June 8, 20241 yr Author 9 hours ago, HazletonEagle said: @eagle45 you should quit your lame job and just plan people's Italy vacations. Some days I want to.
June 20, 20241 yr On 6/7/2024 at 11:29 AM, mr_hunt said: thanks for the info. i don't think i'd have any luck convincing the wife to drop venice since she thinks life is like a disney movie & won't be complete unless we do a romantic gondola ride through venice...since i'm a regular prince charming and all that. If/when you go to Venice, definitely go across the channel. Two must-do things: ~ See the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore. The church was designed by Palladio, who was an inspiration to Enlightenment architecture in Britain and the US (such as Thomas Jefferson). Make sure to go up to the top (I can't remember if it's the top of the church or the campanile) for a spectacular view of Venice from across the channel. ~ Dine al fresco for dinner on the island of Giudecca. There's restaurants overlooking the channel, with great views of Venice and its landmarks.
June 24, 20241 yr Author Long weekend at Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos. Great ratio of easy to get to with a faraway exotic feel. Flight is only 3hr. Absolutely nothing to do on the island besides drink and sunbathe though.
June 25, 20241 yr Author 2 hours ago, HazletonEagle said: The mountains in the 2nd pic 🤣 just one or two of many reasons I put a ring on it.
June 26, 20241 yr Did you snorkel at all? I'd love to go to Turks & Caicos. But being the nerd and travel nerd that I am, I would need to spend a day in Cockburn Town (interesting name), their capital, just to see what life is like in a T&C town.
June 27, 20241 yr Author 19 hours ago, xzmattzx said: Did you snorkel at all? I'd love to go to Turks & Caicos. But being the nerd and travel nerd that I am, I would need to spend a day in Cockburn Town (interesting name), their capital, just to see what life is like in a T&C town. Did absolutely nothing besides sit on the beach and relax for this trip, but we did have a more active trip here several years ago. Love snorkeling, but especially diving. Turks is some of the best diving in the world, most famous for their sharks and sheer ocean walls. I’m not sure how their snorkeling is, since a lot of the dive sites are a bit off shore. I could be wrong, but I sense places like Cozumel and Grand Cayman (also incredible dive locations) have a bit more to see snorkeling close to shore at shallow depths for snorkeling. The island has some great boat and jet ski tours with overflowing rum punch and desolate beaches beyond the crowded, but beautiful, Grace bay. Grand Turk is a busy cruise port…from what I hear, that’s worth avoiding.
June 30, 20241 yr Who was it in here that has relatives in Poland and has visited multiple times? I'm asking because I'm going there end of next week for a few days.
July 2, 20241 yr On 6/6/2024 at 10:29 AM, mr_hunt said: the wife is pushing for a trip to italy this fall & worked up an itinerary with us staying 3 nights in rome, 2 in florence, & 2 in venice. seems kind of rushed to me but i've never been there before, so.... anyone whose been there before have an opinion on visiting these 3 cities in 8 days? is that enough time to see the main attractions? If you are able to walk a couple miles per day, you can do Rome in 3 days and see pretty much anything you want to see. They say Rome is best taken in slowly, lounging in a square and people watching. But if you have certain things you want to see, plan it out on a map and you'll just run into stuff along the way. Rome is very much like that---ancient structures mixed in with modern buildings, churches, gelato shops, pizzerias, and cafes. I would definitely recommend hitting up a random cafe, grab a cappuccino and pastry. Arthur Jackson was right, you belly up to the little bar, order a pastry and cappuccino, and slam it. That's breakfast. Lunch is around 1pm, and don't miss it because dinner is very late in Italy, like 8-9 pm. If you go to a restaurant at 6-7pm you might be the only ones there. The Vatican is incredible but the lines for the tours are usually VERY long so prepare to wait. The colosseum is also amazing and you'll be blown away at its size. Pick a few squares and hit them up. See the trevi fountain and throw a coin over your shoulder for good luck. To help plan your trip you can look up the freccie ("arrows") train routes. https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html There are white, gray, and red lines and you can plan by the route map. It can be a little intimidating but it's very intuitive and easy to navigate the stations and kiosks for ticketing.
July 2, 20241 yr On 6/24/2024 at 5:07 PM, HazletonEagle said: The mountains in the 2nd pic they're floating
July 3, 20241 yr Does anyone have any suggestions for Seattle and Victoria, BC? I am going there in about a month. Already on my list of things to do in Seattle: Space Needle (ticket for day and night combined), underground tour, Pike Place Market, take a ferry across Puget Sound for the views. Will not be on my list for Seattle: gum wall, troll On my list for Victoria: Legislative Assembly Building (capitol), Chintatown, see the start of the Trans-Canada Highway
July 6, 20241 yr On 7/1/2024 at 10:19 PM, The_Omega said: Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at EPCOT, holy cow that’s a great ride. Tron Lightcycle Run is pretty stinking awesome too. I’m not a big coaster guy but Disney’s new coasters are amazing and Space Mountain seems ridiculously tame after riding Tron.
July 6, 20241 yr Author 1 hour ago, The_Omega said: Tron Lightcycle Run is pretty stinking awesome too. I’m not a big coaster guy but Disney’s new coasters are amazing and Space Mountain seems ridiculously tame after riding Tron. I was just there in May…I’m not a big coaster guy either, but they were a really good time. Tron and Guardians were pretty wild and theatrical. BUT…they are new coasters and smooth. I still think space mountain is a unique thrill. It’s rough, rickety, and totally dark, so you can’t really anticipate or brace yourself for the turns. I felt like my head was going to get whacked off by a beam or something. I actually felt a bit anxious on it compared to the others.
July 7, 20241 yr Heading out into Gdańsk today with Eagles shirt on. We shall see if anyone greets me with a "Go Birds” or not.
July 7, 20241 yr On 6/6/2024 at 4:29 PM, mr_hunt said: the wife is pushing for a trip to italy this fall & worked up an itinerary with us staying 3 nights in rome, 2 in florence, & 2 in venice. seems kind of rushed to me but i've never been there before, so.... anyone whose been there before have an opinion on visiting these 3 cities in 8 days? is that enough time to see the main attractions? Pretty rushed if you ask me. You could do a week in Rome, easy We were in Florence fall ‘22 and the weekend was nuts. Avoid Sat/Sun if you can. Cool place. If it was me I’d skip Venice and focus on Rome/Florence but that’s just me.
July 8, 20241 yr My thoughts after a week at WDW, still a great time but their insistence on creating new profit centers by adding charges to what used to be "free" perks has gotten irksome. I'm specifically referring to the Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane fees they're charging. You've already spend well over $100 per ticket just to get into the park and now you have to spend what amounts to another ticket, or more, to take advantage of the Lightning Lanes. And if you don't book a Lightning Lane right at 7:00am you've little chance to get on the most popular rides. They've basically created a caste system. I figured we'd try to forego Genie+ as much as possible but after less than an hour in the Magic Kingdom, with rain closing many rides, it became apparent that if we wanted to experience everything we were going to have to splurge, so we did. We stuck to just Genie+ and did not spring for ILLs. With Genie+ we were able to ride everything we wanted to except for the Avatar right at Animal Kingdom. We may have been able to go without if we were the family that gets up to be in line when the parks open in the morning, and is willing to wait in lines of an hour or more, but we are not that family. Aside from the cost we had a great time. Being late June/early July it was 8th level of Dante's inferno hot but we managed to find air conditioning often enough to survive. The worst part about Disney always has been, and always will be, the other visitors. They are so rude, aggressive and will run you over without a 2nd thought. Strollers and scooters are especially dangerous. I understand that the scooters offer older, fat and infirmed people a level of freedom and mobility that they didn't used to have but it's gotten out of control, and the people driving them get special considerations as if they were actually handicapped. The new rides are mostly really good (Tron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Remy, Rise of the Resistance, etc....) and the old rides are still fun and familiar. Our main reason for going was that our 11 year old daughter had never really gone (we were there for a few days when she was 1) but my 18 year old daughter and 23 year old son seemed to have every bit as much fun, if not more, than she did. Also the food was really good but is so expensive and we wasted so much.
July 8, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, The_Omega said: Have you done Universal/IoA? I have an annual pass there and greatly enjoy it. There are only 1 or 2 attractions that have absurd lines, but I am in line for opening and always walk on to BOTH of those rides -- the one with the worst line I go to first (Hagrids), and the second ride I go to immediately after (Veloci) and often am able to squeeze in 3-4 rides (on that 2nd attraction) during that 1hr "early entry" window. The rest of day between both parks I often can find sub-30min waits and often will just take the Single Rider line which averages a 5min wait (half walk-ons, a few that might be as much as 10 mins). ** disclaimer -- I have zero interest in traveling in June/July when the temps and crowds are at their absolute worst. But I go in Sept/Oct every year when they have Halloween Horror Nights which still floods the parks with people, but the 8am-6pm window still rarely has me deal with any line that shows greater than 1hr at peak times for the most popular attractions (outside of those prime 2). I've had coworkers (kids closer in age to your youngest) go near-annually and a few others, and between Genie and LL and all of that, it sounds like a "good day" is to maybe get on like 5 rides. I've knocked that count out (admittedly with early entry repeats) within the first hour at IoA, but by noon I've probably still hit 7-10 other rides in the parks depending on how crowd levels happen to land on a given day.
July 8, 20241 yr Forgot to add -- I stay at the base-tier hotel, which is no different than your traditional Ramada, Marriott, Hampton type room. With the Annual Pass discount, I've regularly had 3 night stays that were about $250 total with taxes/fees and on the upper end (suite that has a private bedroom along with a common area with table and 2 additional queens for around $125/night) -- so the lodging can be very affordable. That being said, tons of people stay at the other hotels on site that can easily be $400+ a night and they pay that without blinking an eye. Those Premium Hotels that usually start as low as $275/night with a Pass Holder discount also include UNLIMITED EXPRESS pass for each person listed in your hotel room (their hotel key card doubles as an express pass). Those people basically fly through lines all day long, independent of crowd levels. For what people pay for Disney tickets and probably the Disney resorts, I imagine the Universal tickets with the unlimited express hotel rooms would still come in beneath the standard Disney costs (before LL and Genie+)
July 8, 20241 yr 22 minutes ago, Agent23 said: Have you done Universal/IoA? I have an annual pass there and greatly enjoy it. There are only 1 or 2 attractions that have absurd lines, but I am in line for opening and always walk on to BOTH of those rides -- the one with the worst line I go to first (Hagrids), and the second ride I go to immediately after (Veloci) and often am able to squeeze in 3-4 rides (on that 2nd attraction) during that 1hr "early entry" window. The rest of day between both parks I often can find sub-30min waits and often will just take the Single Rider line which averages a 5min wait (half walk-ons, a few that might be as much as 10 mins). ** disclaimer -- I have zero interest in traveling in June/July when the temps and crowds are at their absolute worst. But I go in Sept/Oct every year when they have Halloween Horror Nights which still floods the parks with people, but the 8am-6pm window still rarely has me deal with any line that shows greater than 1hr at peak times for the most popular attractions (outside of those prime 2). I've had coworkers (kids closer in age to your youngest) go near-annually and a few others, and between Genie and LL and all of that, it sounds like a "good day" is to maybe get on like 5 rides. I've knocked that count out (admittedly with early entry repeats) within the first hour at IoA, but by noon I've probably still hit 7-10 other rides in the parks depending on how crowd levels happen to land on a given day. I've not been to Universal but I've heard lots of people say good things about it. With Genie+ we were riding over 10 rides per day, all of the biggest name rides except for the Avatar one. Once you figure it out you can really start knocking rides out. Some of the big name rides you have to book the LL's hours out but even with them you can keep checking the times and jump on an earlier time when someone else cancels. Then you can start booking the lesser rides, check into those then immediately book another one. It actually works pretty well, but you have to pay for it, which I'm obviously not a fan of.
July 9, 20241 yr Gdansk - Pleasantly surprised. Yes, there are lots of dilapidated old east bloc buildings still around but they've done a great job of rebuilding in the 25 years they've been given once they got their feet back on the ground. The new stuff is really nice and they've found a good way to blend a super modern feel while still retaining a lot of the old Northern European feel. The other thing that was really surprising was how good the food was and I'm talking about everything including the simple stuff like a pizza or simple chicken dish. Plus everything is still really cheap. Lastly, there are some super wooded areas and beaches to explore within just a few minutes of the city center. Worth a long weekend if you want to see an old eastern bloc country. I should also mention the WWII museum which was great. We spent almost four hours taking it in and I'm usually a max two hour type in museums.
July 19, 20241 yr On 7/8/2024 at 2:25 PM, The_Omega said: My thoughts after a week at WDW, still a great time but their insistence on creating new profit centers by adding charges to what used to be "free" perks has gotten irksome. I'm specifically referring to the Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane fees they're charging. You've already spend well over $100 per ticket just to get into the park and now you have to spend what amounts to another ticket, or more, to take advantage of the Lightning Lanes. And if you don't book a Lightning Lane right at 7:00am you've little chance to get on the most popular rides. They've basically created a caste system. I figured we'd try to forego Genie+ as much as possible but after less than an hour in the Magic Kingdom, with rain closing many rides, it became apparent that if we wanted to experience everything we were going to have to splurge, so we did. We stuck to just Genie+ and did not spring for ILLs. With Genie+ we were able to ride everything we wanted to except for the Avatar right at Animal Kingdom. We may have been able to go without if we were the family that gets up to be in line when the parks open in the morning, and is willing to wait in lines of an hour or more, but we are not that family. Aside from the cost we had a great time. Being late June/early July it was 8th level of Dante's inferno hot but we managed to find air conditioning often enough to survive. The worst part about Disney always has been, and always will be, the other visitors. They are so rude, aggressive and will run you over without a 2nd thought. Strollers and scooters are especially dangerous. I understand that the scooters offer older, fat and infirmed people a level of freedom and mobility that they didn't used to have but it's gotten out of control, and the people driving them get special considerations as if they were actually handicapped. The new rides are mostly really good (Tron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Remy, Rise of the Resistance, etc....) and the old rides are still fun and familiar. Our main reason for going was that our 11 year old daughter had never really gone (we were there for a few days when she was 1) but my 18 year old daughter and 23 year old son seemed to have every bit as much fun, if not more, than she did. Also the food was really good but is so expensive and we wasted so much. We are going in march, and in just a few days Disney+ is gone and they are already on to a new system called Lightning Lane Multi-Pass.
July 19, 20241 yr On 7/2/2024 at 8:41 AM, Mike31mt said: If you are able to walk a couple miles per day, you can do Rome in 3 days and see pretty much anything you want to see. They say Rome is best taken in slowly, lounging in a square and people watching. But if you have certain things you want to see, plan it out on a map and you'll just run into stuff along the way. Rome is very much like that---ancient structures mixed in with modern buildings, churches, gelato shops, pizzerias, and cafes. I would definitely recommend hitting up a random cafe, grab a cappuccino and pastry. Arthur Jackson was right, you belly up to the little bar, order a pastry and cappuccino, and slam it. That's breakfast. Lunch is around 1pm, and don't miss it because dinner is very late in Italy, like 8-9 pm. If you go to a restaurant at 6-7pm you might be the only ones there. The Vatican is incredible but the lines for the tours are usually VERY long so prepare to wait. The colosseum is also amazing and you'll be blown away at its size. Pick a few squares and hit them up. See the trevi fountain and throw a coin over your shoulder for good luck. To help plan your trip you can look up the freccie ("arrows") train routes. https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html There are white, gray, and red lines and you can plan by the route map. It can be a little intimidating but it's very intuitive and easy to navigate the stations and kiosks for ticketing. Use Viator for tours all over the world. It’s relatively inexpensive and you get skip the line tickets to places like the Vatican so you don’t need to wait.. eg here is one https://www.viator.com/tours/Rome/Skip-the-Line-Group-Tour-of-the-Vatican-Sistine-Chapel-and-St-Peters-Basilica/d511-120123P3 Also the hop on/hop off busses are worth it and can be purchased through that site. You can take it to the Colosseum then hop back on to get over to Trevi or the Vatican.. they come around constantly. You can purchase tickets good for several days. Also they have headphones on the bus with facts about the places it’s passing so it’s a tour in and of itself. I loved Venice. Use their free walking tour. It’s literally free and so worth it. Usually conducted by a local who grew up there. https://venicefreewalkingtour.com/ Rome is dirty as hell. I wouldn’t spend more than a few days there. I do want to go back though. The Vatican is huge and I didn’t get to see everything I wanted in one visit.
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