Holiday to Indian Wells in Mar 2025: Day 5 – Dana Point

By Nige on March 9, 2025 at 6:01 pm
Type: Post
Story: Holiday to Indian Wells in Mar 2025 Category: Travel
Tags: Dana Point | Hertz | Hilton | Holidays

So much for the clocks going forward on Sun night heading into Mon morning! As in the UK, the clocks went forward on Sat night heading into Sun morning. I.e. 02:00 on Sun.

What were the front desk thinking about?

That meant we had one less hour of sleep and we were struggling to adjust to the timezone change anyway.

Vick was worried that she might be snoozing in front of the tennis players at Indian Wells at this rate!

We walked out to a local Starbucks when it opened at 4:30am. It was a window-only/drive-thru store, so we had to walk back drinking our Starbucks on the way.

It was chilly on our walk. We were very pleased that we had brought coats on holiday with us.

Due to the darkness and there being no lights on our walk. Vick managed to trip over a small branch on the way to Starbucks.

She noted to me that she needed to be careful on the way back to make sure she didn’t spill her coffee.

Surprise, surprise. On our walk back, Vick tripped on that very same branch. In fact, “branch” gave it too much credit. It was more like a twig from what I could hear when it snapped!

Breakfast started at 7am and we were both starving…

It was pretty cold in the restaurant, but we warmed ourselves up with a seriously tasty omelette for Vick and eggs my style for me.

My favourite toast and jelly was also in evidence.

For the morning we decided to do some walking. First up was the Dana Point Bluff Cliff Trail, but that turned out to be a bit of a non-event. It certainly wasn’t a trail!

But it did have a high vantage point, looking down on the harbour below.

We also saw evidence of a classic car rally in the park below.

Next was San Clemente Beach Trail, and we parked up at the pier.

A quick walk to the end of the tier gave us some wonderful views of the beach in the distance.

We then walked south along the trail for a mile or so before heading back to the car.

The final stop of the morning was Starbucks, close to San Clemente. Parking was more of a challenge than for your average Starbucks store, but it was worth it.

We decided to take it easy for the rest of the day, so we headed back to the hotel.

We needed an opportunity to catch up on some sleep, so we thoroughly enjoyed an extended snooze.

We had booked ourselves into a Thai restaurant in town, so we started off with a drink in the rooftop bar of the hotel. Vick ended up with a fruit basket embedded in her sangria.

With the time feeling like it did an hour earlier yesterday, when we walked out to the restaurant, it was positively quite warm.

There seemed to be lots of people out on their bikes and enjoying time on the beach.

The Dana Thai was a classic, small scale Asian restaurant, which offered a fast and high quality service.

There were only 3 or 4 tables inside and a further 4 or 5 tables outside. Numerous take-aways/deliveries were in evidence as we sat at our table, so it was clearly popular with the locals. Always a good sign.

We shared a chicken satay starter, which was gorgeous. It came with lots of satay sauce, so they didn’t skimp on the flavour! A great start to proceedings.

For main course, Vick went for the pad Thai, which was really rich and tasty. I would have been happy having that dish as my main course.

I went for a panang curry, which was really nice. We also ordered some vegetables on the side, and we were provided enough for a family of four for a Sunday roast dinner!

The sun was on the way down as we walked back to the hotel and we could feel the chill in the air again.

On the way back we walked via the beach to enjoy the final rays of warmth.

Holiday to Indian Wells in Mar 2025