Coronado Ferry Landing Layover, San Diego
Part of the full San Diego Layover: The Embarcadero From SAN
The Coronado Ferry Landing sits fifteen minutes across San Diego Bay from Broadway Pier, and the two things worth the crossing pull in opposite directions from it: Orange Avenue running south to the 1888 Hotel del Coronado and the beach below it, and the shoreline five minutes east under the Coronado Bridge.
The Hotel del Coronado, wooden and red-turreted since 1888
The hotel opened at the far end of Orange Avenue on 19 February 1888, to a design by James W. Reid, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. It is a wooden Victorian beach resort, a building type that mostly did not survive: white clapboard, deep verandas running the length of it, and a red conical turret over the main hall that reads as a lighthouse from the sand. The Crown Room’s wooden ceiling was fitted with pegs and glue and no nails at all. Nobody stops you walking the grounds or the boardwalk in front of it, whatever you are or are not paying for a room.
It is about a mile and a half south of the landing. A bus runs down Orange Avenue and stops in front of the hotel in around ten minutes for the standard $2.50 fare; walking it takes half an hour on flat pavement past the village shops. Coronado is level end to end, which is why the third option is the good one on a warm day: a guided electric-bike loop of the island covers ground a walk cannot in the same hours.
The last boat back leaves Coronado at 10:30pm
Boats go on the hour in both directions, which makes the return leg the constraint on everything else here: fifteen minutes on the water, $9, and a full hour’s wait if you miss one. Broadway Pier puts you back on the downtown side about five minutes’ walk from the Embarcadero and ten from the train station, and from there MTS Route 992 covers the last three miles out to both terminals at San Diego International Airport in about fifteen minutes, for a flat $2.50, running every fifteen minutes from 4:15am until midnight.
Budget two hours from the Coronado side to the check-in desks and the hourly boat stops being a problem. If that sounds tighter than you want, the main San Diego layover guide keeps everything on the downtown shore, where nothing runs to an hourly timetable.
Coronado Beach’s sand has a glitter in it
Coronado Beach runs a mile and a half along the ocean side of the island, below the Hotel del Coronado, and in low sun the sand visibly sparkles. San Diego’s own tourism board puts that down to mica, weathered out of granite in the Julian mountains inland and carried down to the coast, and it is obvious enough at the waterline that people stop to photograph their own footprints. The beach opened to the public alongside the hotel in 1888.
Every boat here loads and unloads down a ramp, and there is no rack aboard to put anything on, so whatever you bring across sits with you for the crossing and then comes down the beach too.
The Coronado Bridge curves to clear 200 feet of navy shipping
Five minutes east of the landing, the shoreline runs out under the bridge. It opened in August 1969, on the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of San Diego, and it is 2.1 miles long, taking a long curve out over the water rather than the direct line because that was the only way to gain the 200 feet of clearance the Navy needed under it while keeping the grade drivable.
There is no way across it on foot. The bridge has never had a permanent walkway, and a lane opens to pedestrians once a year for an organized run and otherwise not at all, which is precisely why the ferry exists as a passenger service rather than a novelty.
The island is flat, the crossing is short, and the only part of the day that has to be planned around is the hour between boats. That, and whatever you are wheeling on and off them.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near the Coronado Ferry Landing in San Diego?
Walk the pier at the landing first, then decide between the beach and the bridge. Coronado Beach and the Hotel del Coronado are at the far end of Orange Avenue, a bus ride of about ten minutes or a half-hour walk south; the sand there carries a visible glitter that San Diego's tourism board attributes to mica washed down from the Julian mountains. The other direction is a five-minute walk east to the shoreline under the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, which is free. Five hours is comfortable for one of those and the crossing both ways; three is not.
How often does the Coronado ferry run?
Once an hour, on the hour, taking fifteen minutes across the bay. It costs $9 each way for anyone aged four and over. The first boat leaves Broadway Pier at 4:50am and the last one back from the Coronado Ferry Landing goes at 10:30pm. Because the boats are hourly rather than continuous, the return time is what shapes the whole trip: missing one costs you sixty minutes, not five.
Can I get to Coronado without taking the ferry?
Yes, over the bridge. A bus crosses from downtown, and the hop-on hop-off trolley loop runs over the span as part of its circuit, which suits anyone who wants Coronado as one stop among several rather than the whole afternoon. There is no walking or cycling route across: the bridge has no permanent pedestrian lane, and opens to people on foot only for one organized run a year.
Is Coronado worth crossing to in the evening?
The last boat back at 10:30pm makes it workable, and the crossing is better after dark than in the middle of the day: the downtown towers light up behind you on the way over and again on the way back. Coronado Beach has no lighting to speak of, so an evening trip is really about the ferry landing, the walk along the shore path and dinner rather than the sand. Check the return departure before you sit down anywhere, because the hourly gap gets expensive at that end of the night.