We are looking to travel to San Diego in April 2015 and would like some hotel recommendations. It seems tough to find something in the city with beach access. We ideally would like an awesome location, pool and hopefully beach access....that would be a plus. We have 3 kids - 10, 8 and 5. Any suggestions would be helpful! Also, do we need to rent a car or can we do without?

Budget? Can't get useful recommendations without a budget.

You need a car.

We would like to spend between 400 - 500 a night.

April days can sometimes be warm, but it is definitely not beach weather in San Diego. Look for a place with a heated pool instead!

Look at Coronado or La Jolla. I cannot give specific hotel recs, but search hear for reports. Hopefully. Others will chime in.

I suggest you rely less on these boards and more on the internet to search for what you want. Then come back to the boards to narrow things down. Example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Beac...x-a&channel=sb

With regard to water temps, on any given day there are something like 10 times as many people sitting, walking, or playing on the sand than there are in the water. (Based on my own experience and what I see on beach cams.)

kathryn:

Take a loook at http://www.sandiego.org and once you narrow down your hotel choice come back for opinions. You might want to request a free tourist information guide that is available.

It certainly will be easier for you to get around if you rent a car.

How long are you staying and what else would you like to see or do beside the beach?

San Diego is fabulous any time of year. Have fun.

Sandy

This ambitious poster mentioned a great deal of things to do in San Diego:

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...ttractions.cfm

When my daughter and I went down 2 years ago, we stayed at the Ocean Park Inn.
http://oceanparkinn.com/

While it was right in San Diego, it has a pool and is directly on the beach; as mentioned above, the water is chilly in April.

I have it narrowed down to the San Diego Solomar in the Gaslamp district. Primarily because it has rooms to accomodate 5 people. It also gets great reviews aside from the pool being busy sometimes. If you have any suggestions please let me know. We have 5 in our family so it's tricky finding a room in the city.

kathryn - I'm sure you know that there is no beach in downtown San Diego where the Solomar is. The closest one is Coronado which takes 15 - 20 mins to get to in a car. The 901 bus goes directly there from Downtown.
http://www.sdmts.com/mtscr/BusRoutes.aspx

A longer trip would be to take the Ferry from Downtown to the Coronado Ferry Landing (15 min ride) and from there take the 904 to the beach / village.

look at capri by the sea on pacific beach. lots of restaurants and places to walk to along the beach but definitely rent a car. you should also look at vrbo.com

Coronado is the way to go, absolutely beautiful.