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| The pool overlooking the state beach at the Cape Rey Carlsbad, Hilton Resort |
I started planning my family's spring break 2015 trip in the spring of 2014. I had already banked Delta frequent flier miles, along with Hilton honors points from various credit card offers. I always start my planning by trying to see where I can fly for the lowest amount of frequent flier miles. Having 5 people to get flights for is very expensive. As soon as I found 5 flights to San Diego, for the week of spring break, with good travel times, for 25,000 miles round trip, I booked them and that is how I decided to go to San Diego! From there I started researching lodging.
FLIGHT
Perk used: I used frequent flier miles on Delta for all of our
tickets. They were 25,000 miles each, traveling from Detroit, Michigan to San Diego, California. I booked 4 tickets with my husband's
account for 100,000 miles and 1 ticket with my account using 25,000
miles. Delta charges a small fee (taxes, fees & charges) when using miles, usually around $11.20/ticket for domestic.
CAR RENTAL
I did a lot of research on priceline, hotwire, expedia, and every cheap car rental website that exists and I also went to the direct websites (Hertz, Fox, National, etc) and compared all of the prices. The best deal I ended up finding was booking a car through the Delta Airlines website, which also gave me 3400 bonus Delta frequent flier miles for booking the flight through them. I watched priceline until the day we left and bid twice a day, but the Delta car rental was always the best deal. We drove to LA and spent 2 nights in LA. Then we drove to Carlsbad and spent a week in that area. The drive to LA was brutal. It isn’t a long distance, but the traffic is bad, no matter what time of day, so be prepared to have something for the kids to do while stuck in the car.
LODGING
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| We took a tour of the stars homes & snapped this picture of LA during it |
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| Mann's Chinese Theater |
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| The State Beach across from the Hilton |
For the next 6 nights we stayed in Carlsbad (just outside of San Diego) using the perk “Hilton Points + Cash”. I booked the traditional 2 queen room for 20,000 points + $85/night. The room I booked was the least expensive, which I always do, in the hopes that I will be offered an upgrade perk when I check in.
When we checked in we were offered the Oceanview Suite with balcony for a fee of $120/night, because we have Hilton Diamond status. The Oceanview Balcony Suite would have been $750/night without our perks, so our Hilton perks saved us $545/night and we had a large suite with a kitchen, bedroom and 2 bathrooms, which makes traveling with 3 kids much less stressful! We also received the perk of a coupon book,
that gave us free drinks at the pool, free resort credit in the restaurant,
free wifi and discounts in the gift shop.
One thing I learned about using points + cash, instead of
points only, was that doing it that way cost me a lot more money
because all of the fees they tack on (resort charge, room occupancy fee, parking
fee, tourism fee and state park assessment tax) totalled $62.50/day. When I book with
points only, I don’t pay any fees or room charges. Next time I will check the numbers to see if it is less expensive to pay all points for a night and then pay for the whole room charge the other night. In this case it would not have been less expensive, but still good to know about the fees when doing points + cash option.
EXCURSIONS
Tour of the Stars (LA) - We did not book this in advance. We walked around the walk of fame area and there were several tours you could just book on the spot. It was nice after doing a lot of walking to let the kids have a ride around the Hollywoood Hills and have a local show you all the hot spots.
La Jolla Cove - This was a short drive from Carlsbad and we spent a day here. The beach area is down a lot of steps and a pretty small area, but there are a lot of sea lions for the kids to enjoy (although they are very stinky). There are nice shops and restaurants in the area too, but it is very busy and a lot of hilly walking.
Venice Beach - Another short drive and a typical California beach area. There is the famous muscle beach and a lot of toursity shops along the boardwalk.
San Diego Zoo Safari Park - We spent an entire day here and my kids loved it. We bought the standard admission ticket and did not pay for any of the extra safaris and thought it was great. There is 1 safarai that is included with admission and that covered a lot. We went to it as soon as we entered the park and there was no line.
San Diego Zoo - We spent a day here too. We were worried that the zoo would be similar to the safari park, but they were completely different and both enjoyable days for the kids, although there is a lof of walking if you have small kids. My kids said if they had to only pick 1, they would have picked the zoo, but it was a hard choice!
Capt. Dave's Dolphin & Whale Watching (Dana Point) - I would highly recommend this tour. We were on a smaller boat with an awesome guide and were able to see tons of dolphins and a couple different types of whales very close to our boat.
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| La Jolla Cove Beach was busy but a lot of fun watching the sea lions |
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| The kids loved the polar bears at the San Diego Zoo |
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| Capt Dave's Dolphin & Whale Safari |
