Day 1 (Jan 11, 2020) – Crystal Symphony – San Diego to Guam – San Diego Day 1

We woke up early, got ready and went to the hotel breakfast. The buffet was edible, but nothing to write home about. We then headed down to the water and got tickets for the 9am ferry over to Coronado Island. After we got the tickets, we walked by the USS Midway museum, the famous seaman kissing the nurse statue, and then walked back to the gate to board the ferry.

Yes, he is kissing her, even though it may look like he's doing something else (no vampire jokes either).

An area honoring Bob Hope and his many, many trips to entertain the troops.

There were very few people on the ferry and it took less than 15 minutes to make it across the bay to the Coronado Island. The round trip ticket only cost us $10 each.

View from the Ferry - you can barely see the Holland America Oosterdam behind the USS Midway Museum

Once we got to the other side, we started walking the about 1.9 miles to the Hotel del Coronado. Coronado was quite beautiful. Very clean (including the astro turf grass all over the place) and incredibly well maintained.

The hotel, first built in 1888, was elegant and gorgeous. Clearly the Grand Floridian Hotel at Walt Disney World was modeled after this hotel. We wandered out by the beach and ocean. The hotel is undergoing a lot of renovation including total swimming pool makeover.

This Dragon tree was in the movie "Some Like It Hot" which was filmed in 1958 here at the Del.

We walked back to the ferry terminal and boarded the 11:30 back to Broadway Pier and the city. We returned to our hotel for a quick break and then headed out on phase 2 of the walking tours. This time, we walked to Balboa Park, about 2 miles from the hotel. Balboa Park is huge, although it's a bit hard to walk across as there is a freeway going through it. We made it to the Cabrillo Bridge that marks the main entrance to the park.

The Park has many museums, gardens, and open space. Large portions are in the Spanish Baroque style that was created for the 1915-16 Pacific Panama International Exposition. It was very crowded on a Saturday, but incredibly beautiful.

We went into the Botanical Building with over 2100 different species of plants. Many of the flowers were dormant since it is the middle of winter, but the variety of plants was incredible. Some of the orchids were blooming.

Next we went to the Air and Space museum. It was much larger than it looked and housed a great collection of old planes and space equipment. After that, we walked out of the park and got a Lyft to Casa Guadalajara for a very early dinner. We had a wonderful dinner of Skinny Margaritas, Beef Chimichanga, and Chicken Flautas. The meats were incredibly well prepared and the food was excellent.

We took a Lyft back to the hotel and went to our room. We watched the NFL divisional playoff game (between #1 seed Baltimore Ravens and #6 seed Tennessee Titans - the Titans upset the Ravens) and then went to bed.

Today we walked an incredible amount. We did 26,731 steps and 12.0 miles!!!  A good start to our trip.