San Diego Beaches and Hotel del Coronado

Hi all,
We're two adults in our 50's planning a few days in San Diego following our trip to Disneyland. Our last day in San Diego will be on December 5th (a Monday) but our flight doesn't leave until 9 pm from San Diego International Airport; so we were thinking of exploring some of the San Diego beaches and/or going to check out the Hotel Del Coronado (I understand it was the inspiration for the Grand Floridian in WDW) that day. We are not really "beach people" in that we don't intend to go in the ocean and swim or lay around on the beach all day but we'd like to dip our toes in so we can say we were in the Pacific (we're from the Northeast).

I was thinking of possibly going to La Jolla to see the Seals (or are they Sea Lions?) and/or possibly to Mission Beach to see the Boardwalk attractions & then if we have time, driving over to Coronado Island and spending a little time exploring, including the hotel (not a priority, just a "nice to do"). Does this sound feasible for one day? Are there other beaches we should be looking into instead? Does anyone have any recommendations for lunch overlooking the ocean? What is the parking situation near the beaches and on Coronado Island? Will we be able to find parking during a weekday on the street or will we have to pay for a lot? Would we be better off stopping at the beaches on our way down from Anaheim on Saturday (December 3rd - we were planning to get an early start leaving Anaheim to check into our San Diego hotel). My boyfriend also wants to see a little of Old Town and/or Gaslight Village so that was our plan for Saturday but we can just as easily do that on Monday if we do the beaches on Saturday. Sorry for all the questions - We don't have a lot of time in San Diego and we're planning all day Sunday at the zoo so we're trying to fit in as much as we can on Saturday and Monday.

Any and all tips and suggestions are welcome! Thanks!!

The Hotel Del is a lovely place to sit on the deck and look at the ocean. You can even walk across the sand to dip your feet in the water. Depending on what you mean by "all day" at the zoo it might be a good idea to go to Coronado after the zoo (it's about a 8 minute drive from the park to Coronado Island) an catch a sunset and a dinner. Parking should be fine on a Sunday afternoon/evening or a weekday. La Jolla is wonderful and the seals are fun to see. Plenty of places for lunch over the ocean but we like to go to El Pescador and get a fish torta and take it to the La Jolla Cove to eat there. Mission Beach is like any other boardwalk on the eastern seaboard - I live here and hit the boardwalk about once every few years and that is plenty. If you love history, Old Town is fun. Gaslamp (not Gaslight if you're doing a google search) is mostly bars and restaurants. Fun if you are a tourist on a weekend night but not the best place to eat for quality/price (there are some gems in between the rough spots however). I'd also suggest Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. This is a great thing to do before leaving as it is very close to the airport and you can stop at Liberty Station Market for some snacks prior to the flight. Or Point Loma Seafood and sit on the Harbor and watch the seals bobbing the bay.

I wouldn't leave the beach until the last day because I like to have access to a shower to rinse off sand and salt water.

The drive from Anaheim to San Diego is about an hour and a half. You could easily stop and see a beach. If you want a more scenic route get off the five somewhere near Oceanside and take the 1 down towards Del Mar and then either get back on or drive through to La Jolla and then get back on the 5 to continue to San Diego. Parking near any beach in San Diego can be a pain depending on the beach. Almost all have parking meters with the exception of Encinitas. Encinitas has a pizza place I love with views of the water if you sit outside (maybe not in December. Weather in San Diego December is like spring in Portland, Maine) otherwise La Jolla, Del Mar, and Coronado has Pacific Ocean restaurants.

Which zoo were you actually thinking of? The actual labeled zoo in balboa park is a half day park but add in balboa museums and you could spend a day there. That zoo to Coronado yes is a short drive but with traffic it could easily take a half hour sometimes. The hotel del has a great ice cream parlor. Parking at the hotel del is actually not hard it's getting around the island that is a pain in my opinion. The safari park that most people actually see when the world famous zoo is brought up is in Escondido a 45 minute drive from downtown San Diego. That is an all day park.

Hotel del if you go won't take long to explore maybe an hour or two. Get some ice cream at the ice cream parlor.

BklynGirl said:

I was thinking of possibly going to La Jolla to see the Seals (or are they Sea Lions?)

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You will see both. Seals are by the children's pool and the sea lions are a few blocks away at the cove. It's a very nice walk from one to the other, but can be very windy as you are on a cliff. I love that walk. You can also walk a little south of the children's pool to the tidepools, however, the tidepools don't have a lot of life in them at this particular location. From the cove, walk up the hill half a block to the shell shop and they have a cave that you can walk down that ends inside one of the sea caves by the cove. That is only open when considered safe. It can be a bit sketchy, so if you are afraid of small spaces or wet steps, you may want to skip that. There are lots of restaurants that overlook the cove. They have had issues with bad smells coming from the wildlife below, though.

BklynGirl said:

possibly to Mission Beach to see the Boardwalk attractions & then if we have time, driving over to Coronado Island and spending a little time exploring, including the hotel

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You could easily do that after spending a few hours in La Jolla. You can take the coast drive down to Mission Beach. Personally, I don't care for the area, but I grew up a couple miles away from it and probably take it for granted. Hotel Del is a great place to spend some time. They have lounges/restaurants, etc that will take care of your dinner or drinks. There is a small walk through museum type area where you can see pictures from the filming of Some Like it Hot. You could spend a couple hours at the hotel just looking at stuff and walking around. The beach was rated one of the best beaches in the country a couple years ago. It is very nice, but I am not sure what gave it that rating. We have lots of very nice beaches (and lots of really gross beaches) in southern California.

BklynGirl said:

My boyfriend also wants to see a little of Old Town and/or Gaslight Village

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Old Town is fun and can give you a really good idea of what it is like to cross the Mexico border without having to do that. Almost all the food there is Mexican. There's a family owned central/south american restaurant called Berta's there that is very good. Old town has lots of merchandise from Mexico for sale and they have a lot of haunted history, if you are interested in that.

You could visit the Gaslamp quarter downtown fairly quickly (it's very small) unless you like to drink a lot. It's full of bars and restaurants. If you drive through it and blink, you'll miss it. Be careful walking the side streets around there. The side streets are still full of crime and degenerates, even though the city did a good job of cleaning up the the actual quarter.

BklynGirl said:

We don't have a lot of time in San Diego and we're planning all day Sunday at the zoo so we're trying to fit in as much as we can on Saturday and Monday.

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The zoo will close early, so you could visit Gaslamp afterward if you wanted to fill your day. In my opinion, the only good place to eat at the Zoo is their sit down table service restaurant, Albert's. Old town is better during the day if you want the museums open. If you don't care about museums, you can visit most of Old Town at night.

I believe you could check off everything on your list easily.

I haven't done this (other than the ghosts and gravestone tour), but Old Town Trolley Tours goes to almost everywhere on your list. https://www.trolleytours.com/san-diego#todo-section
There's one specifically for La Jolla and San Diego beaches and another that goes to Hotel Del. I do not know how long the stops are, though. I like to go at my own pace and not have to hurry back to the tour when I am looking around.

The Old Town Trolley the prior poster mentioned runs every 20 minutes or so & you don't need to grab the next trolley (just the last one for the day or use a taxi to get back). The Del stop is just up the street from the hotel. The food at the Del is good but of course pricey.If you don't want to get a meal there is a lounge with outside sitting and a deck bar overlooking the beach to grab a drink or 2. There are several restaurants with a wide price range just up Orange Ave from the Del.
Agree that Albert's in the zoo is good

I would just head to Coronado and spend the day there personally. My in-laws live there and we go all the time. You can walk by the beach at the Del without ever going on the beach.

Walk down to the end of Orange Ave to Ferry Landing. There's some shops down there. And you can take the Ferry over to Seaport Village if you want to check out some more shops. You can spend a whole day doing both easily. It's a relaxing and beautiful walk.

We spent 2 weeks in Calif, flying into SD and flying out of SF. For the SD part of our trip we stayed 3 nights at the Glorietta Bay Inn. It is literally right across the street from the Del. And like you, we checked out the Del, walked the beach, etc but also used the Inn as our base for trips to the SD zoo and other SD attractions. Check it out and check out Trip Advisor. We absolutely loved the place and it was a great place to return to every night. Plus the free breakfast was very good as well. We would stay here again if we ever make it back.