I grew up going past newport beach, same directoin though, just go past to balboa beach. . . it has a nice pier on one side, walk over the harbor side and you have play things, you have the arcade (showing my age here, they had 2 that used to be almost next to each other when i was a teeny bopper, now there is one), they have a ferris wheel, you can take the (again blonde coming out) the boat that puts cars on it across the bay to fashion island, you can be a pedestrian, you don't need a car, FERRY that's it, the ferry!, that is a great walk on fashion island. . . back to the ferris wheel area, they have pete's pizza, amazingly the pizza tastes almost the same as it did 20 years ago and it has gone through other owners. . . you can do a harbor cruise, haven't done that in 20 years, but there used to be a house that we heard the living room opened up to a pool, john wayne once had a house on one of the islands in the harbor. .
the down side to balboa is, well ur used to san diego, you can walk out pretty far in the water in sandog, not at balboa, the waves crash almost on the beach, but it never stopped us from having a blast there! In fact we found more sand dollars at balboa than I ever do in sandog. can you tell i'm partial to it?? the plus to the waves is you really don't have to do the shuffle, like you do in sandog. you know the stingray shuffle. . . the biggest difference I think you will see though is the temp, sandog is so much cooler on the beach than balboa/newport area is.
have fun! yahoo or google balboa/newport/fashion island area.
