Christmas at the Hotel Del Coronado

"A Time to Celebrate"

This year's Christmas theme is  " A Time to Celebrate". The Hotel Del Coronado, or as some us refer to her as the Grand Dame of Hotels, has prepared some special treats for this years celebration. With over 100,000 lights, lighting the entire hotel and the decorations this year are in silver and gold accents with vintage Santa Clauses throughout out all of the decorations. This year the hotel created a veritable Christmas Wonderland throughout the hotel and the grounds, including its 8th year for the beachfront ice skating rink.

The hotel is also celebrating the resorts 125th year in 2013 and that kicks off on New Years Day. I expect it to be a celebration that will impress all who will take part in this historic occasion.

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New Years Day Ice Skating At The Beach

The location was the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island and the temperature was about 70 degrees. Did I mention that was temperature in the shade. In the sun it was down right hot! 

You can see the affect the sun was having on the surface of the ice in the great reflection of the hotel on the surface. All in all, a great way to bring in the New Year appreciating our magnificent weather and the many wonderful visuals of living in Southern California.

Christmas as the Hotel Del Coronado is an inspiration in charm, grace and merriment. Traditions of old fashioned decorations as seen many decades ago, are ever present and fill the space in a reflection of how Christmas might have looked many decades ago. 

Collections of ornaments from decades past decorate the enormous tree in the lobby. Even the icing decorated Gingerbread cookies are real. 

The Grand Dame of Historic Hotels with her many lights framing the outline remains one of the areas most outstanding iconic figures. Her beauty remains timeless.

I ran across an interesting bit of Christmas Trivia about a claim made by the press in the early 1900's about the Hotel Del Coronado. A long standing tradition that was started with the Grand Dame of Historic Hotels on the west coast, The Hotel Del Coronado started back in 1904. "The first in the nation lighted outdoor Christmas tree". However, it was actually the first lighted Christmas Tree on the west coast of the United States and not the nation. 22 years earlier the Vice President of Edison Electric Light company illuminated the first outdoor Christmas Tree in 1882.

Hotel del Coronado is No.10 on TripAdvisor's top 10 haunted hotels, located in Coronado, California. Kate Morgan who apparently committed suicide by shooting herself outside her room in 1892 --- is reportedly haunting the Hotel del Coronado.

Her ghost is said to haunt this seaside resort

Over the next couple of days, the hotel staff became increasingly concerned as she appeared sicker and sicker, and her brother never arrived. One day, she took a streetcar into San Diego, where she purchased a pistol and ammunition. She was found dead early the next morning, just outside the hotel.

New Year's Day 2011 and A Visit to the Hotel Del Coronado in Coronado, San Diego, CA

 A very special evening with close friends, plenty of wine and champagne, and fabulous food with everyone chipping in made for a wonderful way to ring in the New Year last night. 

And with living on the Left Coast we get to enjoy Times Square at 9, Chicago at 10 and then LA at midnight (I think we watched something at 11 but we were having too much fun laughing and I don't remember).  Here was our contribution (OK, it was my wife's - I didn't do a thing this time).

Today,New Year's Day 2011, was a day of downtime after a very later night, and a visit with my wife, Kay, to the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island. Coronado Island isn't really an island but there is a really neat bridge to get you from San Diego over the bay to Coronado.

The Hotel Del Coronado, or the Hotel Del, or just The Del, as it is affectionately called, was established in 1888 with a reputation as one of the grand hotels on the west coast.

The Hotel Del Coronado's architecture reminds me of some of the big hotels at the beach in New England. And with celebrities like Marilyn and Charles (that's Monroe and Lindbergh) and other Hollywood glitterati, numerous Presidential visits, and a ghost, the Del has an international reputation and fascinating history and is well worth exploring, even if you don't want to spend the money to stay there. 

There are scores of fancy shops, the world class Yamaguchi Spa, terrific dining (you could, today, have a New Year's Brunch for $77 - we decided no), and wonderful views of the ocean.

A special treat was watching the ice skaters...yes, that's right, we DO have outdoor ice skating in Southern California, complete with palms trees, views of the ocean and an almost balmy 58 degrees today. 

It was a terrific feeling to just walk around and enjoy the beauty and holiday decorations by the sea, relaxing after the craziness of the holidays these last few weeks, and to visit this National Historical Landmark - despite being here 5+ years, we have never actually visited and today seemed appropriate.