FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - A Californian status run – LHR/SAN/LAX/SFO, and half a dozen hotels.
Old Feb 17, 2013, 2:16 pm
  #6  
TheFlyingDoctor
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: EXT
Posts: 477
January 2nd-3rd: Hampton Inn San Diego-Downtown

It's a couple of miles from SAN to my overnight stop, and having scouted the route along North Harbor Drive to convince myself that it was pedestrian friendly, I'm more than ready for a chance to stretch my legs. Besides, night-time temperatures here are better than the day can offer back home. In the event I get my Inns-that-start-with-H muddled up and aim myself at the bright lights of the Holiday Inn. I don't have roaming data, but I did have the TripAdvisor app installed on my ipad. This is extremely handy, as it contains offline maps, and you can search for the kind of landmarks that as a tourist you're most likely to spot – such as, say, the Holiday Inn. Discovering that I hadn't overshot too badly, it's an easy correction to arrive at my actual target, the Hampton Inn:


Hotel 2: Hampton Inn San Diego-Downtown, 1 night.
3467 Hhonors points collected (including 2500 from Visa introductory offer), plus 100 avios.



Hampton San Diego

Check-in is swift, and my Hilton honors preferences have all been fulfilled: a high floor (6th, as high as it gets!) away from the elevator with a king size bed. Wifi is free, and there's hot breakfast available until 10am. Sure, the dιcor was a bit tired, and the bathroom fixtures looked a bit fragile, but after a very long day my main interest is the bed.

Sadly, a few factors conspired against a peaceful night's sleep. The property backs onto the railway line, which terminates at the nearby Santa Fe depot. Rail traffic itself doesn't generally produce too much noise, but the series of level crossings that engage each time are (understandably) quite the distraction. And something particularly heavy lumbered through around 11pm, with enough force to shake the room! At 3:30am I was also wrenched awake by an explosion of cramp in my left calf – the most comfortable position is of course to mimic the angles that had been forced upon me by the seating on the plane.

At 6:30am I (still limping) get up – not a natural morning person, I'm hoping to exploit timezone confusion for early morning photography and to make it to 8am talks the following week. I make a first investigation of the breakfast buffet, chalk up the improbably-yellow scrambled eggs and a mysterious substance called `sausage gravy' to cultural differences, and stick to familiar cereal and breadstuffs. My misguided wanderings the night before paid off this morning, as I was able to take a pleasant stroll around the harbourside, snapping away at various craft that form the Maritime museum. Soon enough I discover that the approach to SAN brings aircraft over the city, and my oft-denied planespotter tendencies kick into action.






Not knowing the schedules, however, I satisfy myself with a few captures, then return to the Inn for a second breakfast (hey, it's free), braving the fluorescent eggs this time whilst working through the newspaper.

Soon enough, it's time to head back to the airport. This time I can make better progress on account of knowing the way and only having to get to the commuter terminal, but these are both offset by my need to gawp at the daytime view. Whilst we can get clear blue skies in Britain (honest!), they somehow work differently here – maybe it's an atmospheric thing, or perhaps the raw scale of American roads and buildings, but there's an enormous sense of space. I've heard parts of the US referred to as 'big sky country', and it certainly seems fitting. With flights to take me up there, and glorious weather on my back (I've stashed both jacket and jumper by the time I reach the terminal), I have a real sense of potential too – my Californian tier point run adventure is about to get into gear!

Last edited by TheFlyingDoctor; Sep 22, 2019 at 2:09 pm Reason: migrate off flickr / imgur
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