California Trip Part 4 - Coronado

Monday started off with some time eating breakfast and watching the surfers from our balcony and then decided to head over to Coronado.  I'd heard awesome things about the beach there and so we decided the night before to rent loungers and spend the day there. 

We got there around 11:00 am, they showed us to our chairs and the kids immediately got in the water.  I'm not going to lie... it was chilly.  Like - the air was chilly AND the water was chilly.  And I was a bit nervous. hahaha

 

Thankfully, the sun came out around 12:30 which made the chilly water a bit more fun and the whole day a bit more "beachy" and we all had the best time.

HEY, MOM!  THE SUN IS OUT!!!

The kids wave-jumped, swam, collected shells and admired the LITERALLY sparkly sand.  There's mineral mica particles in the sand which are gold so the sand there actually sparkles gold.  It's beautiful!

Our home for the day!

So a couple of notes about the beach at Coronado...

- If we were going to go back I wouldn't book the lounge chairs again.  We paid A LOT (like $50/adult and $25/kid) to book the chairs for the day which isn't a TON since we had them from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. BUT you couldn't see the water from the chairs since they were set that far back.  There was staff who came around for food/bev service but we didn't use that and, ultimately, I wish we'd been closer to the water. 

- We booked our chairs online the night before and there was an option to rent regular chairs and umbrellas (which would have been a little bit less expensive) but when I went to book them online it said that they weren't available.  When we got there there were a TON of chairs and umbrellas available and we saw people pay and have them set up all day long.  They were set up closer to the water which I would have really loved. 

- The beach is actually public (which I probably should have figured out before - hahaha) and so anyone can just walk in, set up their own chairs and umbrellas where they want close to the water and enjoy.  If we were going to go again we would go that route and save the $$$.  

- We parked at the resort which was also $$$ (we got there before 11 and left around 4:30 I think and paid $50.  The daily max is $70.   If we were going to go again I think we'd for sure use their parking (close, convenient, in a garage) and then bring our own chairs/umbrellas.  

- The resort was STUNNING and we heard that there was an awesome tour of the resort/property BUT we literally came in swimsuits and by the time our beach time was over nobody had a tour in them. hahaha  If we were going back we'd do the tour first thing and then head out to the beach.

- ALL THAT TO SAY... no regrets ;)  Part of exploring new places is figuring it out and we had a memorable day and so zero complaints.  BUT learn from us and plan accordingly!

After the beach we drove around Coronado a bit (STUNNING!) while these two crashed....

.... and when we got back to the condo all sandy and a little bit burnt we got showered and into jammies and then did dinner there. (This was a Costco pre-made but bake at home pasta dish thing and a Caesar salad from there as well.... can't beat it).

We enjoyed some time watching the waves....

Is there anything better than freshly showered kiddos after a day at the beach? The answer is no.

Mason and G each picked some special shells out from their Coronado collections and they rinsed everything off and compared their finds out here as well ;)

So many sunset pics and I don't even care! ;) hahahaha

We spent the rest of the night doing what we did pretty much every night... played some Monopoly Deal, popped some popcorn and watched movies with waves in the background.  THE BEST!