Destination: San Diego (Part 2)
Having found out we would in fact be going on vacation to San Diego, I immediately began one of my favorite parts of vacationing: making plans! I ordered my San Diego vacation info packet from the convention and visitors bureau, searched for the best price on plane tickets and started researching hotels.
We had been provided with a list of “official conference hotels,” so at first I just picked out the least expensive hotel from the list that had the features we were looking for (primarily an airport shuttle and free internet access). Even though the university will be picking up the hotel tab, we still didn’t want waste money on an extravagant hotel. On a hunch that I might be able to still find a better deal somewhere, I ventured beyond the official list and started searching for hotels on a few internet travel sites.
Amazingly, for the same price as the hotel I had picked out from the “official list,” I found one that was both much higher quality and much closer to the convention center where Tony’s meetings will be held. The Prava is described as a “boutique hotel” and features a small kitchen (complete with stove, full size fridge, dishwasher, microwave, pots, dishes, etc) in each room! Very handy when you don’t want to be forced to eat out for every meal while traveling! Though we will end up having to pay for our airport shuttle and internet access, the small cost of these two items seemed well worth the treat of being able to stay in a great hotel.
With our flight and hotel taken care of, all that’s left is some pre-planning of what we want to see and do while we’re there. The San Diego vacation packet arrived yesterday, and I’ve been doing some web browsing as well to read about local attractions and restaurants. I haven’t yet checked out a tour book from the Library, but I am sure I will get around to it before the time of our trip in March. Does it surprise anyone that I enjoy the planning and researching so much???
I actually have been to San Diego once before, on a family trip with my mom and step-dad when I was in seventh grade. Wow, that was about 15 years ago! I don’t remember a ton of details from that trip…I do remember going to Sea World and being very disappointed that the penguin display was closed for some reason. But we did get to see the killer whale show featuring “Baby Shamu.” My step-dad then jokes about Baby Shamu The Cute Killer Whale for years afterwards.
The other highlight of that family vacation was a “whale watching” cruise we took out on the ocean. I don’t even remember if we saw any whales. The memorable part of that excursion was my mom accidently breaking open a huge blister she had gotten on her hand as a result an unfortunate hot tea spill in the airport before our flight out. It was traumatic for all three of us, and somehow very funny to me looking back on it. (Although I doubt it was funny at all at the time!) My mom has traveled to San Diego several times since then and it is one of her favorite vacation destinations, but I don’t think she has ever gone whale watching again!
I’m looking forward to some new San Diego adventures this spring…which you can look forward to reading about here.