San Diego-post cruise vacation

[mmsoko]

We cruised out of LA but wanted our 17 yo son to join us to visit San Diego.

We had been there years ago and always wanted to return.

 

Picked up son at LAX and drove to SD. We're from the Detroit area so aren't foreign to traffic but CA traffic was constant. The drive from LA to SD was longer than we'd planned. We stayed in Oceanside the first night and just walked to a closeby restaurant...didn't want to get in car again.

The next morning we spent some time on Oceanside's pier and visited the California Visitor's center. The brochures/coupons saved us some $ on our trip.

 

The next three nights we stayed at Humphrey's Half Moon Inn on Shelter Island. It has beautiful grounds and amenities but might not have been the best location for the sight seeing we wanted to do.

We did an overview of SD on the Old Town Trolley, a hop-on, hop-off sight seeing tour. We visited the air craft carrier, Midway. DH & DS totally enjoyed that self-guided tour. It was a rainy day and access was limited.

 

We did a dolphin/whale watching tour with Hornblower and were able to follow two very cooperative whale. Wonderful tour..would highly recommend it.

 

DS went paragliding off the cliffs of TorreyPines (tandem, of course) from the GliderPort there. It was just fun to watch!

 

Our final stop was the Wild Animal Park. Since it is north of SD proper, we moved to the Staybridge Suites in Rancho Bernardo. This hotel exceeded our expectation.

We enjoyed a "photo safari" at the park. Went behind fences in the park and even fed giraffes. Don't miss this once in a lifetime experience.

 

Sorry to go on and on but wanted to share some of this trip.