Planning a trip to SD with the wife and daughter in May. My wife has handled a lot of the planning and we are down to two hotels for now (unless some suggests something else)... Which of these would be in an easier location to frequent some of the many brew pubs, etc in the area. Omni San Diego Hotel Best Western Plus Island Palms Hotel and Marina (Shelter Island Drive) Thanks for any help
omni is closer to things, its in the gaslamp district downtown, lots of places walking distance for your family but easy cab rides out of downtown to other parts
Shelter Island is close to the airport and the airport you will save $$$ at the omni on taxi alone to and from each day to anywhere
the omni is def the way to go there is gonna be so much more stuff for you and your family to be able to do in the gaslamp that you could easily walk to, and the omni has a great view of petco so you guys can watch a padres game from their rooftop
Ok..thanks a lot...The Omni it is! Any can't miss beers I should look for or pubs to visit etc. I'll eventually search the site for ideas but thought I'd check early for any thoughts while I have the thread going..I know there are too many great options to count so thought I'd ask for some direction...
Omni is like a 5 minute walk to neighborhood....they have the best beer selection downtown....10 minute walk to Monkey Paw (part of the hamilton family). 10 minute walk to Best Damn Beer Shop which is a great bottleshop and a 5-7 minute cab ride to bottlecraft. You also have Mission Brewery and Karl Strauss downtown. Karl you can take the family and have dinner. Mission is behind the parking lot at Petco.
Since you'll be with the wife and kid, I suggest a cab ride over to Ocean Beach. There aren't any beaches downtown, just the bay. Once in OB you can hit Pizza Port which is very kid friendly (annoyingly so at times) and have tons of great beer. Olive Tree Market is also a few blocks away for another bottle shop source and you have the beach to hang out as well. Also in OB is South Beach, which I think is kid friendly before a certain time, but they have some of the better fish tacos in town. You may also want to look into a water taxi to get across the bay to Coronado Brewing Co. Family Friendly and making great beers, plus you get 2 short boat rides out of it. http://www.sdhe.com/san-diego-water-taxi.html $7/person/ea way. Once out on Coronado you can also take a walk down to the Hotel Del, a touristy must if visiting and yes, they have plenty of beaches and shopping there as well.
Wife and I just stayed in Gaslamp at the Marriott (close to the Omni), and I have to 100% agree with checking out Neighborhoods. They serve food and have a decent outside area, but the taps where very impressive. When we where there they tapped Sanctification, damn it was good. Also Rock Bottom is in Gaslamp, food is decent and beers are good, and it is kid friendly. Coronado is a must visit, we drove but you can boat across, definitely check out the brewery, great brews on draft.
Just in case anyone else ever reads this in the future for hotel suggestions, I would recommend not staying at the BW Island Palms unless you can ensure that you have a marina room. After many late nights out drinking in SD we had a bay side room that it sucked. The sun flooded in bright & early and there was no sleeping after sunrise. Horrible. Totally do Pizza Port OB & Coronado. While your around Coronado Brewing, maybe take the family over to the hotel Del for a wander of the historic building and some beach going. I will say that Shelter Island didn't seem that bad location wise to me. It was easy to get to the good things on 30th, and onto the freeways to get up north. Then again I'm from Chicagoland and it seems we'll drive in crappy traffic for a long time for things too easily.
