San Juan Capistrano a Popular Stop : Tourists Arrive by the Busload at Mission

Every morning of the year, starting about 9 a.m., the big tour buses swing off Interstate 5 at San Juan Capistrano, roll about three blocks westward on Ortega Highway, pass the front walls of Mission San Juan Capistrano, take a right on Camino Capistrano and park along a yellow curb.

During the summer, there are usually four or five of the huge, boxy, diesel-powered vehicles parked there at a time, separated from the ancient trees, historic buildings and ruins of the mission by a narrow sidewalk and a flimsy wire fence.

From each of the buses, 40 or 50 tourists emerge, make their way along the tiny sidewalk and through the mission’s entrance gate.

“We have about 350,000 visitors a year,” said Richard F. Landy, director of tourism for the 210-year-old mission. “Almost half of that number comes on tour buses, of which there are generally about 10 a day between 9 and 11 in the morning.”

Most of the tours originate in Anaheim or Los Angeles. They make stops at San Juan Capistrano, the San Diego Zoo or Sea World in San Diego County, and sometimes cross the border into Tijuana, but the passengers “might be from anywhere in the world,” Landy said.

For example, David and Winnie Tuttle live in Calgary, Canada, and came by air to Orange County.

“This is our third trip here in three years,” Winnie Tuttle said on a recent morning. “Obviously, we like all of it, especially the mission. The San Diego Zoo and Sea World are fun with all the live creatures, but this (the mission) has such a quiet religious atmosphere that, well. . . .”

Landy said there is a Freedom Foundation group that flies to California from Valley Forge, Pa., and visits the mission by bus once every year, and last September a group of 500 people on 14 buses made the trip to San Juan Capistrano from Carson City, Nev.

Ralph and Ann Wheeler of American Falls, Ida., visited the mission for the first time last week, riding a tour bus from Anaheim.

“You read about places like this all your life, and then when you get to see them, it’s just too wonderful,” Ann Wheeler said, then added with a laugh, “I think I saw a couple of swallows. I know I saw a lot of pigeons.”

Points of Interest

Landy said almost all the tour buses that call at the mission are operated by Gray Line Tours, which includes San Juan Capistrano in its visits to points of interest in Orange and San Diego counties and Tijuana.

Another regular, he said, is Maverick Coach Lines of Vancouver, Canada, whose buses stop at the mission at least once a month as part of the itinerary of 11-day or 15-day journeys down the West Coast of the United States.

On a recent Maverick Coach tour, a white-haired lady from British Columbia, who asked not to be identified, said this was “the trip of her life.” She had nothing but praise for the bus driver, Francois Lortie; the tour escort, Maggie James, and the bus itself.

“I’ve just felt so safe and comfortable all the while,” she said.

There are one or two things, though, that bother Landy about the tour bus stops at the mission.

“To begin with, there are two bus lines that don’t even stop. They just go around the block a couple of times, pointing to the ruins and the buildings, and then go away,” he said. “Then, the buses that do stop don’t give the tourists a chance to see the town. There’s more to San Juan than just the mission--the old adobes and restaurants.”

Some tourists seem to realize this.

“I know of several out-of-state families who first came here by bus, then went back to Anaheim or Los Angeles and rented cars so they could see the town at their own pace,” he said.