Spending the holidays in the San Diego area with your family? There’s so many beautiful things the city offers to help get you in the holiday spirit, and once that’s over, so much more to do and see! Check out what we got up to while we spent a whole month exploring the area while living full time in our RV.
While on our journey, we decided we wanted to splurge a little and stay somewhere really nice to spend the holidays in San Diego with our family. In order to make it easy for family to come and visit if they wanted to. We chose the Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay in Chula Vista for an entire month from mid-December. It was a perfect location in that it had everything right there in Chula Vista, but you could also be in downtown San Diego to explore in ten minutes.
Where we spent the holidays: Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay
This bayfront oasis was our lovely home for a whole month in Chula Vista. It’s on a nature preserve, has views of the sun setting over Coronado Island across the bay, has quick and easy access to downtown San Diego and the millions of things it has to offer. We really only scratched the surface, the possibilities are endless with this location.
The park itself has the best pool and spa with a splash pad and an amazing gym and yoga room. There’s a great playground and sports area with lots of activities going on for the kiddos. Rocky’s favourite was the bike parade, where all the kids got to deck out their bikes with string lights, and ride around to music! They had bingo and paint nights for adults, as well as a bar and restaurant for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Santa even came to the restaurant on Christmas Eve!
Although we were camping in our RV, there are also super sweet little cabins available for rent: one or two-bedrooms, that can sleep up to six people.
Three Things You MUST do When Spending the Holidays in San Diego With Your Family
- Watch the San Diego Bay Parade of Lights – we got to watch this 53rd annual parade of elaborately decorated boats cruise the shore of the San Diego Bay for families to sit and watch from shore
- Go Ice Skating by the Sea at The Del – The iconic Hotel Del Coronado, or “The Del”, sets up a beachside skating rink (where else can you do this?!), and if skating isn’t for you, sit fireside and sip a holiday-themed cocktail, or wander the hotel grounds which transforms itself into a classic Winter Wonderland for the holidays with garlands, twinkling lights and Christmas trees galore
- Experience Jungle Bells at The San Diego Zoo – the park is open until 8pm for the season and the festivities start around 4 o’clock, which include epic light shows, carolers, holiday decor, live animal shows, and even Santa and his elves
Top Attractions in San Diego for Families
Even though we had an entire month, we didn’t get to do it all. Not only would it have filled up every day (and more), it would’ve broken the bank. I did quite a bit of research on the top things to do as a family in San Diego, and feel like we made some pretty good choices on what to do with our time.
**PRO TIP: If you plan on going to a few of these parks/attractions, look into a CityPass of Go City All Inclusive Pass to bundle and save money on admission prices**
San Diego Zoo
This is a big zoo with a small zoo feel. It’s definitely my favourite zoo I’ve ever been to. I grew up going to the Toronto Zoo, and to compare the two: the Toronto Zoo is 710 acres with over 5,000 animals representing 500 species, whereas the San Diego Zoo is only 100 acres, with 14 THOUSAND animals representing 700 different species.
I liked it because the re-created habitats felt really real. It must be due to the fact that it’s a warmer climate, so most of the zoo is able to be outdoor, but sometimes you really felt like you were walking through a tropical jungle, or an African safari!
We loved that included in admission you could ride the Skyfari aerial tram for an overhead view of the zoo, or ride the hop-on hop-off Kangaroo Bus for a mini tour and to get from one part of the zoo to another without having to walk. There’s also several different Special Experiences to choose from for private guided walking or driving tours and more up-close viewing of some animals.
San Diego Zoo Safari Park
This park is separate from the zoo, about a 45 minute drive from downtown. Here you can ride a safari car through massive outdoor habitats to see compatible animals roaming freely. It was pretty special to drive around watching giraffes and rhinos roam in a re-created African desert. However, if you had to choose between the two, I’d go for the zoo over this, it had much more to see!
Our favourite here was watching the funny interactions between the gorillas, and seeing the baby tiger and new mom together. Extras include: private safari tours, ziplines, and hot air balloon rides.
2)San Diego Zoo Safari Park
LEGOLAND
Here you can see famous landmarks and life-sized animals built out of 30 million LEGO bricks. They also have Fun Town where kids can drive electric cars, build robots, play in Imagination Zone, the water park, or watch a 4D movie.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps
This is a nice, small option for young kids who can only handle shorter outings. It has over 30 tanks with brightly coloured fish, glowing jellyfish, eels, sea turtles, penguins, and more… We finished it in about an hour, and then spent a little time outside at the play area where Rocky stacked giant blocks while we admired the view of the ocean and La Jolla Beach down below. Website.
Belmont Park
This is an old-fashioned amusement park with all the classics: bumper cars, roller coasters, an antique carousel, the famous Tilt-a-Whirl. They have a Sky Ropes Adventure for climbing, indoor laser tag, rock climbing and mini golf too!
The New Children’s Museum
This art-based immersive museum is super cool for creative kids and busy kids alike. They strive to be the most innovative, sustainable and inspiring museum they can be. There is also a fabulous park across the street for outdoor play, and it’s walking distance to the famous Gaslamp Quarter or Seaport Village for a bit to eat afterwards.
The Embarcadero
The Embarcadero is a busy place to explore if you can brave it. It runs along the San Diego Bay Harbour, and this is where you come if you or your kids fancy exploring the USS Midway, a WWII warship, or the Maritime Museum, which is onboard a famous tall ship, the Star of India. This museum also has on display the HMS Surprise, Captain Barbossa’s ship from Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides.
From here, we enjoyed exploring Seaport Village… a little quieter, with cute shops and an antique carousel our little guy happily rode on.
Coronado
We spent a lot of time in Coronado. This is where my parents stayed when they visited for the holidays, and they quite enjoyed wandering the streets and boutique shops there, and catching happy hour at a local restaurant or pub. We had a beautiful seafood dinner with them at Brigantine Seafood and Oyster Bar, and we also loved Village Pizzeria. Try the garlic knots with the vodka cream dipping sauce, and the Sicilian pies for a nice deep dish square pizza.
During the day, we loved to walk or bike the path past the Hotel Del Coronado (locally referred to as “The Del”), but The Del at night around this time of year was absolutely spectacular. They went all out with Christmas lights, and had gigantic trees lit right to the top. There was a poinsettia Christmas tree, and ice skating on the beach!
Otherwise, we loved to bike from there alongside the beach and down some of the residential streets to drool over the gorgeous homes and gardens there. When hanging out down at the beaches on the oceanside, you can see Tijuana from the shore, watch the military aircrafts come and go or tour The Del.
Visit La Jolla
While you’re visiting Birch Aquarium, there’s so much more in the La Jolla area to explore… The beach is fabulous, and it has great picnic areas alongside it if you don’t feel like sitting in the sand. There are amazing hiking trails in and around Torrey Pines State Reserve and little ones can explore the tide pools here during low tide to find different sea creatures hiding. There’s seal watching at the Children’s Pool and beautiful walkways in Ellen Browning Scripps Park. The grownups will enjoy the drive through the neighborhoods checking out some of the USA’s most expensive real estate!
Other Options:
- SeaWorld – not our cup of tea, but a very popular option
- Balboa Park – ride the carousel, explore the multiple museums, catch one of the world’s largest organs play on Sunday, or experience 33 countries’ local traditions at the House of Pacific Relations
- Historical Trolley Tour – this hop-on hop-off trolley tour is better for older kids, it’s educational, and funny – we got off in Old Town and explored and ate awesome fish tacos for lunch at Miguel’s
- Adventure Kids in Egypt at San Diego Museum of Us
- Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
- Hiking – in Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve & Mission Trails Regional Park, or Torrey Pines State Park
- Beaches – There are many options for a family beach day, but here are a few of our faves:
- La Jolla Shores – gentle surf, best for kids, with a great picnic area
- Pacific Beach – best for people-watching
- Ocean Beach – best for surfing, watch the rip current with little ones!
- Windansea Beach – gorgeous for exploring, not best for swimming for kids
- Coronado Central Beach – great for watching military planes, dog beach at north end
- Torrey Pines State Beach – a very cool place to explore, especially the tide pools
- Mission Bay Beaches – calmer and better for kayaking and paddle boarding
Spending the remainder of our holidays in San Diego With Our Family
We had such a memorable family Christmas. It was a nice change from “the usual”. On Christmas Eve, we had brunch with Santa at the resort, and a big surf & turf dinner in our RV. On Christmas Day we went to the Safari Park and had burgers and fries on the way home. It was just perfect for us.
Apart from the holidays, spending a typical day at home here would consist of Stu waking up early to go work out first, then when he got back, I would have my turn. Here, I really dove into my daily yoga practice, and was so thankful to have an entire studio to myself, almost every morning. Some days Stu would switch it up and golf… one day I got to join in as well when we had grandparents in town to babysit! We would always take a big swim before Rocky’s nap, and on some cooler days, we’d sit in the hot tub, which was especially lovely if we got to be there during sunset! We’d always do bike rides (we were nice and close to the Bayshore Bikeway), and tried our hands at pickle ball, basketball, and of course, plenty of time at the playground playing tag and hide-and-seek!
Although this sounds like a lot while reading it, it wasn’t. We spent a lot of days just at home, relaxing, cherishing our time and feeling grateful. We finally slooooowed down. We’d been on the road for five months at this point, and it took until this stay for us to finally relax, stop rushing, stop feeling like we should be doing something all the time. We finally turned it all off.
Spending the holidays in San Diego with family is something we are so glad we did. We made amazing memories we will carry forever. We were a little sad to leave, but we were excited for our new adventures ahead! (Hint: we were going even further south – stay tuned for the adventures that followed!)
