Mary, Kristen and I have always talked about visiting Laguna Beach, California. One day, we decided to go for it and book our flights and hotel for Memorial Day Weekend.
We are big fans of the show Laguna Beach so we thought it would be fun to see the town where the show took place and pick out some of the places the cast members ate or shopped at.
We woke up early Friday morning and traveled to Midway airport. Of course the long wait times at the security checkpoints were all over the news so we made sure to arrive at least three hours prior to take off at 8:40am.
Of course, security only took about 15 minutes. But it was better to be safe than sorry and miss our flight. Luckily our gate was right by Miller's Pub, so we each got a screwdriver at 6:30am. Because, why not? We are on vacation!
Finally it was time to board and take off was shortly after.
We ordered another drink on the plane and enjoyed the view of the mountains as we passed over them.
We finally landed and picked up our rental car. We weren't able to check into our hotel until 4pm, so we decided to drive over to Newport Beach first, which was only 25 minutes from the airport.
Being the planner that I am, I wrote out a tentative itinerary for the trip and thoroughly researched all of the restaurants in the area. I picked out Newport Beach Brewing Company because it looked like a causal place for a nice lunch.
We were quite hungry at this point, so we ordered some Beer Fries to start.
Mary ordered the Margherita pizza with a Cesar salad.
I had the quesadilla which had cheese and diced bell pepper inside. It certainly wasn't the best quesadilla I've ever had, so I'm glad we had that giant plate of fries to fill me up.
Kristen ordered the Fish & Chips.
Without knowing it, the restaurant was only a block away from the beach. We found a parking spot closer to the beach. Thankfully I have built up really great parallel parking skills and was able to squeeze our car into the first tiny spot we could find.
The houses on Newport Beach are the cutest. They were all so unique and really beautiful. A lot of them were actually rentals right on the beach - something to keep in mind for future vacations.
We walked along the water for a while and dipped our feet in to feel the water temperature. It was so cold! I couldn't believe that people were swimming in it.
After a while, we left Newport and headed to Laguna. I was really excited for our hotel. As soon as we found it online we knew that we had to stay there. It was located right on Pacific Coast Highway but a little hard to find.
The lobby was adorable and the front desk attendant was really nice.
We grabbed our things and went up to our room. The hotel was pretty small, probably only 20 or so rooms. It was peaceful and quaint.
The room was decorated nicely and there was plenty of space for the three of us. I loved the little details like the colorful patterned sink which matched the knobs of the cabinets.
We were within walking distance to the beach and could see the pool and the ocean from directly outside of our room.
We decided to head down to the pool since there was no one else there and the sun was out. We filled up our plastic pineapple/palm tree cups that Kristen got for us and laid out in the sunshine. After a while, we got into the pool and the hot tub.
We were going to go back to the room to get ready for dinner, but made a pit stop at the lobby for the nightly complimentary wine hour. This was probably the best part of the hotel. Every night they offer wine, milk and cookies. I thought that was a really nice touch.
We grabbed a glass for each of us and went back up to the room.
We were within a short walking distance to downtown Laguna where there are tons of restaurants and shops. We walked along the beach to find a restaurant for dinner.
I picked The Cliff restaurant for dinner because it was overlooking the beach and the food menu had several options for vegetarians. We were able to sit immediately which I was not anticipating during the dinner hour on a holiday weekend. The sun was setting and the view was spectacular. It did get a little chilly once the sun went down, but there was a heater by our table to keep us warm.
We all ordered the Sangria. I had red, Mary and Kristen had the white per usual.
We all decided on pasta dishes and we figured we could share a little bit of each of ours. I had the Fettuccine Alfredo.
Kristen had the Pasta Angelica with angel hair pasta, tomatoes and basil. This one turned out to be my favorite of the three. It was so light and simple but very flavorful.
Mary had the Sundried Tomato Penne which was really good but the sauce was a little bit sweet for me.
We all ended up eating from each other's bowls.
We had a very long day, so after dinner we just went back to our hotel and relaxed for the night.
We were so excited for day two to begin!
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