Laguna Beach 724

Laguna Cliffs Marriott

2008-07-01T04:16:00Z

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Laguna Cliffs Marriott
25135 Park Latern
Dana Point, CA 92629
1-800-621-0500 Reservations

Dana Point Hotel

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Montage Resort & Spa

2008-07-01T00:15:00Z

Montage Resort & Spa
30801 South Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
1-800-621-0500 Reservations

Laguna Beach Hotels

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Island Hotel Newport Beach

2008-06-30T23:43:00Z

Island Hotel Newport Beach
690 Newport Center Drive
Newport Beach, CA 92660
1-800-621-0500 Reservations

Newport Beach Hotel

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Inn at Laguna Beach

2008-06-30T23:38:00Z

Inn at Laguna Beach
211 North Pacific Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
1-800-544-4479 Reservations
949-497-9722

Laguna Beach Hotel

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2008-06-30T23:35:00Z

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Casa Laguna Inn

2008-06-30T23:00:00Z

Casa Laguna Inn
2510 South Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
1-800-233-0449 Reservations
949-494-2996

Laguna Beach Hotel

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March 2008 Trip

2008-03-23T03:32:00Z

Today we just got back from a nine day trip to Laguna Beach. You are probably thinking, "Wow this guy is lucky to take nine full days off in Laguna". Well the truth of the matter is we were scheduled for only five days. I was heading back to the airport and decided to see if the flight was on time and it had been cancelled. I was actually happy, but my wallet was screaming for help. I called the hotel and asked if they could give a discount because of the cancelled flight and we got 10% off. The airport told us that we had no options for more than a week. I immediately got on the phone and starting trying to figure out the best way to deal with this. I had no luck. I waited till the next day and still no luck. Third day finally got a break and 3 seats...barely. All I can tell you is that Laguna Beach still rocks and I have lots of information to add about this trip so be sure and check out all the new pictures and information I gathered while I was there.

Laguna Beach Boogie Board Dude.....Yeah It's Me

2008-02-12T15:43:00Z

This is me!

Disney Land Trip

2008-02-11T07:09:00Z

When you consider going to either Disney Land or Disney World consider the weather. Maybe we were not very lucky, but we went to Florida two or three times in a 15 month period. It was so hot and muggy we went back to the hotel and closed the drapes and stayed in until after 9:00 p.m. at night. We tried going to the mall, but it was even hot and muggy in the mall. So I told my wife it will have to be cold before I come back. I don't miss a thing....well maybe the hotel on the beach (Bal Harbour) and the great pizza place at the mall across the street.

So we decided to go to Disney in California. The negative already is that it is not as big and nice as Disney World, however when the children are under 8 or 9 it's plenty big enough to get their taste buds wet. I actually liked it myself. You could spend two or three days in the place, but I rushed everyone through. I was hollered at by my mom and my wife had this look in her eye like I will live you in California and go back to Texas alone.

Give me a break the kid is four or five and they will have more fun on the beach playing in the sand versus running around looking at the same stuffed animals. Again, I thought it was cool to go, but taking a young child to a place like this for a couple of days is like torture to a guy I think. Now if it was Sports, Cars or Motorcycles we could stroll along for hours and hours with zero regrets.

I did ride the roller coaster which was a blast and rode a couple rides with my girl. I still think to this day that she didn't really get off into it that much. We went to Los Angeles about 6 months ago and asked her if she wanted to go to Universal Studios. I actually wanted to go see that, but she said she would rather go to the beach and play in the dirt. So we went and played in the dirt.

Disney Land is a cool place and there are lots of things to do, buy and see. Overall I give it a B+. I think it might be more suited for children 9-12 and even that may be a stretch in this day and time. Kids now would rather play video games than go bowling or do anything. That actually sounds like me too. I am 42 and love video games. That's another blog folks. Don't let me get off track.

If you go to Disney Land figure about $500 for 3 people just to get in and have a pretty good time. I would suggest you try and get discount tickets before you come into town online or buy them at your hotel. You could save some bucks. Ok, I am going to stop here and tell you the real reason I rushed through Disney Land. I actually bought the pass books for the area and saved a ton of money. There were so many things to do and I wanted to do them all. For instance there were discount tickets to San Diego Zoo, Knotts Farm, Sea World, Lego Land and a few more things. Hey I am like a big kid too so I just wanted to see as much as possible in the time we were there. I think we had 8 or 9 days to visit the orange county area then go to San Diego. We finally settled for the San Diego Zoo and Sea World. ***NOTE*** We were disappointed in Sea World San Diego. The one in Texas is much better. We were in the place maybe two or three hours and left.

So be sure to eat a good meal before you go into Disney Land. Number one reason is the food is ok, but very expensive. I would rather spend $50 on a real steak versus a tube steak. There are to many places in Laguna to spend that money on food. Take a back pack if they let you now and put a couple Gatorades in bag and water. I would take a couple snack bars as well for some energy.

The shirts, cups, key chains, hats, pictures and everything else they sell is reasonably priced. I didn't thing it was to out of line, but you can go to the Disney Store in a local mall and get some of the items. They do have unique jackets, paintings etc. so be prepared to spend, spend and spend. I actually had more fund looking at the stuff animals and things than I did walking around.

If you are going to do more than one day at Disney Land you may want to get a hotel in the area for a couple nights. The rates will be a little cheaper than Laguna and you will not have to make that drive back and forth. Nice hotels and restaurants in the area will be pretty easy to find. Check out some of the sponsored links for hotels on this site for pricing and booking. Please come back often for updates . I will also be posting links to other blogs I have going as well. I will add to the blogs from time to time that I have already written so please visit me again. If you have questions post them in the comments. I can't promise I will email you directly, but I will do my best to answer very quickly.

Laguna Beach Weather Report

2008-02-11T07:00:00Z

Free Weather Reports

Laguna Beach Real Estate

2008-02-10T23:06:00Z

Most of you probably don't know that I have owed a real estate company in Texas since 1990. I have worked the Highland Park, University Park, Uptown, Lower Greenville area as my main business farm area as they say in real estate. Real estate in Texas is what I consider average in price, but you get a lot more than what you do in other areas of the country.

In Dallas a 2 bedroom 1 bath house in Lower Greenville will fetch $185,000 to $350,000. That same house in Plano (if you can find a two bedroom) will go for $95,000-$150,000. So the twenty mile difference is double the price.

Anyone that knows me really knows that I want to move to California, but my mom really would miss our little girl so that has stopped us so far. Since we do travel to Laguna on a regular basis I decided to check out some real estate. I figured it would be high, but high is not the word. When you are used to one thing and introduced to another it's a shock.

So here is what I found. My very first Condo I looked at was a beautiful ocean view property in South Laguna. Prices in the south are considered to be less because of the location. I have heard, but don't know if it is true or not that the ground on those hills is a lot less stable as well. So you build it and it may tumble down with a good rain. Again, don't know if this is true or not, but a homeowner selling a lot in the North side told me that.

So back to the condo from above that we were talking about. The breeze was coming in from this ocean view place. It was not on the beach, but it had a great unobstructed view to the beach and a park was directly in front of the property. I would say it was 200 to 300 yards from the beach. Two full bedrooms, two full baths with about 1400 sq. ft give or take a few feet. I came to this house when it was open on a Sunday. I was in the area by myself and thought I would drop in for a few. Got the flyer and was not shocked, but I was shocked. $1,750,000 reduced to $1,500,000. Needless to say I did not put a contract on the property and keep looking.

My next property was a 2 bedroom 1 bath about 1000 square feet. Oh, while I am thinking about it the above had HOA dues of over $300 a month as well. There was not yard! So back to the 2nd one discussed earlier. When I say this unit I thought I was in an older condo in Old Town which is an area of Dallas. Late 60's most of the units and it looked just like the units I sell and renovate and have been doing for 18 years. Got the flyer and it was listed for around $700,000! No beach view, one bath and hardly any light. Those units in Texas sell for $65,000 to $120,000. Again, I decided not to buy that property.

My search continued for a couple more visits to Laguna with my wife and by myself. What I figured is you will pay about $1000 a foot in the area within 3 blocks of the beach. Now all you Realtors don't email me saying I am wrong you can get them for 600 a foot here and 700 a foot there. I am telling you based on what I looked at this is the price. We looked at some bigger places around 2500 sq. ft. and they were 2.5 million and up. Keep in mind that tax records show our house at like 4200 to 4300 sq. ft. under roof and we are under $400k in price in Texas.

Now you probably think I live in the ghetto. Actually the area we live the average size house is probably $3500 sq. ft. and you have a five to eight mile radius. Well let me just post this article so you know that I am not making this up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States . Laguna Beach is not on this list but where I live we are ranked like 32 of the highest income counties. I am not bragging either. I am just showing you that Texas homes are really cheap and you get a lot with them. It's almost impossible to find a 3 car garage in Laguna. I found one house that had one under 2 million. I have a 3 car garage and it didn't cost 2 million that's for sure.

Now the funny thing about all of this will blow your mind. So you say to yourself I don't have 2 million dollars to shell out on a house. Well a typical mortgage will set you back $20,000 a month with taxes and insurance. Huh! Maybe I need some more motivational courses, but $20k per month is a lot of scratch. That's hip for money if you don't know.

So what does a guy like me do? Rent a van and park it in the parks? Buy a boat? Funny thing is I was really excited because I came up with the boat idea with my wife. I said lets get a 2 or 3 bedroom 80 to 120 foot yacht and pay $1.5 million for it. At least we have a bigger place and we can go up to LA or San Francisco. So I started looking at these boats for the rich and said we can make this happen if we really try. Then I started thinking about place to park that bad boy. Yap, you need a slip. No not what women wear silly one. A boat slip (you know a place to park your boat in the water. So I called Dana Point down the street and they said for that size boat there is a TEN YEAR WAITING PERIOD. Needless to say I am not that patience so that boat thing was out.

So then I said what about a fancy motor home. We could park it in Long Beach or one of the other near by places. That was going to cost over 1 million as well and with diesel gas going up it would cost $1000 a month plus another $1500 to part it somewhere.

Then I started looking at hotels and then leasing. Leasing is by far the best choice. You can lease a 2 million dollar home for $2500 a month. Of course the fancier it is the more expensive. They have one I say for $60,000 a month on the beach, but I left my check book back at the $100 a night hotel so I didn't get to get it.

So if want to move to Laguna, lease something. For what you pay in mortgage payments for one year (assuming a $20,000 per month mortgage times 12 =$240,000) you could spend $3000 a month and live 6.6 years in Laguna with the exact same money. I don't know about you, but unless I win the lottery or a bunch of you guys decide to by all my businesses ventures for like $300 million I will not be paying cash for a place in Laguna any time soon.

Hope you had fun reading this and more to come

Video - Funny

2008-02-10T20:08:00Z

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Videos - Attractions

2008-02-10T18:52:00Z

Attraction Magzines Videos

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Laguna Beach - Hotel - Laguna Riviera Hotel

2008-02-10T13:44:00Z

This picture is from the hotel we stayed at on Laguna Beach. Be sure and print this blog and tell the owners/manager that you heard about it from blog.lagunabeach724.com. The only reason I say that is maybe just one day they will give us a free room if we send enough people. The hotel is called the Laguna Riviera (http://lagunariviera.com/).

So here is my rating on this hotel. There are pros and cons to this property, but I would rate this one an A- or a B+. I am not rating this property on its enterior, but on its location, rates and did I say location? Here are some things to consider about staying at the property. No Pets! Great property for children of all ages. They have an in door heated pool which is cool on those chilly mornings or evenings. They have ping pong table, boogie boards for rent and direct access to the beach. Its a very short walk to the grocery store, main beach and lots of restaurants. It appears that no room is the same so you kinda get a surprise each time you go unless you get the same room. Just read carefully on the website what size beds they have. They have ocean views, street views etc. All different sizes and prices. People on a budget will love this place because you can be on the beach for $100 a night if available. I think, and I might be wrong that the most expensive is no more than $260 range. Check that out on their website because they have a rate for high and low season. I have probably been in 15 different rooms. I actually like the rooms in the 500 range more than the others that I have had. As I said some are street view and some are ocean view. Something really cool about some of the units they have are the kitchens. Yeah, full kitchens. This is great if you are staying a week or more. We normally stay 3 to 5 days on each trip and we try to get a room with a kitchen.

Not the best picture of the indoor pool, but this is it!

The actual rooms vary in size, type and decor. Don't expect real expensive stuff. I would compare the decor to that of a very casual weekend cabin. Its very cozy, but not the most comfortable beds or furniture. That's not a negative to us because we are gone so much and we are not there to sleep. I have had rooms that needed a little extra cleaning and some that were extremely clean. Wasn't anything I couldn't live with to get that ocean view for a third of some of the other hotels in the area. If you have a budget this is the best place to stay in Laguna in my opinion. If no budget and you want to spend $450-$2000 a day I will give a list in another post.

They also have Wi-Fi in the office. Just check to make sure before you book and take my word. Parking is tight so if you rent a car I suggest a smaller car versus a big SUV or luxury vehicle. My rental was hit in the back one time and I believe it was because the spaces are tight. Of course the spaces are tight everywhere in Laguna. Smaller the better to avoid these types of issues. Some rooms are reserved parking and that I believe is for people who book longer stays. I suggest getting to the property around noon and get your spot while you can or you will be parking in the street. You may get their at noon, but you WILL NOT be able to check in to the hotel until at least 4:00 p.m. in most cases. Don't get mad and try to make it happen sooner. Remember I warned you! Don't even think about before 4:00 p.m. period. Sometimes it is even closer to 5:00 in high season. Just remember to stay calm and don't get upset. We want to keep the prices as low as possible.

Oh, one last thing you need to consider about your stay in any area hotels. Some have a/c and some don't. This property has some a/c units but not in all units. Make sure that if you are hot natured or if you don't want to open windows up that the rooms could get hot. Town people say that you only need the a/c ten days out of the year. I personally believe I would need it more than that because I am hot natured. At night the temperature does drop. So lets say you go to the beach and the soon is starting to go down. Get the kiddos and get them dried off quick.

We were walking down the beach for about two hours. You can walk a long ways! It's really a lot of fun. Take a backpack with water, snakes and sun tan lotion and have a blast walking up and down the beach. Around 4:30 the sun started going down and the temperature dropped about ten degrees very fast. We were off with the short leaves and one with the jackets.

As you can see the property has different levels. This is a picture of the inside courtyard area of Laguna Rivieria Hotel. Property is located on South Coast Hwy. This was taken with a disposal camera I believe so it's not the best, but this is what we brought on this trip.

This is my little girl Jessica getting ready to go on the beach and play in the sand. What you are seeing here is a couple chairs that are on the Balcony in front of the room. This comes with some rooms, but not all. This unit was an ocean view. I believe it was room 506. It had two twin beds and we got a roller bed as well. It was small, but did the trick on this trip. We did miss the kitchen that we normally get, but being about to sit out on the balcony area to eat lunch and dinner and hear the waves was worth the smaller room.

Travel To Laguna Beach - Airports

2008-02-10T06:39:00Z

There are two airports in the area that I recommend. One is LAX which is Los Angeles. The other is SNA which is in Orange County. Depending on where you are coming from I would suggest you check out both on the rates. Sometimes one is higher than the other and vice versa. SNA is much smaller airport and you are in and out fairly quick. I suggest you eat before you go to the SNA airport. Not a lot of food at this one in my opinion. It is a nice, clean and easy to get around place, but very few eating places that fit my needs. There is a Mexican food place across the street from the airport that I tend to go to before I leave town. LAX is much bigger and takes a little longer to get around. You for sure want to leave 4 hours prior to your flight from Laguna Beach. You may even want to leave 5 hours just to be on the safe side in case traffic is bad. SNA I suggest 2 and half hours if it is not rush hour. The only thing you have to watch out for on leaving any of these places is weekend events that bring lots of people to town. I went for a UFC Fight and the lines were really long on the Sunday that I left. I made the flight with no problem, but the check in time was much longer. Rental car return is real easy at both airports, but especially fast at SNA.

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Laguna Beach - Main Beach Area

2008-02-10T05:57:00Z

One of the great things about Laguna Beach is the Main Beach Area. If you have a hotel in the area you want have to drive your car one time unless you just want to see something else in another location. We stayed at a hotel about 3 blocks from the beach. I will describe that stay in a later post. Just try a search for "hotel" in the quicksearch box to the upper left. I like the fact that you can walk to the beach, walk to the stores, walk to art galleries and to neighborhoods in the area without using a car. I would say you can occupy yourself for about five days here without a car and have plenty to do at the beach and enjoy a large variety of restaurants. I will post on that as well later. I personally believe the main beach area is kid friendly. I have been taking my little girl since she was 3 and she is now 7. We ask her on a regular basis where she wants to go on vacation and she says, " I wanna go to Laguna Beach and New York". I tell her what does she think we are millionaires and she replies "yeah". Kids are funny. They have no clue what it cost to do these trips. They also think you can fly to New York for a few days and then across the country to California for another few days. Oh talking about Cost...it's really not that bad if you get the right deals. Coming from Texas we do pretty good and stay under $2000 for everything each time we go and that includes beach front hotel, rental car and flights. We are planning a trip in Marth 2008 and June 2008 to Laguna and both will cost around $2000-$2300 and June is high season. I will post some links later for finding some good deals.

This picture as you can see was taken in 2007. This is when the sun was going down and we were trying to get some good pictures with the cheap camera we brought. I was scared to bring my good camera since I like playing on the beach in the sand. Sand is not good on the ole lenses. At any rate it gives you a good idea of the area called the "Main Beach Area".

This is a low resolution picture. Too bad it doesn't show the real beauty. I guess this is what you call a teaser picture.

This is across the street from the main beach. Traffic starting to get a little thick. Laguan Beach Traffic is pretty intense before and after work. There are only two lanes coming in and two lanes going out. Because of the location you have to drive a pretty long ways to get out of the area. To my knowledge there are really only four ways into Laguna Beach. One Coming in from from the highway either north or south. One at Main Beach here going East and another one about 6 miles down the road that goes east. I would check a map, but steer clear of traffic in the morning and when everyone gets off work. It's not like LA so don't think its going to take two hours, but it will take you ten to twenty minutes to go that short distance.

Surfing & Boogie Boarding in Laguna Beach

2008-02-10T05:22:00Z

The second time I went to Laguna Beach I did what I wanted to do on my first trip. As I was looking out in the ocean blue all the cool looking surfer dudes were riding waves. I was 36 at the time and thought, "I can do that." So, on the second trip I took surfing lessons and did my best to get up on those waves. Notice I said, I did my best. I think I was on the surf board maybe 3 seconds at most. Now the problem really was not riding the board, it's having enough stamina to use your arms to paddle around. If you think you are in shape go try padding on the board against the current to get to the right spot. Then you have to paddle when the wave is coming your way to ride that wave. Needless to say I was tired, but really had a lot of fun. I decided after that little venture I would try something a little less intense. Keep in mind if I was doing this on a daily basis that would be fine, but doing it one or two times a year is hard to keep up the pace. So I went to boggie boarding. What a blast! It's like surfing to some extent, but you are on your stomach the entire time. You also ride the wave all the way up to the shore. Personally it's a ton of fun. If you ever try the boogie board thing make sure you wear a wet suit. If you don't the sand can be very brutal on the skin. You will get cut up pretty bad on the stomach. The water is semi-cold year around to me as well. Call me a baby, but the suit works well. I bought a suit that covers the entire body to the neck and stops at the knees. I think I paid $60.00 for that versus the $300+ they wanted for the additional material to go from the knees to the ankle. Couldn't see paying that so I opted for the lower price. They rent for like $15 a day and the boogie board is like $9-$15 a day as well.

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Crashing Waves - South Laguna Beach

2008-02-10T04:10:00Z

This picture was taken on a beautiful September day. Unlike Texas, where I live, the average temperature is around 65-75 degrees.

If you look real close in the center there is a bird walking away. I took this picture because of the colors. I think this is pretty cool considering I am not a professional photographer.

This picture shows some of the beach and Laguna Beach ocean front property. Can you imagine waking up to this every single day? This is actually pretty far south on the beach. A friend of mine went to California on a trip 9/2007. We made a stop here before going to see a UFC fight. That's another blog within itself. Which I will be doing very soon. So any UFC or MMA fans email me and I give you that blog site when I start that one. In a another post I will start telling you lots of facts about the entire area. I will tell you about Dana Point which is just a few miles down the street and I will also show you pictures of Catalina Island. You can't see it in this picture, but it's straight out there. On a clear day you can see the Island well

Laguna Beach

2008-02-10T02:22:00Z

Laguna Beach is one of the most beautiful places in the United States. Located in Orange County, California on a beautiful coast line. Funny thing is I actually never really wanted to go to Laguna Beach, but went there by accident in the late 90's. My wife and I decided to take a 3 week driving vacation. We drove from Texas and went to like ten states. We went down N. Coast Hwy on the way to Los Angeles, but didn't stop. Our main goal was to get to Los Angeles and see Hollywood. What a disappointment that was. I will do another post later on that. I have been there and done that many times since that first visit. So after the huge let down of Hollywood my wife said what about that town we went through about 30 to 40 miles back. I really didn't want to go back but we did. We decided to stay I believe 3 days before heading towards San Francisco. We really didn't know where to stay so we stopped at a couple places to see about vacancy. They were pretty much full. This was in the month of June which is high season around there. We finally found a place, but to be honest with you it was not the kind of place I really wanted to stay. I tend to like four star and above so this one star or two star was not on my list of a good stay. The stay wasn't that bad if you remember the beach and the walk to the main beach. If you forget where you stay and focus on the beauty of this area you will have a great time even if staying in your car. I have always told my wife that if we become homeless I will mark the rock on the south part of the beach as my home. If you are not aware Laguna Beach is like a major artist paradise. I don't have exact figures, but I would say there are at least 50 to 80 art galleries. The art galleries vary in size, price and type. You could probably spend a few weeks looking at art in the area. There are some pretty famous artist in the area which is pretty cool if you just happen to get a chance to meet them. The attitude and lifestyle in Laguna Beach is very laid back. It's a place that even if you are actively going through the town and staying busy, you are really relaxing. In the following post I will tell you about specific trips we have taken, show you some cool pictures and update you on things that I know that are happening in the area. In 2007 I went to the area 5 times. I will try very soon to rent a place there and go every month. Eventually I want to live there, but that may take a little while since I have a lot of family ties in Texas. See you next time.