Post #299057 by PremEx on Fri, Apr 13, 2007 3:07 PM

Wow. Three years since the last post in this thread. Well...let's bump this puppy back up. It's such a nice place even to this day...it deserves a bit more memorabilia. :wink:

Our family used to stay at the Half Moon Inn back in the mid 1960's thru the early 70's when we would visit relatives in San Diego once each Summer. My folks made it sort of a mini-vacation (we lived in Costa Mesa, CA...so it wasn't like it was a long ways away). We thought we were on some exotic tropical isle...and in a way...we were! Some of my fondest memories growing up revolve around that huge wonderful pool and all the fellow outta-town teenage girls we'd hook up with there. :)

In 1973 at age 18, I stayed there for the first time as an adult with a new girlfriend of mine. I don't remember much of the hotel or grounds from that trip other than I believe they might have created too much of a romantic atmosphere! I don't think we ever left the room! :wink: But on the many subsequent trips over the years, I did get to enjoy the hotel facilities a bit more again.

Anyway...going through an old scrapbook from the times (yes, we used to do cut-and-paste scrapbooks)...comes this brochure from 1973 during the second year that Sheraton owned and operated the hotel:

Those that actually read the brochure text above may note that it rather optimistically states the hotel is only a 3 1/2 hour flight from New York!!!

That would be corrected in this next one from 1976...still the Sheraton years:

Aah. We're up to a more realistic 4 1/2 hour flight now. :wink:

And I've got the rate card and map from that 1976 one:

Also you can see this was during the period that today's "Humphrey's" restaurant was known as the "Port Royale Restaurant."

I find it also interesting that in the early 1970's...the hotel's marketing folks favored a very colorful photo of the Putting Green, with a happy Aloha Shirted guest being assisted by two lovely Eye Caddies who obviously know how to handle a putter...

...and yet a few years later they somehow favored a rather lifeless substitution shot...

Boring! What happened to the bikini babes? With crummy shots like that, I wouldn't be surprised if Sheraton's business slowed, and they sold the hotel (which they eventually did).

:)