Introduction
Last weekend, my wife and I went to do our Jetblue mileage run. Man, who knew I would parlay 80,000 AMEX membership rewards to 50K Virgin America miles plus Alaska MVP Gold status and now 75,000 JetBlue miles. I’d rate it as one of the top deals of the year.
My tickets from Seattle to Long Beach were about $150 round trip. My wife’s was $20 more due to “last seat at that price.” We’d depart Seattle at 6:30AM, arrive into LGB at 10:00AM and fly back at 6:00PM and get back to Seattle by 9:00PM. I booked a car on Autoslash that cost us about $35 for the day from Hertz.
Our first stop was the Centurion Lounge. We noticed the construction that was going on next door (Delta lounge.)
The flight was uneventful although it was odd that we could watch the NBC Olympics on the ground but not while in the air. It was like it was blacked out, but the B6 Twitter team said it was just a DirectTV outage (I’ve never heard of some channels being out due to an “outage;” I’ve heard of intentional channel blocks however.) On the way home, we were able to watch it, so maybe it really was an outage?!?
Long Beach airport
Arriving into Long Beach, we were able to deplane from the front AND BACK, which was nice. The airport is small but trendy (mostly a JetBlue hub.) It may be my favorite “little” airport. We ate dinner there as well and thought the food was adequate.
Redondo Beach
We had about 6 hours in Los Angeles once you factor in airport travel time. I initially wanted to go to the infamous Santa Monica pier to hang out and catch Pokemon, but we were a bit worried about traffic. Instead, I asked a buddy who recommended Redondo Beach, so that’s where we went. There wasn’t that much traffic there and only light traffic on the way back. It took about 30-45 minutes if I recall.
My buddy recommended a place called Quality Seafood on Redondo Beach. I really wouldn’t call it a restaurant. It’s a place you pick out live seafood – crabs, oysters, prawns, clams, mussels, etc and they’ll boil it for you on the spot. After 15 minutes, you pick it up and eat it.
We got a pound of clams and a pound of mussels. Then we got 2 “local” crabs that were about $7 a pound. I think in total, we spent about $50 once you factor in my fat Heineken bottle. The Heineken bottle also saved me $3 because I didn’t know how to crack the crab claws and the place was selling these wooden mallets for $3. I just grabbed the empty beer bottle and cracked the crabs on the stone table. Worked beautifully. #Winning
By the way, if you’re a crab fan, while I loved the claws of the “local” crab, the body was hard to eat due to small “chambers of meat.” Large dungeoness crabs are much easier to eat followed by large blue crabs.
After that, we walked up and down the pier for 4 hours catching Pokemon. Yes, that’s what my wife and I wanted to do. Caught some pretty rare Pokemon too. Then we headed back to the airport and called it a day. Pictures below:
Did you think growing up you would ever fly a few states away to essentially have dinner…gotta love this game haha!
That thought crossed my mind Mark. I was telling my wife, “Yeah, so we’re gonna fly down to California to grab lunch and fly back.” Sounds very exotic and rich (minus the private jet.)
Haha! Vinh, I am glad you posted this today, as I am taking that same flight, for the same reasons, TOMORROW! Hoping all goes well, though I only have a 2.75 hour layover so likely stay in the airport. Good to know it is not too bad!
Man, you are on the border at 2.75 hours. I’d rent a car and go grab some food that is nearby (maybe some In N Out). The car rental was cheap at ~$35 and you can get in and out of the airport in like 5 minutes if you have PRECHECK.
Nice day trip! I live fairly close to the pier so and have been going to quality seafood most of my life. If you ever head back down for a day trip again, i’d recommend going about 2 miles north to the strand by hermosa and walking up from there to manhattan beach. beautiful ocean views while walking along the strand (plus pokemon catching galore!)
Dang, wish I had known that before my trip. Thanks Albert.
I did it last month. My car rental cost $62 because I want to try a premium car, lol. I drove down to Laguna beach and back to Santa Ana to bought some ‘cha lua’
The crab you ate is stone crab. They are $3.99 atm, in season, they go down to $1.99 at Asian market.
Was the premium car worth it?
Btw, I thought they looked like rock crab too although they called it “local crab.” Guess I don’t know the diff b/w rock/stone/local LA crab.