Awesome Surfing Town-San Clemente Cove Resort, California

This is a great little resort right across the street from the beach and San Clemente pier.  We were in a second-floor unit with a great side view of the ocean.  

This resort is well run with a lovely lady that works the front desk and she is very helpful.  

 

This resort is Spanish-style architecture and all of the balconies have a sea view and some would have a view of the San Clemente Pier as well.

                    San Clemente Pier at dusk.

Upon our arrival, the lovely desk lady even gave us a welcome gift.  It was a handmade Christmas ornament out of shells and it was very pretty.  

This resort is built in such a way that the corridors of the resort are actually outside with large ferns growing and other plants.

There was even a surfing competition on Saturday when we were in San Clemente and we could watch it right from our balcony.  We later went down to the ocean to watch.  I have never been to a surfing competition so that was cool.

Our one-bedroom unit was quite large with one of the larger living rooms that we've ever had.  There is a recliner chair which is not common with timeshares and it's right beside the gas fireplace.  One evening I was sitting watching HGTV with my flight blanket on top of me sitting on the recliner chair in front of the fireplace and I honestly forgot I was in San Clemente, California.   I felt like I was at home, I was so comfortable. 

The kitchen is well equipped so that all of your cooking needs are taken care of.  However, the kitchen is short on counter space which is always a bit of a pet peeve for me. They could have actually snuck in a tiny kitchen island into this unit because the living room is so large. This would have helped with food prep.

The balcony is a good size and we had a lovely view of the ocean and of the street which normally wouldn't interest me but there are surfers galore and also it's full of interesting people to watch.  The one negative is they have pub-style chairs on the balcony, which are not super comfortable.  We did get out a couple times on the sunnier days to eat on our balcony

The bed in our extremely tiny bedroom was very comfortable and we did have a closet which was adequate room for all of our clothes.  There is no window in this tiny bedroom so for light sleepers there is no light at the crack of dawn to wake you up.  The bathroom was a good size and well-equipped and they came every two days to see if we needed a change of towels.

Whoever the decorator was for these units I congratulate them because they were very pleasant to look at and very homie. 

There is free underground parking and they give you a garage door opener to get in.  This place is like Fort Knox, so it is very secure and safe.  We have a decent-sized one-bedroom unit with a very large living room.  The kitchen is well-equipped and there is a mini dishwasher, stove and oven.  This was nice to have after spending a month in Mexico because most timeshares in Mexico do not have ovens or dishwashers.

There is a laundry downstairs for $ 1.25  a load for a wash or dry.  Much to our surprise, there was a free water filtration machine that dispensed cold water which tasted quite good so we did not have to buy water that week that we stayed there.  A nice perk after buying water for the last 6 weeks.

If you ask at the front desk there is a map of all of the trails in the area for hiking.  We did several of the hikes on the Trail map below.  There is a great maintained easy to walk on Beach Trail walkway on either side of the pier which runs about 4+ miles long.  We did this walk a couple times and it is a great workout.   There are lots of people walking their dogs, so we got our fill of dogs on these trails.  We miss Peter our poodle a lot so it's fun to meet different breeds of dogs.

There are numerous walks up the hills of various different levels. We chose the Richard T Steed hike first which claimed to be moderate but OMG the first portion of this walk is anything but.  We walked just one loop and it took over an hour.  We walked into a bike circuit with jumps that were being created for the youth of San Clemente.

The Beach Walk Trail begins a hop skip and jump from the resort.  This is a great 4+ mile hike along the beach.

Across the street on the San Clemente Pier is a restaurant called Fisherman's Restaurant and it has great food.  We ate there twice.  The first time I had clam chowder in a bread bowl which was yummy and the second night I had their fish tacos which were excellent. The pier is lit up at night and there is even a Christmas tree at the end of this 1300-foot pier, during the holiday season.

The one disappointment of this resort is the fact that they do not have a fitness facility of any kind to work out in.  That was a drawback for me and if I would have known this, I would not have booked here initially but glad that I did because I loved the resort.  This was kind of serendipitous because it was so hilly that we did get a workout in, just by walking around.

We will definitely return to this resort because it was so chill and it has a cool surfer vibe and it was ultra relaxing after leaving LA.  This resort is in a very pretty setting in the hills of San Clemente, not to mention the beach is pretty sweet too.  We really enjoyed our stay here at San Clemente Cove.

San Clemente Cove Resort-  check out this great little timeshare nugget.