FamilyFun Holiday Challenge: Day 25 Savor San Diego

Courtnie and Kenny talking to their wedding photographer at the San Diego Temple.

On December 29th, we had the opportunity to attend my nephew Kenny's wedding in San Diego. Now I have a beautiful new niece named Courtnie! (One of the pluses of my nephews getting married is all the great girls they are bringing into the family.)

It was a long 7+ hour drive to San Diego from our home in Utah. We had to stop frequently because Nano Bot was not happy being restrained in a car for such a long period of time.  So we took some time the day after the wedding to explore San Diego and let the kids play before driving home.

One of my favorite parts of FamilyFun magazine is the section where they feature different travel ideas (currently part of the Everyday Fun section).  So when I was looking for things for us to do in San Diego I went to FamilyFun's website for help. That's where I found Savor San Diego by Troy Kathleen Corley. 

Image via Wikipedia

Photo of the Star of India taken by Jot Powers, 7/2005

 

Savor San Diego is an article that gives a three day itinerary for San Diego.  We didn't have three days and since our trip was so close to Christmas, we couldn't spend a lot of money.  That ruled out the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.  One of the places the article mentioned was the San Diego Maritime Museum. We found some brochures for the museum (which is officially named the Maritime Museum of San Diego) at our hotel and decided to check it out.


When we arrived at the museum we discovered that the prices had increased since the article was last updated (in June 2005). General Admission is now $14 Adults, $11 Seniors (62 and over), $11 Active Military (with valid military ID), $11 Students (13-17), $8 Children (6-12), 5 and under are Free. You can receive a small discount if you purchase your tickets online, but your entrance is limited to 5 of the historic ships.

Luckily for us, the day we went to the museum they were celebrating "Sailor Days" as part of the annual Holiday Bowl festivities and kids were free! If we had arrived earlier we would have been able watch the Port of San Diego Big Bay Balloon Parade.

In Savor San Diego, Corley allotted 3 hours for the Maritime Museum of San Diego.  I am here to tell you that you will want to spend much more time! All of us were fascinated by the ships and the educational exhibits on them.


Robo Dude's favorite ship was the B-39 Russian Submarine. My favorites were the Star of India and the HMS Surprise (which was used in the movie Master and Commander:  The Far Side of the World). Cyber Princess loved the Star of India. Digital Man liked all of the ships and I'm sure Nano Bot did too.

We really worked up an appetite while we were at the museum, so we took a break and walked to Anthony's Fishette for lunch for their famous fish and chips. Anthony's was another recommendation that we found in Corley's article on FamilyFun.  We were pleasantly surprised to discover that it was right next door to the museum.  The food was delicious, we enjoyed sitting outside watching people, the bay, and the pidgeons. Then we went back to the museum to cram in as many ships as we could before we needed to head home.

 

Our only disappointment was that we didn't have more time to spend at the museum. Seriously, we could have spent the whole day there.  Perhaps it's because we live in the desert and don't have a lot of marine experience, but we loved exploring the different ships. If we had more time we would definitely have wanted to upgrade our tickets to the Discovery package which includes a 1 hour historic bay cruise.  There's always next time...

The Maritime Museum of San Diego tuckered out Nano Bot and Cyber Princess!

Rating: We give the travel ideas we found in the FamilyFun article Savor San Diego 5 fingers!