We had a wonderful week at Daniel's place. The space is set up so there is lots of privacy with two separate full bathrooms on the first floor and then a third half bath on the third floor. I liked that bedrooms were on the second floor and living/kitchen space on the third.
Daniel was super responsive and helpful. We arrived at night after flying in from the East Coast and somehow I got myself super confused and had trouble finding the place and then getting inside. Daniel was very patient and kind in talking me through my confusion. I found him to be so easy going and helpful.
I had never been to San Diego before. For anyone who does not know the area well I will describe that a bit. Keep in mind that we had a 10 year old child with us, so many activities were chosen around her.
There is quite a lot to do in Mission Beach. We could easily walk to Belmont Park which is a fun amusement park. It's not super big but perfect for Beachside entertainment. We also had easy access to jet skiing, boat rental, paddle boarding etc. It was a quick and easy drive to those activities. We typically did an activity in the morning, beach in the afternoon, and then walk/scooter on the paved walkway along side the beach (including popping in to Belmont park).
We rented wetsuits because the water was a little on the cold side and we knew we wanted to spend quite a bit of time in the water. We rented them from a place called Ray's rentals I believe it was called. There are several boogie boards and 2 surfboards at Daniels place. Also beach chairs and lots of beach towels. There is a washer/dryer in the garage, though we didn't use it.
For the first day or two I was a little concerned that maybe the neighborhood was more active then what we were looking for. By that I mean with the 10-year old we want to make sure it was quiet enough for her to sleep. These concerns proved to be completely unfounded and in fact I would say that the location is a perfect combination of being near a lot of activity but also removed enough from it that it's not disruptive. I think this was particularly true because the town house is set up with the garage serving as the street level structure and the bedrooms are above it so you are not right down at street level as some of the houses and cottages are. On Friday and Saturday night of our visit we did hear a little bit of noise around probably midnight or 2 a.m. but it was just people passing by and I had no problem rolling over and going back to sleep. I should add that I'm a pretty light sleeper. To me it was well worth the little bits of noise occasionally in order to have super easy access to the beach and other activities.
Another point I think is well worth making is the distance from the house to the beach. I have stayed in lots of different hotels etc. that advertise themselves as being walking distance to a certain attraction, but it's really a 15+ minute walk. In this case it truly is a one minute walk to get to the beach. For me this is what made the entire trip so great. Again especially with a child, it was amazing to have the flexibility to just go to and from the beach whenever we wanted. After we had been there a couple of days and I was confident that my daughter really understood how to get back to the house and how to get in using the keypad I felt completely comfortable with her going back and forth if she needed to get a snack or something. This just allowed us so much flexibility and obviously not having to deal with parking was so awesome as well. For anyone who's looking at a few different options in the area I will say I was originally looking for something right on the beach meaning that first row of houses on the other side of the paved walkway. I just wasn't able to find anything that met our needs and it turns out I'm so glad that we were one street back. The location of Daniel's home is perfect in my opinion because it is pretty noisy on that walkway as people are skating and biking Etc and just having lots of fun. I loved hanging out walking up and down that strip but once I saw that first row of houses is really right on top of the walkway I personally was glad that we didn't have all that activity going on right outside our door. So it really was the best of both worlds if you ask me.