Fiesta Island Dog Park — Attraction in San Diego

Year round, we stay away from the local dog parks that always seem to have dogs who don't do well in the fenced spaces and owners that don't take responsibility when something goes wrong. Instead we come to Fiesta Island's off-leash dog park/beach! Wide open space to roam, sniff, leave pee mail for everyone, play and swim! It takes about 75min for our little schnauzer/poodle mix to make it all the way around (LOTS of smells and fun distractions!), but unless it's raining, we set aside time each week for this and he's super happy after. There are two ways to access the water - the east side where the gated entrance is starts out flat but can be a little hairy getting to the beach because the sandy hill can be a bit steep and tricky to get down. DO NOT attempt if you have knee, leg or balance issues. You can also easily access the water right off the parking lot facing West/Sea World, and walk around! We choose to enter through the main gate, walk towards the sand dune to get down to the water, walk all the way around, climb back up to the flatland, then hike back (this one is VERY tricky) down to water on the west side which leads right to the parking lot. Our little guy is sometimes leash reactive to bigger dogs, like German Shepherds, but when he's at Fiesta he likes everyone! He runs and will sometimes engage in a good game of chase with all sizes and breeds, but mostly he just loves swimming with us, then playing a good game of fetch with his favorite stick and ball, all the way around.🥰 PRO TIP: take your dog to Fiesta for an hour of constant playing and running on days you think you will be out just a little longer than usual. It will help them run off the energy and anxiety and they'll sleep like a baby while you're gone. 🙂 ALSO: STAY AWARE!!! You may have a dog that seems to do great with all dogs, but unfortunately you never know how other dogs can be. If you see a breed your dog doesn't usually do well with, or a dog that's acting odd or skittish, avoid the situation. This beach is heaven for the dogs but there are still people that come in with pets that they know have issues, and refuse to be responsible and leash them. It's too easy to get caught up in the freedom our pups have at Fiesta, and lose sight of them. The vast majority of dogs and owners are great here, but be alert and...

We took our 4 month old puppy for the first time, she's still in training so we kept her in a long leash, she loved it. We loved the fact that its fenced ..except its not completely fully fenced in so you must be careful if your dog is the type that run off. Our puppy got a long with almost every dog there with the exception of one. When we were leaving, we stopped at the gate to switch her to her normal 6ft leash, 2 dogs were near by with their owners they were both off leash (a lot of dogs are usually off leash, from what we saw) and one came up to our dog sniffed each other, seemed to like each other and we're guessing the other got jealous that in literally seconds he was running towards my puppy and attacked her. It happened so fast, my husband and the dogs owner were trying to get the dog off of our pup and luckily they got it off. My dog was freaking out, the dog didn't break skin just yanked a ton of fur off of our pup :( 2 days later she grew a lump on the area...the dog didn't break her skin but caused small damage inside. Its obviously not the parks fault, just be careful, if your dog is not the friendliest...please keep...

Whole island is dog off-leash allowed, just make sure your dogs recall is on point so they don't run into the road that loops the island. Really love coming here with my dog and roommate's pup. So much space for them to run around and get tired out. Lots of room to throw a ball on dry land, on the beach, or into the water. It's been wild lately seeing all the green foliage pop up around the park and really pretty with the yellow and white flowers. Most owners I've come across are attentive to their pups, the dogs interact well with each other, and people are aware enough to realize when others are working/training with their own to give them the space to do so. Parking isn't tough, there's space at the north end of the park that many park at, all along the east side of the park fence, and down by the south east side of the park near the skiing ramp beach side. Would recommend rinsing down pups after playing in the water here or else they can be pretty stinky. Overall it's a nice walk whatever route you chose to make through or around the park and always good tiring out the pups with different smells...