Duel Vacation: Las Vegas by Way of San Diego - Part 2

On Thursday morning Joe and I woke up bright and early to start the 380 mile drive from San Diego to Las Vegas. The route takes you north towards LA and then East through the Mojave Desert into Las Vegas. The drive was peaceful and uneventful. We didn't hit much traffic leaving San Diego and once we got to the desert it was clear sailing at 85 miles per hour.. what should have taken us 5 hours only took 4. There is no speed limits out there!! Being in the middle of the salt flats in the Mojave has redefined the meaning of middle of no where for me! There was nothing around for miles!! We had fun "testing" the speed and endurance of our Mustang though and it was definitely something to see!

 

 

Around 2:30 pm we arrived in Las Vegas and returned our rental car. Joe then surprised me with a limo ride down the Las Vegas strip to our hotel! He had stopped at a convenience store and bought some beers and had the limo take us all the way down the strip. It was a great way to experience Vegas for the first time! We checked in at the Wynn Encore and were amazed at how beautiful our suite was!! We had a room on the 23rd floor overlooking the strip and the pool... It was a two room suite with a bedroom and living room with a couch. It also had the biggest bathroom I have ever experienced. The bathroom had a jacuzzi and a shower and a separate room for the toilet. There was even a TV in the bathroom. The entire room was controlled by a panel next to your bed where you could turn on the lights, close the shades, make reservations etc. We were like kids in a toy store when it came to playing with the shades and the lights. The remainder of our day was spent sitting by the pool. We had dinner at an Asian place at the Wynn called Wing Lei. It was pretty good -- but wasn't my favorite meal we had while in Vegas. After dinner we went to see Beatles Love Cirque du Soliel. It was a good show -- a lot of people raved about it but I thought it was just ok and probably not worth the money we paid for it. After the show,  Joe took me to the Ghost Bar at the Palms which was a roof top bar from which you could see the entire strip. We had fun relaxing and looking out over the city -- but around 2 am we got pretty tired and decided to call it a night.

 

View from Ghost Bar

The next day Joe wanted to take me to some of the other casinos and shops along the strip. We walked around the strip in the morning and ate lunch at Otto at the Venetian, a Mario Betali pizzaria. After lunch it was getting hot so we decided to head back to the pool. Some of the pools in Las Vegas are considered day clubs and our hotel had one such pool. We decided to check out the Encore Beach club which was pretty crazy. There were no lounge chairs, your only option was to hang in the pool listening to the DJ and watching the insane water dance party. We had a great time chilling in the pool and drinking and people watching. That night we ate dinner at Sage, which was probably my favorite meal in Vegas.  Sage is classified as "artisan American" so they have unique twists on their menu. For an appetizer we had a slow poached organic farm egg that came with smoked potatoes, black truffles, and country toast for dipping. It sounds strange, but it was phenomenal. For dinner, we split the Prime rib for two... also tasty. After dinner, we had gotten tickets for one of Vegas's premier night clubs which happened to be at our hotel, Tryst. Tryst was so much fun and was a beautiful club; it is an indoor/outdoor club with a huge waterfall outside. We had a great time drinking and dancing there.




In front of the waterfall @ Tryst

On our last full day in Las Vegas, we spent most of the morning sitting by the pool -- the non-club relaxing pool. That afternoon we went to the Billagio for some gambling and an early dinner at their buffet. That night, we went to XS, the other night club at our hotel where Calvin Harris was DJing. It was a good time, but soon got way crowded and Joe and I decided to call it a night. We were getting tired from all of the fun on this trip.
The next morning we woke up and spent the morning by the pool before our flight back to Philadelphia. It was a wonderful trip and I am so glad we decided to go two different places and do a little bit of relaxing, a little bit of site seeing and a little bit of getting our dance on!

 

Duel Vacation: Las Vegas by way of San Diego - Part 1

A few months ago, as Joe and I sat talking about what we wanted to do for a vacation this year we threw around many ideas, among them, the Bahamas, Bermuda, St. Lucia, Las Vegas and San Diego. I was really pushing for something tropical, romantic, and relaxing and Joe really thought that after a summer spent at the shore and on my boat, we wouldn't really want to lay on the beach with nothing else to do. Not to mention the Bahamas and Bermuda are both incredibly pricey and we wanted to stay for an entire week. Joe loves Vegas, he has been there many times, I have never been. However, we both thought that 7 days in Vegas would be too long and too expensive. We started researching San Diego, a place both of us had never been. We decided that San Diego had a lot to do but also not enough to fill 7 days... thus the idea of Vegas by way of San Diego was born.. the perfect mix of relaxing and exciting.

We left Philadelphia on Labor Day and landed in San Diego around lunch time. We rented a 2012, red, Mustang convertible for our stay in San Diego so that we could get around. We decided to stay at the Marriott Coronado Island because I had enough Marriott points to get 2 out of our 3 nights there completely free. I cannot say enough good things about this hotel. The grounds were beautiful situated right on the San Diego Bay. Our balcony room overlooked the bay and downtown San Diego as well as the hotel pool - it was perfect. The first day we got there we were pretty excited about our flashy new whip so we tooled around Coronado with the top down and stopped for some lunch at the Coronado Brewing Company. After lunch, we unpacked and spent some time at the pool sleeping in the sun. The 3am wake up call for our flight that morning was really starting to catch up with us. That night, we had dinner reservations at a restaurant in downtown San Diego called Bertrand's at Mister A's. Mister A's was on the top floor of a building in the financial district and overlooked the whole city and the bay. The view was fantastic as was the food and service. After dinner we were pretty tired but we decided to check out a sky bar in the gas lamp district called Altitude Sky Bar. It was a relaxing outdoor lounge on the top of the Marriott Gas Lamp District and overlooked the whole city. It was also beautiful.

View from Mr. A's

The next day we decided to spend the day driving around the area to see the sights. Our first stop was Old Town San Diego where we walked around an out door museum depicting the history of San Diego from the time of the Spanish settlers to early America. After we walked around for a while, we sat down and had an authentic Mexican lunch at Fiesta De Reyes which had some of the best hard shell tacos I have ever had. 

Old Town San Diego

After lunch it was off to our second stop of the day La Jolla, California. La Jolla was beautiful. We drove around La Jolla on Ocean Drive pretty much taking in the beautiful coastal scenery. Mansions were on cliffs overlooking the ocean..expensive shops everywhere. It was seriously paradise. If I was a house this is where I would want to be built: on rock facing the sea.....

La Jolla, CA

After driving and touring all day we decided to go back to San Diego for dinner. The concierge recommended a restaurant called The Fish Market. It was a casual seafood place overlooking the bay. We had the "Famous Dungeness Crab Seafood Ciopinno" which was basically a mix of seafood in a red sauce over pasta and it was fabulous. After dinner, we rolled home, exhausted.

The final day in San Diego we decided to stay on Coronado Island and go check out the beach at a famous hotel built in the 1800's called Hotel Del Coronado. We spent a few hours laying on the beautiful beach but it was hot and we did not have an umbrella. The only thing about the Pacific ocean we didn't like is that the water is cold and full of seaweed. None the less, we had a great time. The Del was beautiful and interesting to see such a historic hotel. We got some ice cream there after the beach and walked around the grounds. We would have loved to stay here, but we couldn't pass up our free room at the Marriott! 

Later that evening we decided to go to a place the concierge had recommended called Sunset Cliffs to watch the sunset. It was stunning seeing the sunset over the ocean --which you cant do on the East Coast. After sunset we caught dinner in the Little Italy area of San Diego which was cute and quaint and the food was fantastic. Our last outing was to a wine bar in the gas lamp district called Vin De Syrah and was modeled after Alice in Wonderland. In order to enter, you had to find the door handle hidden in the grass. It was so cool. The decor inside was like stepping into a fairytale. Very cute!

Sunset Cliffs

Looking for the entrance @ Vin De Syrah!

All and all San Diego far exceeded our expectations. We had a fantastic time there and would highly recommend it to anyone! Stay tuned for Part 2 of this trip including our drive to the Mojave Desert and and Las Vegas....