Best Hotels In SD Near The Beach

jhaig

Not The First To Pass This Way
Joined
Oct 3, 2007
Our plan is for a trip to CA next June which will include 2-3 nights in San Diego. We would like to stay as close to or on the beach but not be so far away to have a lengthy drive to get to downtown SD for the zoo, Midway Museum, Old Town, and Gaslight district. It would be nice to have easy beach access and I would like to keep our price point no higher than $400 per night. I don't really have an idea of distances between things in SD so any help there would be appreciated. Never been to CA so this is all new to us.
 
In addition to those already posted, look at:
La Jolla Shores Hotel
Paradise Point Resort
Hotel del Coronado
Coronado Beach Resort (it's a timeshare but sometimes has nightly stays)
Lowes Coronado
Crystal Pier Hotel and Cottages
 
Tell me about Hotel del Coronado. Looks like a great location for what we want to do, along with the great history behind it. I looked up rates for the week before 4th of July and they seem reasonable, around $300 (at least reasonable for there anyway).

One thing we don't have a lot of here are dog-friendly hotels. I am having visions of dogs barking at 3am and the glorious odor of dog in our room. Are there certain wings or sections of the hotel that accommodate dogs?
 


Hotel del Coronado is one of the only San Diego resorts with DIRECT OCEAN Beach access. Anything on Mission Bay is NOT the beach, so beware. It's more like lakefront over there.

If the Del is in your price range, you can't beat it for beach access. The rest of downtown SD is a short ride away over the bridge.
 
Tell me about Hotel del Coronado. Looks like a great location for what we want to do, along with the great history behind it. I looked up rates for the week before 4th of July and they seem reasonable, around $300 (at least reasonable for there anyway).

One thing we don't have a lot of here are dog-friendly hotels. I am having visions of dogs barking at 3am and the glorious odor of dog in our room. Are there certain wings or sections of the hotel that accommodate dogs?


The prices can very dramatically, depending on season and which part you stay in. The hotel is ok, old, so its more about history than comfort. Plus, its supposedly haunted. The beach is rather plain, just a flat beach with nothing really interesting scenery wise. But its fine if you just want to spend some beach time relaxing or playing in the sand. There are some nice little shops in the hotel and restaurants. Or you can stroll through the town to check out other shops and restaurants. Or rent bikes and ride down silver strand. There is a dog beach not far, but I honestly don't know their dog policy.
 
My family just stayed on Pacific Beach at the Blue Sea Beach Hotel. It was so great and right on the beach! Pretty reasonable at around $250/night the week before July 4th. It took us about 20mins to get to the zoo, and downtown would have been about the same. I will warn that the area is definitely more geared to a party vibe. We had a little trouble finding walkable Family restaurants, but the local restaurants did allow kids. It's just that they were mostly pubs. We did see a lot of families, though. Most of the hotels in the area looked old and run down. Blue Sea Beach was very nice and renovated inside, so it's possible they all are the same. The staff was great and the view just gorgeous!
 


Interesting reading reviews of Hotel Del on Yelp. Either it's a 5 star or a 1 star. You love it or hate it.
 
Interesting reading reviews of Hotel Del on Yelp. Either it's a 5 star or a 1 star. You love it or hate it.


Haha, yeah. Even I have mixed feelings about it. As an SD native have done several family pics/xmas card pics there(just like 99% of other san diegans). I have never recommended any family or friends stay there unless they are interested in the history or something. But I do suggest people visiting it if they have extra time, depending on where they are from.
 
If the Hotel Del is in your price range and beach access is your number one priority, I'd do it as it's one of the few with direct beach access and a beautiful beach. It's a beautiful historic hotel, but I've heard the same from friends who have stayed about the rooms being iffy, especially for the price.
 
Fyi, it will be Hilton this month, so if you have Hilton Honors you can get points :)
 
As long as you are interested in Coronado Island, I would strongly suggest you check out the Glorietta Bay Inn, directly across the street rom the Del. Check Trip Advisor or any other rating site. This place was fantastic, and probably around 60-70% of the price at the Del. And a continental breakfast is included. We spent either 3 or 4 nights here a couple years ago and would not even consider anything else if we were to return to SD. And literally walk acoss the street if you want to use the beach in front of the Del (which is definitely a beautiful resort). The Glorietta had me at 24-hour complimentary coffee. And the afternoon cookies and lemonade hit the spot as well.
 
As long as you are interested in Coronado Island, I would strongly suggest you check out the Glorietta Bay Inn, directly across the street rom the Del. Check Trip Advisor or any other rating site. This place was fantastic, and probably around 60-70% of the price at the Del. And a continental breakfast is included. We spent either 3 or 4 nights here a couple years ago and would not even consider anything else if we were to return to SD. And literally walk acoss the street if you want to use the beach in front of the Del (which is definitely a beautiful resort). The Glorietta had me at 24-hour complimentary coffee. And the afternoon cookies and lemonade hit the spot as well.

Hmm. That sounds like it might be worth a look.
 
As long as you are interested in Coronado Island, I would strongly suggest you check out the Glorietta Bay Inn, directly across the street rom the Del. Check Trip Advisor or any other rating site. This place was fantastic, and probably around 60-70% of the price at the Del. And a continental breakfast is included. We spent either 3 or 4 nights here a couple years ago and would not even consider anything else if we were to return to SD. And literally walk acoss the street if you want to use the beach in front of the Del (which is definitely a beautiful resort). The Glorietta had me at 24-hour complimentary coffee. And the afternoon cookies and lemonade hit the spot as well.
If you stay at this hotel, can you then utilize the beach at Hotel Del?
 
The beach in front of the Hotel Del is public, anyone can use it. You just don't have access to the portion up by the hotel with their beach chairs, etc.
 
Haha, yeah. Even I have mixed feelings about it. As an SD native have done several family pics/xmas card pics there(just like 99% of other san diegans). I have never recommended any family or friends stay there unless they are interested in the history or something. But I do suggest people visiting it if they have extra time, depending on where they are from.
I've stayed there many times. Personally, I don't like the rooms in the original building. They're small, oddly shaped, which if you're unlucky could make it smaller and poorly insulated for sound. On the other hand, my family loves the ocean tower. I could see where some people wouldn't like being so far from the main hotel, especially if the history is the appeal, but that's just not us. It really hasn't been the same hotel (to us) since they built the beach village, but we still go every few years for a night or 2 for nostalgia.
 
Rather than ask people to randomly throw out hotel suggestions, my thought is for you to do a general look on hotels.com to look for hotels within your driving range and budget. Take the addresses and look them up on google map. Once you narrow down your selection, I would then take those hotels and ask people about them because there is more to a hotel than just price and distance to the beach and distance to downtown. For example, if you pick a hotel in Pacific Beach, be prepared for college kids as that is where they typically go to party so the crowd if typically much younger. Coronado beach is nice but we personally don't like it because the sandy part of the beach is huge so if you're hauling a lot of stuff, it's a pain in the butt. Also, there are no close by public restrooms at least that we're aware of. We've had to walk all the way back to The Del to use the facilities and with 3 kids having to go at different times, this can get tiresome. We tend to like La Jolla Shores but there aren't too many hotels in the very near area. There's only the La Jolla Shores Hotels, I believe is what it's called.

Good luck and I hope you find what you're looking for.
 

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