It is fun having a kid who goes to college in California, especially LA, because every time we go visit, I see it as a vacation. In my mind, I plan to tack on a little something each time we go, or at the very least, ensure we take advantage of all of the fantastic sites, activities, and restaurants that LA has to offer.
On a visit this past spring for Mason’s fraternity parents’ weekend, we came early in the week as I had added on a 3-night stay in Newport Beach. But first, how could we not stop for the night in LA to see Mason!
One of my favorite free nights that I always take advantage of is the free “weekend” night with my American Express Hilton Honors Aspire card. With the card, you get one weekend night reward every year after renewal. But during covid, they amended the terms to include any night, not just a weekend, and the terms still indicate that as well. Note, unlike other hotel loyalty programs, Hilton allows you to use these free nights at ANY Hilton property as long as a standard room is available. I am all about going BIG! I have used these free nights at the Grand Wailea in Maui and at the Waldorf Park City and at the Waldorf in LA which is where Rob and I stayed this trip to LA.
This hotel was ideally situated in Beverly Hills for our walk to dinner on Rodeo Drive. We had pre-dinner drinks at the renowned Spago, followed by a delicious, albeit expensive, steak dinner at Mastro’s Steakhouse. It was a nice treat for Mason to get a break from the dining halls and a nicer treat for us to spend our night with him.
Before we headed off to Newport Beach the following day, we enjoyed our free breakfast using my $25/per person food and dining credit that I get as a Hilton Honors Diamond member, thanks to my same Amex Hilton Honors Aspire card! I really enjoyed my stay at this wonderful property, as you can see from the fun pictures I took from the patio off my room. I look forward to using more of my Free Nights here in the future!
But for now, hello, Newport Beach!
In Newport Beach we stayed for 3 nights at the Marriott’s Newport Coast Villas in a 2 bedroom (which we did not need). We stayed here because on my trip the prior summer to Park City, where I stayed at the Marriott’s Summit Watch, I took advantage of a Marriott Vacation Club offer (both properties are part of the Marriott Vacation Club Portfolio). With the offer, I got this 2 bedroom in Newport Beach for a mere $399 total. Usually, I wouldn’t take advantage of these offers as it is too hard to find the time to use them, and they expire. But, knowing that I was likely going to be in LA often over Mason’s first year, I took the bait! It was a nice place to stay. It seemed perfect for families with kids as are many of the Marriott Vacation properties. Do you own a Marriott timeshare? Tell me about it! We have a Vistana one (the old Starwood timeshare) and one day I am hopingI hope they merge with Marriott one day. (Update-they did!).
We spent one of our days meandering around the spectacular town of Laguna. We enjoyed a fantastic lunch on the porch at the highly recommended Nick’s Laguna Beach, that sits on the main drag in town. We stopped and took pictures of the view overlooking the gorgeous pristine beach.
We spent another day on Balboa Island, popping in and out of the cute boutiques and other interesting shops. We had lunch at the popular, family-run, Wilma’s Patio, where we shared “pancakes for the table” in addition to our main meals. We topped that off with some iconic Balboa Island frozen bananas. Yum!
We had two great dinners during our stay. One at the ever-popular Sushi Roku which is located in Fashion Island in Newport Beach. And we went back to another version of Nick’s one night when we went to South of Nick’s for a Mexican fiesta in Laguna. There is no shortage of terrific food in the area.
It was our last night staying in Newport Beach when we learned at midnight California time, 3 am NY time, that my son, who was all the way across the country at Cornell, needed an emergency appendectomy. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t do any research; I didn’t shop around. Instead I bought a full fare ticket (about $1100) right from the Delta website. Even in my nervousness, I used my Amex Platinum to get the 5x points per $1 for the flight. 🙂
Rob stayed in LA to be with my other son for his parents’ weekend, minus now me. Such a bummer! But on a positive note, he stayed for free in DTLA at the JW Marriott LA Live. We had booked each night on Capital One Travel, one in my portal and one in Rob’s. For this stay, we were able to use our $300 travel credits that come with our beloved Capital One Venture X cards. It was an easy call to the hotel to link the nights together!
As for me, I literallly sat in the last row of the plane 2x! Once on the flight from LA to Detroit and once again from Detroit to Ithaca. I did not make it on time for the surgery, but was so relieved to see him eating ice cream in the recovery room!
We couldn’t drive home that night; it was way too late. So I cashed in a Bonvoy free night (that comes with my Bonvoy card) at a Fairfield Suites in Ithaca. We made it back home the next day, where Daniel had to unfortunately miss his spring break in Miami. And yup, there was a hotel that I had already paid for and had to eat that $ too. 🙂