Saturday, March 27
My original plan was to park at my office and take the Metro to Washington Reagan National Airport. Unfortunately, the Metro didn't open until 7:00 AM and our flight was at 8:10 AM, so that wouldn't work. I looked around at parking options, but a better option was to park/stay/fly at the Courtyard Arlington Crystal City/Reagan National Airport. The rate for the night, plus the parking was $107.59, just a little bit more than parking alone. Plus we didn't have to wake up hours earlier to get to the airport. I booked a king with a sofabed and although the room was a bit cramped, it was fine. We did have an issue trying to get dinner, since many places were closed due to COVID. We did manage to find a place that delivered to the hotel, but there apparently was some sort of mix up, and it took quite a bit longer for us to receive our food.
We got up, and got ready to head to the airport. We caught the shuttle over to the airport, which is right across the street, and got there around 6:45 AM. All of us have TSA Pre-check so going through security was a breeze. We had about 30 minutes to wait for our flight. . .
The "best" itinerary I could get into Orange County was a two-stop, no plane change flight that stopped in New Orleans and Denver. The flight wasn't as bad as I thought and although we could have changed seats twice, we decided that we'd stay towards the back.
Around 2:25 PM, we landed at SNA.
Due to COVID, the car rental desks were closed, you had to go out to the parking garage to pick up your vehicle. I booked my car from Dollar back on February 8 for $285.95, which seemed to be a pretty good rate. So, with the cutbacks, the Hertz booth was service Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty, and unfortunately, they weren't honoring Dollar Express, so I had to wait in line. I originally booked a compact, but asked for an upgrade, and he gave me an Altima, seemingly a mid-size. It was a good thing I got the larger car, because our bags would have been pretty crammed in a smaller car. . . That process probably took around half an hour.
So we're finally off to San Diego, which according to Google was around 88 miles (an hour and a half drive) to the Hilton San Diego Airport/Harbor Island, where we were staying. Well, I didn't anticipate the weekend traffic! Even though there are like 6-8 lanes on the highway, with one stop in Aliso Creek Rest Area (around 5:00 PM), we finally arrived at the hotel around 6:45 PM. We were quickly checked in, although I wasn't able to get a room upgrade with my newly acquired Gold status, we did have a nice harborview room and could see the sunset:
We let my nephew know we had finally arrived, and although we missed the sunset in the ocean, we did arrive before sunset. Now we had to eat! Now things were limited with COVID, and my daughter wanted seafood, specifically crab legs, but unfortunately, we weren't able to find that (?). Stephen recommended Mitch's Seafood, which was close to the hotel. We got there around 7:15 PM. They got there a little before us and were in line, yes, there was quite a line!
We said our hellos, as we haven't seen them since Christmas a few years ago. My grand-nephew was only around 10 months then and now he's walking and talking! Tessandra really wanted to see him, since she is no longer the baby of the family.
I was totally unprepared for how chilly it was going to get at night. I didn't have a jacket, and I don't think I had a long sleeve shirt or long pants! I think we all managed to find food we enjoyed, I got the mixed seafood fryer basket:
It was good to finally see family again!
We didn't stay out too late, as we planned on going to the zoo on Sunday, plus we had a long travel day!
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