With kids, Santa Monica Pier works.
The quintessential LA-beach postcard — the solar Ferris wheel over the Pacific, the Route 66 end sign, street performers — and also genuinely crowded, touristy, and overpriced the moment you step onto the deck. The way it works is to stop fighting that: skip paying for the carnival games and mediocre pier food, and treat it as a free late-afternoon-into-sunset stroll. Walk out for the photo, watch the performers, then drop down onto the wide free beach beside it as the light goes gold. As a money-sink it disappoints; as a sunset walk it delivers the LA image you came for.