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Hopefully your trip to Catalina is a short one. It's a fun boat ride, around 22 miles, and it's kinda neat to see, but there isn't much there. Certainly not compared to the Laguna/Newport area. IMO taking a full day for Catalina isn't the best use of your time, unless you are in the area for 2 weeks or something.

If you do go to Catalina, the best thing there is renting one of the golf carts and taking it around the island. There are some things to see, like the Wrigley mansion. Get it for 2 hours so you don't have to rush.

Be sure to go to Newport Beach a few times. Go to Fashion Island to check out the Beautiful People and the Beautiful Cars. Check out Balboa Island, a really cool place, I used to live on Balboa Island and it's one of my favorite places in the world. You can walk around the whole island, which you should do. Have lunch and an ice cream on the island.

Then you can take the ferry from Balboa Island to the Newport Peninsula - it drops you off in a spot called the Fun Zone. Walk around there, and across the street to the beach. That area is the quintessential So. Cal. beach scene.

From the Fun Zone, you can also rent a small electric boat, which I highly recommend you do one day. You can pick up some sodas and a pizza and eat lunch on the boat. You can drive it around the harbor and bay, and check out all of the houses that must be going for $10-???? million these days.

Be SURE to check out a spot called Crystal Cove. It's off of PCH. An amazing place. From the early 20s until around 10 years ago, people leased cottages down there from the state on long term leases. These were tiny beach shacks. The state kicked everyone out and turned it into a public area, but they have preserved the shacks, which can be rented (one year wait list, I think). But they did a great job preserving the area, and its a really neat glimpse of the beach scene in Orange County in the 20s/30s/40s/50s, when OC was still a distant outpost of LA. The cottage at the very end of the row was where the movie "Beaches" with Bette Midler was filmed. This is a hidden area that can't be seen from the road (PCH), so it doesn't get as crowded as a lot of areas.

Take a drive through the residential areas of Newport Coast. Some huge coastal mansions.

Lots of other things to do. Don't overplan, but don't underplan, either. Laguna Beach itself is nice, but too many tourists just hang around the Main Beach area. There is much more in the area than Main Beach Laguna.