmy’s Buffet!
Segment 4: Dana Point Trolley
After walking to Salt Creek Beach and taking video, I headed back to the shuttle stop for the Dana Point trolley. Dana Point’s trolley system is a summer-only & September weekend running system that also uses the Hometown Village trolley bus and is funded by OC Go & Dana Point.
The framework is split into two sections, blue north route and burgundy south loop, and a part of the route shares routes along Golden Lantern and is a transfer point at Dana Point Harbor, so I asked the shuttle driver to drop me off there.
From Salt Creek Beach, we go along the Pacific Coast Highway, through Dana Point Plaza, and downhill Golden Lantern to Dana Point Harbor area at Golden Lantern & Dana Point Harbor Drive. The shuttle stop for the south bus was waiting, but I want to look at the state of the harbor shopping center since they are working on redeveloping the Dana Point Harbor’s shopping center, according to the OC Register.
The city of Dana Point was incorporated with a city government in 1989, which took the name after the land point that is now a nature reserve, named after author Richard Dana Jr., who wrote about the area in his book, Two Years Before the Mast, published in 1840.
The Dana Point Harbor, owned by the County of Orange, was opened in 1971, as one of few natural harbors in the county, which the shopping center opened by then as well. Now owned by the Dana Point Harbor Partnership, via a 66 year lease from the County of Orange, they are set on renovating the aging harbor & shopping center with many new high end shops, restaurants, two new hotels, and renovating the boat slips. Renderings were unveiled in 2022. A parking lot has already started construction in June 2024, and the Dana Point Marina Inn will be torn down for two new hotels in 2025. After walking around the harbor, I headed back to the bus stop for the Dana Point shuttle, which arrived a few minutes later.
The Dana Point south shuttles connect to the San Clemente north shuttle, so I planned to ride it to the transfer point. I boarded the shuttle and the shuttle operator waited a few minutes for anyone else who wanted to board, of which there were none, and then we headed out. We rolled down the Pacific Coast Highway past great surf spot beaches of Doheny State Beach and Capistrano Beach Park.
Capistrano Beach Park was our only passenger pick up, and it was a guest I worked with back at the hotel I worked at, let’s call him, Mr. Trasacco, I renamed him after a farming town in Italy since his parents immigrated from Italy to New York City. Mr. Trasacco stayed at the hotel I work at in Anaheim for a business conference, extended his trip in Orange County by staying at another hotel, and went to check out the county on the advice of some of my coworkers & me of the OC Beach cities. It was awkward at first, especially his choice of conversation topics included, his opinion about the hotel, like “why coffee at the hotel’s coffee shop was over $5.” Even though there is the in room coffee machine with the regular coffee blend and catered coffee breaks at the hotel’s conference space. We also talked about me & some of my hotel front desk agents that helped him during his stay. I tried to shamelessly tell home about AntSol Travel, but he was not interested. At least most of the time was filled with how to get from Capistrano Beach to the San Clemente Pier.
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Segment 4: San Clemente Trolley & San Clemente Pier
From Capistrano Beach, the Dana Point trolley continued along the Pacific Coast Highway, turned left to go uphill at Palisades Drive, and meandered through residential neighborhoods until we got to Mira Costa & Camino de Estrella. From there, there was a San Clemente trolley north route to take us to the Outlets at San Clemente. Mr. Trasacco & I deboarded the Dana Point trolley to the San Clemente north route along with several other people.
The San Clemente Trolley has three routes: north route from Mira Costa & Camino de Estrella to the Outlets at San Clemente, south red route from the outlets to the San Clemente Pier via El Camino Real, and the green route goes from the pier to San Clemente State Beach via El Camino Real. The shuttles were akin to Dana Point and Laguna Beach with the Hometown Villager trolley bus model. The bus system is funded by OC Go and the city of San Clemente.
At Mira Costa & Camino de Estrella, Mr. Trasacco & I boarded the San Clemente trolley blue north line along with several other locals. The trolley meandered through the neighborhood and then downhill to El Camino Real, which was the Pacific Coast Highway outside of San Clemente. At the San Clemente Metrolink station, we turned left at Avenida Pico to the Outlets at San Clemente. No one boarded or deboarded on the blue line. At the outlets. The south red shuttle was waiting for all of us to transfer to continue south to the San Clemente Pier. Then the red line shuttle went downhill towards the Metrolink station and continued south on El Camino Real with a few stops along the way. At Avenida Del Mar, I turned right through a commercial shop drive with pick up of several local teenagers heading to the pier, a sign of what’s to come at the pier.
Then we deboarded the shuttle at the final stop at the San Clemente Pier and reached my goal of getting from Anaheim/Orange to San Clemente Pier by OC Bus & local summer shuttles! Departed on the OC Bus 47 at the Outlets at Orange at 10 am and got to the pier with Mr. Trasacco at 4:47 pm. Total time of six hours and forty seven minutes. Taking the OC Bus 57 from the Outlets at Orange to Newport Transportation Center would have been faster, but it all worked out for a total adventure with at least seeing the Newport Beach Balboa Peninsula trolley and meeting with Mr. Torrasco.
Costs for this trip: OC Bus day pass via OC Bus app – $4.50. Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente shuttles – free via taxes from the cities & OCTA. Amtrak ticket from San Clemente Pier to Anaheim – $17.00 . Total transportation spend: $21.50! Not having to deal with car driving, traffic, cost of gas, ware & tear of the car, finding parking, and parking fees – priceless!
Segment 5: San Clemente Pier and the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner from San Clemente Pier (SNP) to Anaheim (ANA)
Mr. Torrasco was kind of disappointed that walking along the pier & the beach was the only thing to do, so he decided to take the shuttle back to Dana Point and I stayed at the San Clemente Pier area to take the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner back to Anaheim. Before crossing back over the tracks, southbound Surfliner 580 to San Diego, which briefly stopped even though it was not scheduled to stop. This was due to a red light to stop or yellow signal to slowly continue. Then the train continued towards San Diego.
After that, Mr. Torrasco & I waited at the trolley stop for the next red line trolley. The green line from the San Clemente State Beach was packed with locals heading to the pier. A few minutes later, a red shuttle arrived and I saw Mr. Torrasco rode out on the trolley. Then I went to get ice cream at the nearby ice cream shop.
While waiting in line for my Dole Whip, these teenagers kept chatting with their friend who worked at the ice cream shop. Then they went up to me like, “hey dude, do you know (insert teenager name here).” I replied “no, I don’t live here.” As I was shorter than them, I passed off as a high schooler at a quick glance with a baseball cap on, and the pier area is always frequented by local high schoolers. Hurry up, I just want my Dole Whip!
I went to the adjacent Pier Market convenience store, where I picked up a sticker of the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner’s EMD F59PHI locomotive, crossing the Trestles Bridge, located south of the San Clemente Pier. The Trestles is known for its great surf breaks.
At the San Clemente Pier station platform, Amtrak Pacific Surfliner only stops with only four trains a day, two south in the late morning/noon, two north in the evening. It is a great way for LA & OC residents to go to the beach for the day. Metrolink only stops here on the weekends, no weekday stops as they stop at the San Clemente station north of here. The train I was taking, Surfliner 785, was specifically timed to catch the first northbound train and be back in Anaheim to make dinner.
Amtrak Pacific Surfliner 785 arrived on time at 5:24 pm, with twenty of us boarding the already crowded Surfliner train. Thankfully, I found an open seat, plugged in my nearly depleted phone battery, and relaxed on the 48 minute train ride back to Anaheim. The train arrived on time at 6:12 pm, and then watched the Surfliner head off to Fullerton next, ending in Goleta.
Conclusion
Doing this journey was quite a trip and I should have done this earlier in the summer as all the shuttle services except for Laguna Beach and San Clemente’s red line from the outlets to the pier, end after the summertime. If anything, it is a writing exercise for next summer. It is also important to see what transit options there are since some guests want to take transit, not having to pay an excessive amount of money for ride share, and you get to see the cities from a new point of view of not zooming by car. Not having to deal with car driving, traffic, cost of gas, ware & tear of the car, finding parking, and parking fees – priceless!
AntSol Travel 