‘vacation’ Category
Mediterranean Vacation: Venice Airport
Getting there (and back) is a necessary evil for almost all great trips. After flying out of Dulles around 6pm on Thursday, we made it into Venice early Friday afternoon (Venice time, which is 6 hours earlier than Virginia time). Whether the irony was intentional or not, the baggage claim carousel in the Venice airport was painted to advertise a local casino — that is, painted as a roulette wheel! While we were fortunate enough to receive our bags (winner!), we learned that hundreds of passengers on our cruise had bags go missing for days, and many never received them. Unfortunate for them, but I thought it made for a great photo!
Home, sweet home
We landed at Washington Dulles Sunday afternoon around 3:00pm, after a gruelingly long day (we started the day at 3:00am Barcelona time, which was 9:00pm Saturday back here in VA). The trip was fantastic, with perfect weather at every port, and so many amazing things to see. We’re very glad to be home though — 17 days was a long time to be gone! Lots of details and photos coming soon, but for now, here’s a night photo of our ship, the Emerald Princess.
Mega-vacation
I’ve hinted a few times here about our upcoming cruise, but never got around to providing details, so here’s the deal: We’re doing a 12-day cruise of the western Mediterranean aboard the brand new Emerald Princess. We start in Venice, Italy, where we’ll be spending almost three days prior to the start of the cruise. We then spend a day at each of: Athens, Greece; Ephesus, Turkey; Istanbul, Turkey; Mykonos, Greece; Naples, Italy; Rome, Italy; Florence, Italy; and Marseille, France. The cruise ends in Barcelona, Spain, where we’re spending an additional two days before flying home. It’s the longest vacation either of us has ever taken, and given the full itinerary, we expect to be exhausted when we get home. It should be a fantastic experience though, sampling so many cities and seeing so many famous, ancient sites. We can’t wait!
It’s roller-coaster season!
Yesterday we drove three hours south-east to visit the Busch Gardens amusement park in Williamsburg, VA. Our main motivation was to experience their newest roller coaster, the Griffon, which just opened a week or two ago. The coaster features a respectable 205 foot height, but more importantly, a 90 degree straight down first hill. To heighten the tension, the cars stop completely just after the first car starts down the hill, leaving you suspended looking straight down for a couple seconds before the brakes release. Unlike a normal “long-and-narrow” coaster train with many 2-person wide cars, the Griffon seats 10-across and has only three rows. The advantage here is that far more people can enjoy the front-row experience, which as always is significantly better than the other rows. We also tried the back row and middle row. The back row was quite good also, having more speed in many key turns and more G-forces. The middle row was fun but didn’t compare to the front or back.
Of course there’s 4 other coasters at Busch Gardens as well as many other attractions, rides, and shows, so we had a pretty full day. My favorite coaster there is Apollo’s Chariot — it’s got some great hills, is fast, and smooth. We timed our trip so we’d be there on a weekday before school lets out for the summer, since we don’t enjoy spending hours waiting in lines. Our longest wait was probably 20 minutes, and that was for the front row of the Griffon just after arriving, so it worked out well. I wouldn’t want to see what the lines are like in late June!
Busch Gardens Williamsburg has been voted as the world’s Most Beautiful Theme Park for sixteen consecutive years by the National Amusement Park Historical Association, and it shows, especially when compared to some of the parks that are just a couple square miles of concrete. This makes it a much more enjoyable place to stroll around, with plenty of trees, shade, gardens, and wildlife, including a habitat for four rescued bald eagles that can no longer fly due to injuries. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes amusement parks or coasters. Just don’t go expecting to have dozens of coasters like Cedar Point or the Orlando area.
Sane in Missouri
Yesterday we booked our Mediterranean cruise — the one we had planned for last fall but had to cancel at the last minute due to my surgery. Not wanting to make the same mistake again, this time we’re getting trip cancellation insurance. It’s not often we burst out laughing while reading legal documents, but we couldn’t help it when we got to this part:
Benefits are not payable for sickness, injuries or losses of you or your traveling companion resulting from suicide, attempted suicide, or intentionally self-inflicted injury while sane or insane (in Missouri, sane only).