California Coastline Jaunt
(part 1)
We have both always wanted to live in California. The weather makes each day so much more pleasant. The air seems to go deeper into your body as you inhale. The air, however, is very expensive in California, therefore at this juncture, we will be happy to live where we are, and visit the California air whenever we can.
Last year’s trip, was one in which we flew in to San Francisco, and toured the coast south, as seen in the California Road Trip series of blog posts.
We flew into San Diego to check out some tennis facilities and have meetings, and then drove north up the coastline, through La Jolla, Encinitas, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and many stops along the way.
We stopped in La Jolla after a meeting, and took a few hours to enjoy the sea lion park area. You can get pretty close, and it’s fun watching them sun bathe and chill out. It smells like a zoo, but oh well. The beauty of nature was worth it.
We found a cute place to sit outside and eat wonderful Mexican food. It also had a great view of the ocean from the outdoor seating area.
Jose’s Courtroom had really good food and was a great place to relax and enjoy the view.
After more tinkering around, we ended up driving further north to Carlsbad, where our hotel was. Grand Pacific Palisades was a wonderful place to stay, since we were planning on meeting friends further north, in Newport and south in Del Mar during our stay.
I booked this trip through Orbitz.com which I’d never used before. The funny thing, is that I’d originally booked a cute little beach front place, because the photos were so great. After booking, only then did it occur to me to begin looking on the web for user reviews. These days, customers can go online and post their own photos of how things really looked, so I got scared about my choice.
I’d called the hotel,to inquire about which room we would be staying in. The person on the phone asked “the reason for our stay” at which point I’d mentioned I was doing a blog post on the O.C., and we had other business as well. He told me he wasn’t sure what room we would have yet.
The next day, I get an email from Orbitz, asking me to call them. It seems, the manager of the hotel, canceled my reservations, and did not want me staying there. Orbitz was embarrassed, but very accommodating, in helping me find a better place to stay, which is how we ended up with the fabulous Grand Pacific Palisades. My Orbitz rep said he was probably just scared of a negative review. After that, I checked out the hotel again, and found that this manager had quite a few negative reviews on his personal behavior towards guests, so it was fortunate this happened.
Actually, I don’t give negative reviews on anything. If someone sends me a product and I find it o be inferior…then I say nothing. I just will not promote something that isn’t good.
That being said…Orbitz.com was wonderful to work with after that happened.
Back to the trip…that night was Halloween, so after enjoying time together watching the sunset on the terrace, we had dinner at the hotel, and turned in early so we could get up the next morning to enjoy our day….(part 2 in the next blog post!)
-SDS
-November 24, 2013
