After two days in LA, we took Amtrak Pacific Surfliner South to spend two days in San Diego. For our first night, we stayed at the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego.

We used a Hyatt free night certificate to book a standard King Room & were upgraded to a King Bay view room during check-in. Our 31st-floor room felt very spacious, even at just 340 sq feet, equipped with two seating areas, a coffee machine, a desk, and a mini-fridge.

After settling in and taking some photos, we headed upstairs to the 40th floor to check out their rooftop bar, Top of Hyatt. We stepped off the elevator at 4:40 (40 minutes after opening), walked around the corner and the place was packed. We promptly turned around, still in shock at how busy it was, deciding to check out both pools and the gym. At check-in, Jasmine informed us about the 4th-floor all-ages pool & warning us to avoid it based on the number of families with children she had checked in that day. While the 4th-floor pool was bigger (than the 3rd-floor adult-only pool), it was also filled to the brim with people. There were few towels left & no available seating. My anxiety was at an all-time high just walking past this pool to the gym, with so many people.

The gym was large, with free weights, a section with mats, two assault air runners, a Peloton bike & a wall of treadmills & ellipticals.

We walked the 0.6 miles to Carnita's Snack Shack EMBARCADERO location to grab a late lunch/early dinner. Have you ever been so hungry you ordered way too much food? Yeah, that's what happened to us. In hindsight, the Taco Box would have been more than enough. Somehow we misunderstood that the "Taco Box" of 4 tacos and nachos was meant to feed a family (hence the name), thus it would have been plenty for both of us.

In addition to the "Taco Box", we ordered the "Smokey Pig Sandwich", which was delicious several hours later as a hotel late-night snack. With full bellies, we ventured back to the hotel, stopping to enjoy a beautiful San Diego sunset.

The next morning, we woke up & headed downstairs for breakfast. When we got off the elevator, there was a sign highlighting the breakfast buffet options.

We joined a line to check in & then waited to be seated. Although the area was filled, I must applaud the staff for having a system in place that kept things moving. We were in line for 11 minutes, before we were seated and the whole breakfast (joining the line, getting food, eating & closing out check) took 57 minutes. We arrived at breakfast at 10 am, and in the future, would recommend coming closer to 1045 as when we left, there was no line to check-in & the dining hall was about half full. After being seated outside (per our request), we ventured back inside to join the omelet station line. This is the only station where staff served patrons, in the time of COVID I would have preferred for the hotel to have staff still serving patrons all dishes rather than the current self-serve model. At a minimum for the hotel to offer patrons disposable gloves to use to touch the tongs. At $32 per person, the breakfast buffet was lacking, as a Globalist this was included in our stay at no additional cost, so I did not feel too bad about just getting an omelet with orange juice.

After breakfast we took a stroll to explore the area, stopping at Extraordinary Desserts, and stumbling upon a sort of farmer's market back in Embarcadero. With a 4 pm check-out, we were then off to our second San Diego hotel, the Andaz San Diego.