Surprise San Diego Trip
This year, in lieu of more toys for Christmas we decided to gift our kids an early trip to San Diego! I was a little nervous they may be disappointed that we weren’t going to do our typical Christmas traditions, but they absolutely loved the trip and were totally on board. Ideally, it would’ve been fun to surprise them on Christmas morning, but the tickets we had for Lego Land had to be used before December 25th so we planned the trip as close to Christmas as we could.
Scavenger Hunt
A few days before we were set to leave we had the kids open their Christmas pajamas - which we usually do sometime after Thanksgiving anyway. After the kids went to bed I set up a scavenger hunt for them. That night I could hardly sleep because I was so excited. The kids had NO idea and were so surprised the next morning and it was SO fun.
This is the printable I used for the scavenger hunt. It was super easy to edit and I changed a few things to work better for our house.
Sprinkled through out the scavenger hunt there were some gifts we would need for the trip. We got new portable DVD players, some clothes, and the How to Train Your Dragon DVDs — they’re still obsessed with the shows from when we learned about Vikings a few months ago.
The last clue led them to one more final gift: our itinerary. This is the template I used to make our itinerary. I changed the colors to make it more Christmas themed and it was also super easy to edit.
Itinerary
So, if you happen to be visiting San Diego - I’ve got some good recommendations for you! Usually we love to travel with our RV, but traveling in winter is not our favorite time to pull the RV. Plus we knew this would be a quick trip and hauling a trailer into Southern California where it is so densely populated is also not ideal for just a few days. So this time we decided to just take our van and get a hotel. We left from the Salt Lake City area of Utah and traveled to St. George, UT where we spent the first night. From there we drove into Oceanside, CA. We spent 3 days (4 nights) in the area and packed a lot into those days…
Hotel
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Oceanside (Camp Pendleton Area) and…I would not stay here again. It wasn’t as clean as I had hoped and housekeeping didn’t come to our room even though we had requested it. It was also really small for a family of 6. It didn’t have a kitchen suite which is usually a must-have for us so we can keep our meal costs down, but we went with it because the hotel was within walking distance of the harbor which we did love! Plus, it was a lot more affordable than Air BNB and some of our other hotel options so sometimes you do really get way you pay for. But, fortunately, we hardly spent anytime at the hotel so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but there are so many places to stay in this area so I would recommend looking somewhere else!
Day 1: Coronado Island, USS Midway, & Old Town San Diego
We packed a lot into our first day. We were up and going pretty early (especially since we were used to MST) so the first place we headed to was Coronado Island. We drove over the big bridge which I’d definitely recommend doing. We were thinking of going inside the historic hotel, but decided we really just wanted to be on the beach so we took a morning walk along side the coast there right outside the hotel. The kids also played at a small park.
We drove along the coast, waved to Mexico, and then headed to downtown San Diego just to explore. We made it to the USS Midway right when it opened at 10:00 and I am so glad we did. We LOVED this! It was so fun and we learned a lot! The only thing was it took a lot longer than I realized. I was thinking it’d be like 2 hours tops, but we did everything and it took about 4 hours to go through the whole thing. So, my advice is to make sure to pack in snacks. We had some snacks right before we went in, but I should’ve brought some in my purse. Also, allow enough time to go through the whole thing. It’s definitely worth it. We did the audio tour - didn’t listen to everything-but a lot of things and it was fantastic. There is a fun scavenger hunt for the kids so make sure to pick that up right at the info desk when you walk in. If they find all the answers (and they will check) then at the end they’ll do a little pretend ceremony and give your kids their “wings.” It helped keep the kids engaged and it was fun they earned their little pins.
After, since we were all starving, we went to Casa Guadalajara in Old Town San Diego and it was 10/10. The food was SO yummy, the atmosphere was fun, and the service was absolutely fantastic. We explored Old Town San Diego, got ice cream, and toured the Mormon Battalion center which was also so so well done. The kids loved it! There is a great little presentation that is very engaging and hands-on and then after you can pan for gold. I learned a lot about the area that I had no idea about. Don’t miss the lookout of the city on top. We hit this right at sunset and it was beautiful.
On our way back to Oceanside we hit the LDS Temple (which you can’t miss from I5). It was under construction, but still so pretty! My husband and I went there 15 years ago so it was fun to bring the kids back and show them.
Day 2: Lego Land
Lego Land was obviously the highlight of the trip for the kids. We are a big lego family and have lots and lots and lots of legos. We had so much fun and I am so glad we made it a priority to go this year. One thing I didn’t realize is that it’s definitely geared for younger kids. My kids are 10, 6, and 4 and the ages were perfect! Had we gone when my youngest was much younger there would’ve been some rides he couldn’t go on, but he was able to go on everything. And, if we had waited another year or so I think my older girls (10) would’ve outgrown a lot of the rides and been a little bored. I mean, there are still a lot of fun attractions, but the rides are definitely a step down from Disney Land. My girls (and myself) are really sensitive to motion sickness so, really, the very mild rides were good for all of us, ha! I did get sick on Emmet’s Flying Adventure, but the kid coasters were perfect for me. :)
The park does a great job of balancing a few rides and then offering other attractions like build stations and play places being mixed in. Our favorite build station was the raceway one and we hit it later in the day. Had I realized we’d spend so much time there we probably would’ve skipped another one we had visited earlier that day. The kids favorite play place was the Ninjago park!
I meant to pack in lunch, but totally forgot — we had a lot of snacks we snacked on but we also ate at the Knight’s Smokehouse. It was a fun experience, but nothing amazing. We also go the apple fries which were definitely yummy!
We went on a Monday in the first week of December and were there right at 10 and stayed until closing at 5 (which is earlier in the winter). It was a lot of fun since everything was decorated for Christmas! During the day, we walked onto every single ride except the boats which we had to wait maybe 10 minutes. By the end of the day, we could just stay on the rides and go over and over. It was the perfect time of the year to go. Also, if you’re going - make sure to bring mini figures to trade and tell a worker it’s your first time at the park and we got all sorts of little clip badges the kids could wear around all day. We ended our day letting the kids pick out a lego set at The Big Store.
Day 3: Beach Day
I purposely planned a relaxing day after our two big days and it was just what we needed. In the morning we drove into La Jolla Cove and saw the sea lions. We were hoping to catch the tide pools - we looked at a tide calendar and we went at low tide, but it wasn’t low enough so we weren’t able to see anything too unique. The sea lions were so fun though. Had I realized we wanted to go to La Jolla I actually would’ve done this on the way into our city the first day so we didn’t have to drive back toward downtown. This way we could've just stayed in Oceanside our last day, but it was fine. After La Jolla we went back to our hotel and got sand toys (which we brought from home) and spent the rest of the day playing at the Oceanside beach right by the big boardwalk. There is a playground there so it was the perfect place to play!
After, we went back to the hotel, showered, and walked down to the harbor to eat. We ate at the Lighthouse Oyster Bar & Grill which was also really good. We ate outside which overlooks all the boats in the harbor — many of which had lights on them for Christmas which was fun. After, we let the kids pick out some souvenirs and that wrapped up the end of our trip. The next morning we drove straight home -which was another very long day!
Free or Cheap Activities in San Diego Area
One thing I love about Southern California is that there is so much to do. In fact, we had a hard time narrowing down what we wanted to do because there are just so many attractions. We definitely want to go back and do the zoo because I’ve heard that is amazing! We’ve also never been to Sea World. But, it would’ve cost too much for us this time. We also had wanted to swing up and hit Death Valley National Park because we’ve never been there, but a lot of the park was closed because of hurricane damage last fall so we decided to forgo any NPs this time around. We hit Joshua Tree last summer, but that also wouldn’t have been too hard to swing up to from San Diego.
Before we left on our trip I asked on IG what free or cheap attractions others would recommend and these are the answers that were shared with me.
Activites
Annie’s Canyon Trail
Balboa Park - Hikes and Museum - can spend a whole day here (Lights at Christmas)
Cabrillo National Monument - museum and amazing tide pools
Crystal Cove and Carlsbad
Historical Coronado Hotel - bridge and island/ride ferry and Silver Strand Beach
La Jolla Beach - Caves, Seals, Tidepools (check the tide calendar)
Japanese Friendship Garden and Museum
Mission Beach - Rollercoaster
Mormon Battalion Site
Mural Hunt in Carlsbad
Old Town San Diego and Presidio Park (good Mexican food here too)
The Pier
Rent Electric Scooters
Rent Surrey Bike and bike around waterfront (family of 6 in 1)
San Clemente Beach
San Eligo Lagoon Nature Center
Seaport Village (fly kites and hunt for sea glass)
The Trolley to see San Diego
Torrey Pines Beach and Hike
USS Midway Audio Tour for kids
Waterfront Park (Downtown) - playground and play fountains
Food
Broken Yoke Cafe
Casa Guadalajara (fun atmosphere)
Cocina 35 (yummy chilaquiles before USS Midway - few blocks up)
Claim Jumper (Embarcadero by USS Midway)
Corvette Diner
Hodadas Burgers really good
Las Hadas Grill (Cali is really good taco)
Miguels ($$$)
Pizza Port in Carlsbad
Richard Walker Pancake House (baked pancakes)
Salt and Straw for ice cream
Taco Stand (Encinitas)
When I was originally researching things to do in San Diego - I learned that kids can get into many of the attractions for free in October. I didn’t realize this so it’s definitely something to look into - Kids Free San Diego Information. This is only good for kid’s ages 3-11 so we may just try to take advantage of this next year while our girls still fall within these ages! Another thing a lot of people recommended was to utilize the City Pass for more savings and the Lego Land magazines have discount entry coupons all the time — sounds like there are a lot of ways to visit Lego Land without paying full price. We got our discount tickets on a Labor Day sale. Anyway, let me know if you come across any other good deals.
Happy travels!
