5 Days, 50 Ways to Enjoy San Diego: Day 5, The Beach Lover’s Grand Finale Edition
Ah, HA! I totally made up for the whole I-missed-going-to-the-beach thing on day four by hitting lots of beach action on my last day here in San Diego. I am more than wiped out from all my hard-core vacation destination testing over the past five days, so I will get right to the chase and share with you now the final 10 awesome ways to enjoy this second-to-none city:
1. Make Fido part of your vacation plans!
Forbes Magazine found San Diego to be the most pet-friendly among cities with populations of over a million, so it’s no wonder that Hotel Indigo, my host this past week, finds its pet-friendly policies so successful. I found it a ton of fun to meet their four-legged guests in the lobby and out on the terrace each day. “People want to share their vacation experiences with their pets,” says Pat McTigue, the hotel’s director of sales & marketing. “We not only applaud that, we help make it happen for our guests.”
We'll always have San Diego, Buckeye, Nikita, Sandie & Travis!
Many pasty-colored Pennsylvania women enjoy posing by the Hotel del Coronado.
2. Spend some time exploring Coronado del Mar.
A short drive across the soaring bridge from downtown San Diego is Coronado Island, a relaxed, upscale Southern California beach town with baby-powder-soft sand on its beaches, spectacular bayside views overlooking San Diego’s skyline and sunsets framed by the silhouette of Point Loma. (It’s actually a peninsula and not a true island, but when something is as special as Coronado, people tend not to become geography sticklers about it.) There are world-class resorts, an 18-hole golf course and a plethora of spas, shops, restaurants, art galleries and marinas. (Please note the skillful use of the SAT word, “plethora” in the making of this blog entry. Two points!)
Coronado is also home to the famous Hotel del Coronado, the “Hotel Del” as it’s fondly referred to by the locals. This Victorian beachfront masterpiece and national treasure was the location for filming “Some Like It Hot” starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. This area of San Diego County is truly enchanting.
3. Take sailing, surfing, kayaking or other water sport lessons at Silver Strand Beach
Have some fun with surfing lessons at Crown Cove Aquatic Center.
Jump into your wet suit and come along f or a swim, sail, canoe, kayak or outrigger class! Courses offered by Southwestern College’s Crown Cove Aquatic Center at Silver Strand State Park (nestled between the Imperial Beach and the Coronado) are open to the public all year round. Crown Cove Aquatic Center holds these classes in partnerships with California Boating and Waterways and California State Parks. They also offer an Aquatic Adventure Day Camp for kids ages 7 to 14 during the summer. Click here to see the schedule and learn more, or call (619) 575-6176.
Gondola couples massage through the Coronado Cays
4. Take a couples massage gondola ride.
Loews Coronado Bay Resort has got a spa experience that is certain to float your boat. Or should I say glide your gondola?
Working with the hotel’s luxurious Sea Spa, you can arrange for a Voga Voyage. This is a couples experience, enjoyed while cruising in a Venetian-styled gondola equipped with two professional massage tables. Enjoy a soothing sunscreen application and a relaxing 40-minute massage as you cruise the Coronado Cays, followed by complimentary champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries during the final 10 minutes of the scenic ride.
If you rather skip the massage part and just have a ride on an authentic Italian gondola, that can be arranged as well. The Gondola Company operates from the private marina at Loews Coronado Bay Resort and offers private, romantic cruises that last approximately one hour. They can accommodate up to six passengers and include blankets, an appetizers or a dessert plate, and even a professional mandolin or violin player if you choose the Musica Cruise package.
Here's your sunken wreck, Laura!
5. Track down the shipwrecks on Coronado Beach!
Remember contest winner Laura Brodsky‘s San Diego tip about a sunken submarine that can be spotted when conditions are just right off of Silver Strand State Beach in Imperial Beach? The wreck is the U.S.S. S-37 and has been submerged there since 1945.
Although not a submarine, the Monty Carlo is still a cool low-tide find.
Well, I searched and searched all around the Imperial Beach area and was not able find this submarine, although it was confirmed to be out there, so it’s no urban legend. I was really bummed out to learn that the sunken sub had a position close to shore but in about 25-feet of water, and that to find her cone tower I’d have to be a diver, kayaker or a very strong swimmer. I’m not any of those things.
The Monty Carlo has sat in the sands of Coronado since 1936.
Luckily for me, James Ramos, group coordinator at the Crown Cove Aquatic Center, hooked me up with a more accessible and equally awesome sunken wreck called the Monte Carlo, which lies a quarter-mile south of the Hotel del Coronado. It peeks out of the sand right on the beach at low tide. The ship had been a gambling boat during the Great Depression, when guests had to be ferried out 3 miles offshore into international waters to play. A storm on New Year’s Eve in 1936 caused the Monte Carlo to become beached, and its remains can still be seen in that spot today. I was able to touch the pieces of the shipwreck just as James told me I would. Very cool!
If you still want to find the sub while you are visiting the San Diego area, head down to the Silver Strand State Beach in Imperial Beach. It is about 4.5 miles from Coronado and supposedly can be seen when the tide is low and the surf is high. If you snap a picture of it, please be sure to share it with us!
Navy Seals on Coronado Beach
6. Watch the Navy Seals on Coronado Beach.
How can a person blog about the Coronado Island and not bring up the Navy Seals? It’s home to the North Island U. S. Naval Air Station and the U. S. Navy SEALS center, which employ over 36,000 military and civilian personnel in the greater San Diego area. If you are around early enough in the mornings, you can watch them train on the beach in front of the Hotel del Coronado and see firsthand how incredibly well trained they are.
7. Seek out the sea turtles at the Chula Vista Nature Center.
Come visit me!
Get an up close and personal visit with the endangered Eastern Pacific Green Sea Turtles at the Chula Vista Nature Center’s Turtle Lagoon, south of Coronado Beach on your way to Imperial Beach. There you can see these shy gentle giants basking in the mid-day sun and swimming beneath the water’s surface, thanks to underwater observation windows that provide fascinating views of these special creatures. Learn new things about sea turtles and how you can help preserve them, too. Feeding time is at 1:45 p.m. daily.
Let the healing begin.
8. Let the healing begin at the Chopra Center for Well-Being in Carlsbad.
The La Costa Resort and Spa is home to the Chopra Center for Well-Being, run by world-renowned holistic physicians Deepak Chopra, M.D. and David Simon, M.D. and their expert staff. Throughout the year, guests from all over the world come to the Chopra Center to heal their body, find emotional freedom, and connect to their essential self and life’s purpose. The choices of Chopra Ayurvedic Therapies include the Odyssey Enlivening Therapy sampling of five Ayurvedic therapies and the Pizichilli treatment of continuous streaming of warm, herbal oils rhythmically massaged into your body by two therapists.
(Chopra Center for Well-Being)
Wow...
9. Have your breath taken away by the amazing vistas at Ellen Browning Scribbs Park in La Jolla.
All I can say is, “Wow.” Yes, the town of La Jolla is delightful and full of quaint shops, restaurants and art galleries. Yes, the people, the beaches and the weather there are inviting. But all these great features about La Jolla easily take a back seat to the sweeping, mind-blowingly-beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean right off of the town’s coastal park, Ellen Browning Scripps Park.
Just see what I mean:
Thank you, Lori Wnek, of Allentown, PA, for recommending this amazing place.
(La Jolla)
America's Cup racing yachts in San Diego
10. Race on an America’s Cup yacht.
Back in San Diego proper, down at the Maritime Museum of San Diego pier, you can not only see the legendary America’s Cup yachts, but you can catch a ride on them too! America will get you to whale-watching grounds and you can join in a friendly race on board either Stars and Stripes or Abracadabra. These yachts are available for both public and private charter, through Dennis Conner’s America’s Cup Experience, and your ticket also gives you admission to the Maritime Museum. Who knows, you might even get to meet “Mr. America’s Cup” himself, Dennis Connor while you are there.
(Dennis Conner’s America’s Cup Experience)
And with that, my work in San Diego is done. For now.
The saying goes “Happy happens in San Diego,” and I can tell you that isn’t just a catchy tourism slogan, it’s a fact. I am definitely going back again someday soon. My “5 Days, 50 Ways to Enjoy San Diego” series has only just scratched the surface of what is here. I know I’ll be back to enjoy this wonderful city again. You should get yourself here too, and make your own happiness happen.
Margo Trott is a freelance writer with a Ladies’ Home Journal humor blog called “Ha, Ha, Ha…No, Seriously”. You probably don’t need to know that, but we thought it couldn’t hurt to fill you in.
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