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Old 15 Jul 18, 06:01 PM  
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DisneyArab
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Mini San Diego report.

Following on from my 'not so mini' reports on San Francisco and Anaheim, our time in San Diego has also come to an end. We are sat at the airport with a 4.5 hour delay to JFK, New York. We will spend 5 nights there before going home to Scotland.

Travelling are myself, DH, DD's age 16 and 15 and DS, age 9. We have had an amazing trip on the west coast, following 6 trips to Florida in previous years. It's been nice to do something different, but enjoyed our time in Anaheim for our 'Disney fix'. We couldn't pick a favourite out of three different stops we have made (they have all felt quite different) although the stand out trip was the Warner Brothers Tour.

Our plan for San Diego was to have some down time and this was a great city to do this. We saw lots of the sights at a relaxed place. We had our own car and found it easy (or DH did, I hate the driving!) to drive ourselves around and visit different areas.

We stayed at Homewood Suites at Liberty Station. We chose this hotel for a more spacious hotel room for the 5 of us (we had two bedrooms, a separate living space and two bathrooms), and also for the complimentary breakfast and evening social. The breakfast was fine, although we're all a bit fed up with waffles now! The evening social wasn't up to much to be honest, the food at the Homewood Suites in Anaheim was much better. We did make use of the evening meal Monday-Thursday when it was on though - 5 of us eating out every day costs a fortune over a 3 week trip.

We arrived at 7pm on Monday 9 July, so just time for a bite to eat and unpack.

Tuesday 10 July, we had a pool morning-it was lovely to take some time to relax and the kids enjoyed the pool. We also watched some of the World Cup so it was later in the day before we headed to La Jolla. We visited La Jolla shores beach which was lovely and stopped to see the sea lions at the cove. We all really enjoyed this and spent ages watching them.

Wednesday 11 July, we had another lazy pool morning and also watched the England semi-final. We then drove to Cabrillo national monument and lighthouse and had a wander up there. You get some fab views of the city/coast and we enjoyed watching the boats and constant helicopters that go about. We then headed to the Old Town for a wander and ate at Cafe Coyote. Got to be honest again and we didn't really enjoy this meal. We normally love Mexican food but this felt a bit greasy and no-one really enjoyed it. Otherwise a lovely relaxed day.

Thursday 12 July was our visit to USS midway. The parking lot was already full for this when we arrived quite early, but we found on street parking nearby that was $8.50 for 3 hours which we thought reasonable-you can pay using credit cards at a lot of the parking meters which was useful. We went to fashion village shopping mall after this-good shopping centre.

Friday 13th July we headed to balboa park-what am amazing place this is. We didn't visit any of the museums or the zoo (neither really our thing) but just a great place to walk about in. We did head in to the botanic gardens on our way past. After a morning here, we then headed over the bridge to Coronado-what an amazing place this is. I could have walked about all day looking at all the amazing houses and the views some of the houses have must be incredible-would love to stay here! We had a look in some of the boutique type shops-lovely, but pricey.

We had a panera bread for lunch (all love this place) then had a look at the Hotel de Coronado then onto the beach. Had a good walk/play in the water before heading back to the hotel.

Dinner tonight was at Liberty Public Market-about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. This place was fantastic and would highly recommend -something for all tastes. This is an indoor food market with lots of different stalls and common eating areas. You order your food and get buzzed when your food is ready. This visit we had a mixture of Japanese, Thai and Italian. Daughters also had crepes. The food here was so fresh and we all really enjoyed it. W didn't have a drink but there was also a bar.

Our last full day was Saturday 14 July. The kids had requested another pool/quiet morning. We were happy to oblige. DH and DD1 picked up Lime electric scooters and played on these in the morning by the hotel (we had also had a go on these at Balboa park yesterday). For anyone that doesn't know how these work, you download the Lime app on your phone, when you come across a scooter left on pathway etc, you scan the barcode on the scooter to activate it. It's $1 dollars to unlock the scooter then 15c for every kilometre. When you are done with the scooter you just take a photo of the parked scooter on your phone and submit it to end your time. These were great fun, we hired them later in the day again.

After our lazy morning, we headed to the Westfield shopping mall then to the Gaslamp/convention centre area. This was already busy getting set up for ComicCon next week and we couldn't get parked unless we paid a fortune! Decided to give it a miss-it did look a lovely area-and headed back to the hotel. We were starving and wanted to go back to Liberty public market. Hired scooters again for the kids. Tonight we had a mix of Italian, Japanese, Greek and Argentinian (the empanadas were amazing). Again we had a great meal here.

Was back to the hotel to pack for our early start today. Had set the alarms for 4am for our 7.20am flight. Got a text as were leaving our hotel to advise the 4.5 delay. It's going to be a long day but hopefully we will all try and have a sleep on the flight ready for our New York adventures.

We've loved San Diego. Aims, if you find this, thank you for DIBB thread and your help to me personally. You are very fortune to live in such a beautiful city. The harbour areas are so lovely and Coronado was a personal favourite-would have loved to spend longer there.

Will post our final update after our time in New York.
Thanks for reading.
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Old 15 Jul 18, 08:08 PM  
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Melbatb
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We loved San Diego when we were there at Christmas! It is an amazing city. It sounds as though you had a fabulous time.

Enjoy NYC - another family favourite!
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Old 15 Jul 18, 10:15 PM  
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Originally Posted by Melbatb View Post
We loved San Diego when we were there at Christmas! It is an amazing city. It sounds as though you had a fabulous time.

Enjoy NYC - another family favourite!
Thank you. If we ever get there, we are still stuck in San Diego, current delay to our 7.42 am flight is 8 hours!
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Old 15 Jul 18, 10:46 PM  
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Another fabulous"mini" report. You've visited three of the locations we hope to visit next year. I have visited San Diego before but that was 1986 and we anchored 8 miles out.
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Old 15 Jul 18, 11:06 PM  
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Another great report. We’re also visiting San Diego in August so again it’s nice to read recent experiences.

Any tips for parking, is it easy to find parking everywhere? We’ll be having breakfast at Hotel Del Coronado when we visit, I think we get two hours parking there then we’ll need to park elsewhere if we want to explore.
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Old 16 Jul 18, 01:37 AM  
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Aims
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Originally Posted by DisneyArab View Post
We've loved San Diego. Aims, if you find this, thank you for DIBB thread and your help to me personally. You are very fortune to live in such a beautiful city. The harbour areas are so lovely and Coronado was a personal favourite-would have loved to spend longer there.

Glad I caught sight of your post! You're very welcome for the advice- so glad you enjoyed yourself in San Diego, and I am happy to have played any part in your planning. I am pleased you tried Liberty Public Market and liked it so much. They have so many great options, something for everyone's tastes there (and I agree about the empanadas- yum!). I need to add the info about the Lime scooters to my planning thread. They are a really new thing in San Diego this year and have caught on big time- though I have almost been run over by those a couple times You visited the right week- when Comic Con begins, things are gonna get a little crazy downtown!



Safe travels! Have a wonderful time in NYC!
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Old 17 Jul 18, 11:30 AM  
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Great mini report thanks for writing
I’ve downloaded the lime app and look forward to trying it out if we come across any. Did you see any in Anaheim? Do you need one phone for one scooter?
Hope you got to NYC eventually and safely
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Old 17 Jul 18, 10:26 PM  
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Originally Posted by flo-tinka View Post
Great mini report thanks for writing
I’ve downloaded the lime app and look forward to trying it out if we come across any. Did you see any in Anaheim? Do you need one phone for one scooter?
Hope you got to NYC eventually and safely
Think you will see lots in San Diego, we didn’t notice any in Anaheim. We used one phone per scooter, not sure if you could use one device for multiple scooters, sorry. They were lots of fun though!

Did make it to NYC eventually thanks. Eventually flew out about 3.30pm, should have been 7.40 am, The flight itself was fab, was half empty so we got a row each. It’s kind of played havoc with our sleep though, was a very long day. Enjoying New York!
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Old 17 Jul 18, 10:31 PM  
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Originally Posted by Bellasmummy View Post
Another great report. We’re also visiting San Diego in August so again it’s nice to read recent experiences.

Any tips for parking, is it easy to find parking everywhere? We’ll be having breakfast at Hotel Del Coronado when we visit, I think we get two hours parking there then we’ll need to park elsewhere if we want to explore.
At La Jolla and Coronado there was a lot of free off street parking, a couple of streets back from the beaches. Uss midway we parked at a meter on the street. The only place we struggled to park and eventually gave up was the gas lamp quarter, possibly due to setting up for comic con. The only public car parking we saw was $40 dollars for a full day. It might be worth checking out parking beforehand if you’re heading to this area.
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Old 23 Jul 18, 07:06 PM  
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Brilliant report thank you for posting. Interesting to read about the scooters I hadn't heard about them before.
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