Who is familiar with Southern California? Need help choosing beach town

[I'mNoPrince]

Thanks for posting those pics luvflorida!!

We're going in March so I guess we won't be swimming either...thats o.k. with me though. I really just want to walk along the beach.

Well the Dates for the Paintball is March 28 - 30, 2008


So if you will be there during that time Book now as they bring about 200+ 7 man teams in.

If you are there the Boys will love watching the Games being played.

 

[CathrynRose]

My boys do have wet suits, but they are used to the Atlantic Ocean. I doubt they will get in, but it will be fun to walk the beach or just sit there and watch other brave souls!

I loved watching the surfers. So intense too.... they'd be sitting there, just waiting, and suddenly they'd pop up and start paddling out. Just waiting for the *perfect* one.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

Huntington Beach, definitely! But then, I may be biased, since it is my hometown.

There is great surfing in HB, especially near the pier. I love to walk on the pier and watch the surfers, grabbing lunch at Ruby's Diner on the end. Biking on the boardwalk is a lot of fun, too. You can ride all the way down into Newport Beach to the end of the Balboa penninsula if you want. I haven't stayed at any of the hotels, but the Waterfront Hilton is in a great location.

There's a BJ's Chicago Pizza and a brewpub (HB Brewery??) on Main Street. Perq's is a good place to catch a local band.

Santa Monica is nice too, though LA in general is so much more crowded and busy than OC, I'd pick HB for a vacation. SM has some good English pubs and IIRC also has a ferris wheel and some other small rides and carnival-type games by it's pier.

Have fun!

 

[KarenB]

DH, youngest DS (17), and I were in Southern California last June. There is a neat little surfing museum you may want to visit too. The outside newsletter on the second link may help your plans!

http://www.surfingmuseum.org/index1.html
http://www.surfmuseum.org/


We had a great time. We stayed 5 nights visiting the LA area and 3 nights in the San Deigo area. Let me know if I can answer an specific questions for you.

Karen

 

[JunieJay]

Well the Dates for the Paintball is March 28 - 30, 2008


So if you will be there during that time Book now as they bring about 200+ 7 man teams in.

If you are there the Boys will love watching the Games being played.

Bummer. We leave for home the 28th. My boys love Paintball.

Huntington Beach, definitely! But then, I may be biased, since it is my hometown.

There is great surfing in HB, especially near the pier. I love to walk on the pier and watch the surfers, grabbing lunch at Ruby's Diner on the end. Biking on the boardwalk is a lot of fun, too. You can ride all the way down into Newport Beach to the end of the Balboa penninsula if you want. I haven't stayed at any of the hotels, but the Waterfront Hilton is in a great location.

There's a BJ's Chicago Pizza and a brewpub (HB Brewery??) on Main Street. Perq's is a good place to catch a local band.

Santa Monica is nice too, though LA in general is so much more crowded and busy than OC, I'd pick HB for a vacation. SM has some good English pubs and IIRC also has a ferris wheel and some other small rides and carnival-type games by it's pier.

Have fun!

Yay, a local!! How far of a drive is it to Hollywood? Everyone in my family is dying to do the whole Hollywood thing - they want to do Warner Brothers Studios and the Walk of Fame and see a movie in Mann's Chinese theatre. Is it realistic to consider Huntington Beach as our home base, or would we be better off in Santa Monica? Or neither? Its just so hard for me to judge, not know traffic patterns and such. We live in D.C., in the middle of the city, so we are used to traffic - and D.C. traffic is terrible - but from what I understand nothing compares to SoCa trafic.

DH, youngest DS (17), and I were in Southern California last June. There is a neat little surfing museum you may want to visit too. The outside newsletter on the second link may help your plans!

http://www.surfingmuseum.org/index1.html
http://www.surfmuseum.org/


We had a great time. We stayed 5 nights visiting the LA area and 3 nights in the San Deigo area. Let me know if I can answer an specific questions for you.

Karen

Oh yes, I want to go to that museum, thank you!!

 

[Mrs.Toad]

Yay, a local!! How far of a drive is it to Hollywood? Everyone in my family is dying to do the whole Hollywood thing - they want to do Warner Brothers Studios and the Walk of Fame and see a movie in Mann's Chinese theatre. Is it realistic to consider Huntington Beach as our home base, or would we be better off in Santa Monica? Or neither? Its just so hard for me to judge, not know traffic patterns and such. We live in D.C., in the middle of the city, so we are used to traffic - and D.C. traffic is terrible - but from what I understand nothing compares to SoCa trafic.

Hmm, unfortunately, it's been 14 years now since we moved away, so I'm not sure how much traffic has changed. There are probably more cars on the roads, but I know some new freeways have been built, and also a light rail system, so it may not be too much worse.

We always considered the Hollywood area about an hour's drive away, more on weekday mornings. It's between 40 and 50 miles. However, I'd probably allow at least 2 hours to get where you want to go. Some people who commute from OC to LA leave really early in the morning, like 4:30, and some leave later, like 9:30, to avoid traffic. (Ditto on the way home.) While that makes the roads better at say, 7:00am and 5:00pm, it also spreads rush "hour" out, so it's rare that the roads aren't crowded.

Santa Monica is definitely a lot closer to Hollywood, so if you want to spend a lot of time there, it might be better for you. But it's also doable from HB if you don't mind leaving early and spending one long day in Hollywood.

I'll ask my brother, who still lives in OC, how long it takes to get to Hollywood these days. Although he works near his home, I know he has to commute occasionally to visit clients, so he should have some idea.

 

[Tink33]

Huntington Beach is Surf City USA. Here is a link to pictures from the summer of 2004 when we stayed at the Hyatt.

http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=4286692575

There is plenty to do in the area for a few days.

 

[pppiglet]

Here's a link to our Hyatt pictures. Definately I would choose Huntington over Santa Monica.
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/debrouth/Huntington/

 

[goofy!]

Last March we stayed at Loews Santa Monica. Loved the beach and the pier. We were less than a block from the pier, so it was great. We had a great dinner watching the sunset over Pacific from Bubba Gumps. Food was just ok, but you couldn't beat the view.

Since we are Loews Platinum (we have stayed at Universal a few too many times ), we were upgraded to a gorgeous ocean front suite. Great view of beach and we had a blast watching everybody working out on the equipment right in front of the hotel.

During our stay at Loews Santa Monica, they were hosting a bunch of events from the Nick Awards, so my kids were on star watch.

We wouldn't hesitate to go back!

Although, it is also a haven for the homeless, so if this bothers you, you may want to stay somewhere else. I went out early for donuts over by the pier and literally had to step over tons of people sleeping on the sidewalks.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

OK, my brother reminds me that you are in luck because you will be able to use the car pool lane for most of your freeway driving. He says he'd allow 1.5-2 hours to drive to Hollywood from HB on a weekday morning.

 

[MoniqueU]

I actually like Newport beach better then huntington beach. There seems to be a bit more going on as far as shops and restaurants and such. It is also near balboa Island and they have some fun rides there and a ferris wheel. We also rent a boat at newport habor and tool around in it jamming and having a good time, I would reccomend that. There is also a great italian restaurant that we go to called Villa Nova. They have a website to look up their menues and such.
We do go to huntington some though but it is more mellow and has more trenty shopping like starbucks and cookie cutter like stores. Newport seems to have more character.

 

[Alice's Mom]

If you want to do the Hollywood thing, Santa Monica would be a better home-base. Plus you could take PCH to Malibu, the beaches are beautiful, but I am biased since I tend to go to Malibu beaches during the summer. Oh and the Getty Villa is fantastic!

Huntington and Newport are better surfing beaches though. Newport does have a lot of charm and character.

Ditch the husband for a day and go to Disneyland!

 

[bbwfan]

We stayed at Imperial Beach, it is south of San Diego by 20 minutes, it is sooo quiet and nice. We rented a condo for a week when my brother was graduating from Marine boot camp..There were dolphins swimming all the time and surfers. It is very close to San Diego for an easy day trip, and a little further down the road is Mexico..but BEFORE you get to the border is a HUGE outlet mall..

 

[aprincessmom]

Judi, Emma LOVED Laguna Beach...there was something there for all us. Shops, great beaches, surfing, restaurants. I would highly recommend it

 

[peyjax]

I know! DH is not a Disney person though, and only tolerates the Disney thing in Florida, and reluctantly at that. No way could I get him to fly all the way out to California and then ask him to do something we do every year. The only themepark we'll be visiting on this trip is Sea World in San Diego.


You should definatly try San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park! It so amazing and as much as I love Animal Kingdom in DW, the Wild Animal Park puts it to shame. They filmed part of Jurrasic Park there so it is a very natural setting. I agree with several other posters about Laguna Beach. It is very fun and kid friendly.