Travel Channel

About a half-dozen years ago when living in the San Diego area I attended a banquet at the Hotel del Coronado (most folks call it the Hotel Del for short), and yesterday I had a chance to finally revisit the place. You can't imagine the changes in the past few years.

Situated on Coronado Island, it was featured on Great Hotels right about the time I was living in Solana Beach, although at the time I had not yet had the pleasure of meeting our intrepid heroine Samantha. The importance of this is that the last time SB was at the Hotel Del (with GH anyhow), the expansion had not yet begun. The expansion is now complete, and I'll leave it up to the beholder whether the new parts are an improvement or not (I think they are). The Del has added two long rows of cottages north (right, facing the front door) of the main building. Some of the cottages can be rented, some are condominiums. The condos - averaging around 2000 square feet each, either face the ocean or overlook the ocean, and the cheap ones - i.e., rock bottom housing recession prices - exceed 7 figures. And, of course, tennants/owners receive full services from the Del, including room service. Every one has its own pool and hot tub, and a fire pit out front. A few are still available if you can handle the freight and care to move to Coronado.

Meanwhile, my lady accomplice and I ate on the terrace of the Sternwater Grill and shared Kobe beef and braised beef tips (the former disappointing, the latter spectacular) and opted for the Red Velvet cake for dessert, taken after we returned from a stroll around the boardwalk. In other words, the place is still charming, not expensive (for my taste at least), and always worth a trip out of the way to drop in and enjoy!

Best,

Intl Doc

PS We had appetizers at the Byzantine across he street first and enjoyed the best cocktail sauce on jumbo shrimp (HOT!!!) I've ever tasted. And one more thing: The Del's wine list at the Sternwater is a B list - never EVER order wine at the Del, it's the stuff you buy at the grocery store for $10/bottle, marked up to $20/glass. Don't do anything silly, in other words ...

Hi Intl Doc,
Thanks for the update on the Del. I lived in San Diego for a few years and was on the beach near the hotel daily. It was always special to me because it is where they shot Some Like it Hot which is one of my favorite movies. They also had a great dog beach not far away.

I believe the beach there was also a Travel Channel top 10. Can't wait to get back and see the new additions.
mod_ben

Some Like it Hot seems to have been a benchmark moment for the Hotel Del, including odd signs such as: "This Yucca tree was featured in the movie ..." etc. Intersting sometimes, sometimes a bit maudlin as the hotel seems largely to be dedicated to Marilyn Monroe with her image appearing pretty much all over the place. We did a little shopping whilst there and found most of the prices in the varied stores to be appropriately lofty - especially if bearing the hotel logo - but otherwise similar to most other 4-5 star hotels (the Burton Creek in Austin comes to mind).

As for the beach, my guess is that its about 200 meters to the shoreline from the boardwalk when the tide is out. A nice place to relax without finding much crowding, I would think. I'll look for you next time you're there!

Cheers -

Intl Doc

I've been to San Diego on occasion and have ventured by the Hotel del Coronado. Hopefully some day I'll get to go again and see the expansion. I love the way you describe things in such detail. Have you ever tried writing a book? It would be good, I would guess. Happy Easter.

PS - Intldoc, visit the Wiki site again sometime and drop me a line.