I want to make this pretty short, I have a bit more relaxing to do but I just had to make a quick post about my honey moon to San Diego.
First I want to say I love Expedia, without them we would have been screwed. We forgot our printed tickets but when we called them they just faxed out tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the helpful (and very friendly) people at the San Diego zoo and Wild Animal Park let us in. It was fantastic. We had a great time, saw a lot of great things, and once I get my Picasa account setup there will be plenty of pictures to follow. So for a quick post here’s a quick recap of the trip.
3 Places I will definitely return to:
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De Medici – Not only did this classy joint allow us to walk in off the street with no reservations but it did so while we were wearing just our normal t-shirt and jeans (this becomes important later). I had one of the best meals of my life here. Me and my wife enjoyed a $160 meal that was worth every dime, seafood, lasagna, lobster bisque, amazing desert made table side and a bottle of wine combined with fantastic service made this a great dining experience.
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The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park – We spent over 5 hours in each and didn’t feel like we saw it all. They are both so massive and awesome it blew me away. The wild animal park was a truly awesome experience to see all those animals just roaming “free” and mingling on the simulated African plain.
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Ruby’s Diner – Traditonal 50’s diner that was decked out with malt shop bus boys and candy striper waitresses the place not only had a great feel to it but they had amazingly good food. Their service and food was so good we ate breakfast there twice and lunch once.
3 Places I will definitely not return to:
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Number one with a big fat freaking bullet is The Queen Mary . Crappy service, crappy rooms, crappy treatment of guests, really crappy haunted house… the whole experience was, well, crappy. The haunted ghost tour was a law suit waiting to happen with cables and equipment running over the walkways and only our camera flashes to guide us in some parts. If I have ever came across a hotel that needs someone to come in and give them some solid outside advice it’s this place.
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The Studio Diner – Greasy Spoon doesn’t even begin to describe this place. My breakfast sandwich, and my wife’s breakfast burrito both dripped grease at an alarming rate and was rather tasteless to boot.
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The House of Blues San Diego – The door guy was polite and genuine, the bouncers were some of the most rude people I have ever come into to contact with. We were walking around the gas lamp district when we saw that VNV Nation was playing at the HOB. The door guy said they were almost done and we could go in to catch the last of their set, but the bouncers had other ideas. I offered to pay full ticket price, but as they put it “the fucking box office is closed” and so we tried to talk our way in. After hassling us about it they said we could get in if we bought $20 of HOB merch, problem is the gift shop closed hours ago and they sat and laughed at their oh so clever prank, but would not talk to me when I asked why they were being so rude, they just laughed. I will not ever return to the house of blues in San Diego, and instead of their bar I gave my business to an Irish pub down the street.
Customer service, and just generally not being an ass goes a long way. I would have stayed and bought drinks after the show and just chilled out there in the HOB and right now I would be ranting about how cool the people at the HOB were and how we chilled and had drinks after seeing VNV live. The House of Blues San Diego Sucks… specifically the bouncers.
That’s enough negativity, lets talk about something that impressed me and is also an example of a local restaurant using social media to their advantage. While me and my wife were in San Diego we utilized a site aptly called San Diego Restaurants and we found a restaurant named La Fiesta who actually responded to their reviews. It influenced me and my wife to make plans to go there, that was until I saw that Knotts Scary Farm had ½ priced tickets on the same night we planed to go to dinner there. The key thing here is that seeing the manager take the time to reply to its critics meant something to us and influenced our decision… ½ priced Knotts tickets just had more pull than fine mexican dining.
The trip was great, we both enjoyed it and we plan on going to back to San Diego and when we go we will be using Expedia to plan the trip, eating at La Fiesta, and making another trip to the zoo. Thanks for reading, and normal posts will resume.
