San Diego

OK who has been?
We want to finally do a west coast trip this year.

Places to stay? I'd like to be on or near the beach if possible.

What to do and see?

We will probably tack on a few days at Disneyland- rent a car and drive up at the end of the trip.

How many days do we need in San Diego?

Re: San Diego

We did Disneyland/ La Jolla/Laguna Niguel/Long beach/San Diego.

Stayed in laguna and did day trips everywhere. It was just about a week. Nice trip, a little cool (Spring). Did a lot of sight seeing, safari zoo in San Diego, sea lion and cute town in La Jolla, rented a bitty boat in Long Beach, just visited Disneyland.

It was a chill vacation.

San Diego

No specifics recommendations right in San Diego - but definitely do a day visit, or dinner & walk, in La Jolla which is right outside of San Diego- I think like 20 min drive away. It’s one of the nicest areas I’ve ever been to - right on the water and just a gorgeous town to spend a few hours in. Wish I could move there. Oh and the San Diego zoo is really nice!

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We went in 2017 for a week and it was amazing. We stayed at a Marriott by the convention center, it was beautiful. We looked out at the ocean and they have free ferries that go over to coronado beach and the coronado beach hotel and property is AMAZING!!! the beach just shimmers and shines.

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We did all san diego more like main area/downtown, we never visited la jolla which is supposed to be beautiful. But if you want to do Disneyland, it would be easier to stay near La Jolla

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We went a few times, but it was before we had kids. One time we started in Disneyland, then drove to San Diego, another time was mostly a golf vacation for DH's bday.
We've stayed on Coronado twice - at the Del Coronado and at Loews and at the Marriott Marina. I preferred the Marriott for the rooms and price, but again this was not very recent and the rooms had just been redone at that time. I know we probably did some stuff in the city of San Diego that I'm not really remembering. We went to the zoo, the animal park (did a special tour there that I think you need to book in advance), Sea World, USS Midway, Old Town, baseball game. It really wasn't warm enough for the beach when we were there and I think of the 3 places we stayed only the Del Coronado had a beach right there. We walked around La Jolla before meeting someone for dinner there. Saw some seals there. Pretty, but idk what I was supposed to do there, lol.
There is a city pass, so maybe look at it to see if those things interest you.

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Thank you all! I will read through all of these responses and start my research.
I am not married to staying in San Diego...I just want to go there...if La Jolla is right outside it, I'd stay there if it's better/has nicer places to stay.
I know absolutely zero about Cali so I am open to anything/looking for suggestions and ideas so any advice is welcome!

Message edited 1/2/2019 8:38:11 PM.

Re: San Diego

If you check out the blog DisneylandDaily.com she has a lot of Southern California ideas. I know I saw La Jolla on there recently, along with Catalina, etc. We have never ventured outside of the Disneyland area, but maybe next Summer we will!

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BUMP

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I go visit my cousin but here are some sites and good breakfast places to eat:

-San Diego Zoo

-Balboa Park

-Konos: yummy low key breakfast spot on the boardwalk on Pacific Beach. It can get crowded by the line moves fast.

-Mission Beach - is nice to walk along the boardwalk and there is a little amusement park (belmont park)

-Legoland and Sea World: I haven't been though

Other breakfast places to eat that I always go to when I am there: Crest Cafe, Hash house, The mission.

For La area we loved going to:
- Knott's berry amusement park

- Some beaches to walk along the pier and have food/cocktails: Hermosa beach, Venice beach, Manhattan beach

-Santa Monica Pier.

-California Science center was cool, they have the Space Shuttle there.

Get some tacos - shrimp are yummy. This is where you will get the best authentic tacos if you like Mexican food like me. lol.

The problem is LA traffic is Re-donk-culous pretty much all the time. So we will go to maybe one or two places and then just hang out locally where our friends live.

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We did this exact trip last August with our 7 year old DD. We did Disneyland, Legoland, San Diego Zoo Safari Park and La Jolla.

We are big Disney people so we did Disneyland at the beginning and end of our trip. At the beginning of our trip we stayed at the Courtyard Marriott right outside of DL. Then we left there and went to Legoland and stayed there. We used that as our base while we visited San Diego. When we went back to DL we were supposed to go back to the Courtyard. But I switched the reservation to the Grand Californian. At that point I needed a luxury hotel. LOLOL.

I highly recommend the Safari Park. All 3 of us really enjoyed it. La Jolla is just beautiful. Not too far from there is Mount Soledad. It's worth a trip if you have a rental car. The views are spectacular!

Here's a link to Disneyland Daily's post about San Diego and the surrounding area. She's got some great info:

San Diego info

San Diego

For the folks that have been to San Diego do you think April is an ok time to go? I was thinking too of doing this for DS spring break...

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DH and I went for my 40th. We went in June.

We found a hotel in San Diego and stayed there. Honestly, I found it on Groupon. It was good enough. We were barely there since we rented a car and we did a lot of driving. There were a few wineries near our hotel; so we did that as well.

The second day we went to the zoo.

Then my Birthday we drove up the coast to LA. Saw the Hollywood sign. Don't waste your time driving around LA because its not the greatest of areas. Driving the coast (Route 1) is so pretty. We stopped along the way at certain beaches, lookouts, viewpoints, stores, etc.

Santa Monica Pier is great. Tons of shops and places to eat.

There is a cut thru through a mountain to travel North and that is Route 190 aka Death Valley Road. Well, if you are afraid of heights, do not take this short cut. Was not a fun time for me.
A road with tons of cliffs. I hate cliffs.


All in all, we loved California. We went in June and stayed for about 5 days. Enjoy.

Message edited 2/7/2019 10:18:26 AM.

San Diego

Nell, did you decide where to stay in San Diego? We're looking to stay there also

Re: San Diego

We recently got back from a trip to California. We spent a night at Loews Coronado which was a beautiful resort on the Marina that has transportation to the public beach with amenities (Chairs, umbrellas, etc. free of charge). We only spent one night but you could definitely spend a few.

We had dinner in La Jolla on the way to San Diego and spent time walking around. It was beautiful and would highly recommend spending time there.

In LA we stayed at an Airbnb in the Hills which was beautiful but we didn't do any parks. Be prepared for an insane amount of traffic in the LA area.

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Lol we never ended up going. I just wasn't sure what to do or see out there and didnt want to fly across the country to just walk around some towns and go to a zoo or whatever.
Then Dd doesn't really seem too keen on Disney anymore so I was like ehhh.
Just seemed like a lot of work and driving and I can do a lot of work and driving at home.

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Re: San Diego