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Articles for the ‘Travel’ Category

We did the Quicksilver Cruises outer reef tour in Cairns. The initial stop was the Fitzroy Island where you had approximately 2 hrs to explore. Not enough time really since there were a lot of people about. Don’t forget to bring insect repellant because there are a lot of mosquitos around. Snorkelling from the beach area was ok, although it was nothing extraordinary.

Then it’s off to the outer reef (Moore Reef) and their pontoon. As others have noted, it is acceptable for the number of passengers on the cruise. The alleged underwater observatory was a disappointment – I have seen better in the aquariums in Sydney or Brisbane . They have not bothered to clean the glass so it was very difficult to see anything through the windows. My wife said the same thing about their semi-submarine tour which I didn’t get to do because we just simply ran out of time.

If there’s something that you definately should do, it’s the Scuba-doo, especially if you’re not the best swimmer. It’s a great way to enjoy the reef. We even saw a turtle and one of the crew showed us a sea cucumber which my son really enjoyed. It’s a little expensive but I think it’s worth it.

After the scuba-doo, I went for a scuba dive. It was probobly because it was the monsoon season but the visibility wasn’t as good as I’d expected . Maybe it’s different when you do a specialist dive cruise but with this sort of cruise, you don’t get too many choices. Corals were more of the dull and brown shades. Fish, while there were many, were nothing special. Then to top if off, my divemaster just kept swimming around and around, not even going out of his way to show the wonders of the reef.

By the time the dive was finished, I had just enough time to eat and change (if my wife had not set aside a plate for me, there was nothing left to eat) – therefore, I missed the semi-sub ride. If it wasn’t for the scuba-doo, this would have been a very ordinary tour.

I would do a dive specific tour next time. There are lots of other options in Cairns

Finally my travel up the East Coast has got me to Cairns. Secondly to Sydney this has to be one of the best places to party in Australia. It was that good I actually went there three times in the space of my holiday.The Great Barrier Reef off Cairns was just a feather in it’s cap.

Cairns is where I did my PADI Advanced Open water dive course. I went with Pro Dive for a 4 day liveaboard dive course which was absolutely fantastic. I originally looked at diving with a company called Down Under Dive but they seemed very expensive and I had heard many a good thing about their dive courses. Also after some further research I found out they had probably just about the best dive pools.

Their dive vessel has been fully refurbished and has all the mod cons installed. It has very nice air-con cabins which cater for 2-4 people, has a huge saloon, communal lounge and even its own bar. As a bonus it also has a small spa on the front deck to sit in and have a beer. The meals was mouth watering and served from a very well built kitchen, one of the best meals they served was BBQ Coral Trout. Yum Yum.

The dive boat is permanently based at the outer reef which would move every so often to different parts of the reef, which would either be done over night if some distance or early in the morning if closeby. This was pretty good as you get to experience a variety of reefs and have a truly unique diving experience. These guys had a fast transfer boat which takes you there and back which also allows you to add another night if you want.

I truly wouldn’t recommend anyone else to teach me to learn to Scuba Dive in Cairns but if you decide to look elsewhere please be very careful when choosing a scuba school in Cairns as many scuba schools use fixed platforms at sea which you stay on and then commute by boat for the diving, not quite the live aboard you expected!

If you are heading to Florida, it is customary to take some time to pay a visit to Disney World in Orlando.

An Orlando holiday, even as part of a bigger vacation is a great getaway and if it is a family vacation, your loved ones will talk about it for many years.

Getting a flight to Orlando

It is very easy to figure out where to get the good flights to Orlando. Look for low-priced plane tickets on the internet, as you can find some very good bargains.

Where to Vacation

When you check for flight opportunity and price ranges at many sites, you can also always check for the best value prices on motels and flights, getting them together in one package with a discount usually.

Seeing Disney World Orlando Florida

Disney World has no scarcity of theme parks. And you will intend to make sure to go to as many as you can squeeze in. Some theme parks will have shows, others, such as the water parks, offers activities that are sure to keep you cool and happy.

And who would not want to go to Disneys Magic Kingdom. This theme park is arranged in a medieval castle style and you can find the idea of Disneys fantasy movies and Animation movies. Plus you will meet up with the personas of those films. Any boy or girl or adult will truly enjoy themselves here.

Be sure to stay for the fireworks display after dark. It is magnificent.

The Water Parks

The water parks will give you several selections, from water slides, to racing around in the water. Because of the temperature and humidity, this is a good escape to have some fun and stay cool.

So put Disney World Orlando on your Holiday must do list and enjoy yourself. It will be some thing you will remember for years.

When you choose to take a trip, be sure to examine where to buy airfare and cheap airfare online. Why pay top dollar, when you do not have to? airline ticket cheap

Party Tours have started in all the top tourist towns lately. And so they should. They make a fun evening a sure thing. We have 2 popular Party Bus tours in Cairns, with the Ultimate Party Cairns and the Frog and Toad Party Tours. Both party bus tours run twice weekly. I’m sure they work the same in other places such as the Sunshine Coast and Adelaide, but I have only done the Cairns one so I’ll tell you about that one.

There’s pizza and party games and of the utmost importance, the operators endeavour to keep the split of sexes similar. Many people have found love on a party tour. It probably will only last until the holidays over, but as long as everybody has fun it’s all OK isn’t it?

Entertaining for both travellers and locals, these tours also attract Hens & Bucks nights, sporting teams and army and air force goups.

Basically the evening runs this way; Participants meet at the first venue at a preordained time, this is where tickets and money is collected and the all important ID bracelet is handed out. This identifying wristband is what gets you in to the evenings venues as all cover fees’s are included in your tour cost, both on the tour and even when the tour is finished. This usually saves you $$$ on cover fees’s alone, without counting all the other extras. You get special service at all the top nightclubs, pubs and bars. There are also prizes and giveaways including reef trips and skydives. Fun and games are the order of the night, with the owners experts at how to get the party started.

You are guided between each venue by bus and if you are lucky it might even be in an convertible double decker bus.

So if you’re new to town, or lonely, or just after a definate good night out what about giving a go to an organised pub crawl, you won’t regret it.

St. Augustine, Florida is America’s oldest city. It is also one of the nation’s most charming cities, for a variety of reasons.

Its cobblestone streets. The history that peeks out from every turn and corner.

The quaint inns and bed and breakfasts that rest under ancient oak trees.

The ghosts, too, make things interesting in St. Augustine, Florida!  It’s one of the great Florida vacation spots.

The Oldest City

Known as the “Ancient City,” St. Augustine was founded forty-two years before the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts – making it the oldest permanent European settlement on the North American continent.

St. Augustine is in North Florida, located between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean. While Orlando is a bit of a jaunt, it’s not too terribly far away either.

What’s the Weather Like?

North Florida has mostly mild temperatures in Fall and Spring. Winters can get a bit on the nippy side, with temperatures at the freezing mark can certainly happen. But usually the days are sunny and on the cool side in Winter.

Summers are something else — hot and very humid. So arrange your vacation, if you can, in such a manner that you can avoid the hottest and most humid times (July and August). However, October, November, March and April are wonderful times for a visit.

Things to do in St. Augustine, Florida

There are a lot of things you can do here in St. Augustine, like visiting the Fountain of Youth, the Alligator Farm Zoological Park or Potter’s Wax Museum. There is Ripley’s Believe it or Not where you can spend an hour or two.

If you like the beach, you’ll love St. Augustine’s beautiful, wide, sandy beaches, just made for basking in the sun or playing in the waves.

There is a very special event in October of every year called the St.Augustine Art Walk. October is considered the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the people participating in this walk raise money to help research and fight breast cancer. The event has become known for its art raffle. Around 10 paintings are raffled each year, with the proceeds going to various breast cancer foundations. After the walk many other raffles and fund-raisers takes place.

The Ghostly Side of Life

Then there are the St. Augustine ghost tours. These tours take a look into the city’s sometimes spooky past, as it is said that there are restless spirits which haunt certain locations in town.

Another interesting aspect of ghost walks is that your guide dresses up in a period costume, to get in the “spirit” of things, so to speak. The walks are held in the evenings, when the weather is cooler and the atmosphere more eerie. Who knows what you’ll see around the next corner?

You and your children will remember a Disney family vacation for many years. The photo albums will be well thumbed, and children will sleep with them under their pillows for months after the vacation is over. Gone but never forgotten.

There is just so much that can be written about the experience that a Disney family vacation offers. Walt Disney World in Florida has 4 theme parks; two water parks, over 20 themed Disney hotels and two entertainment districts (and that is just for starters).

So here is what is in store for you at the theme parks.

Magic Kingdom Park

Magic Kingdom has no less than 7 enchanted lands for you to explore and discover. It is the home of the famous space mountain and is a great place to experience what it’s like to be a pilot, when you get to go on your own spacecraft the Astro Orbiter. Magic Kingdom is great for adults too; you get to see the characters and homes of some of the golden oldies, it’s not just about recent productions but all the old favorites are there too.

Disney Hollywood Studios

This is where your family gets to meet the characters that they have come to know and grown to love through storybooks, cult TV shows and movies. The latest addition here is the American idol experience where they have an exact replica of the set used in this hugely popular show.

Disney Animal Kingdom

The Animal Kingdom showcases animals from all over the world in 5 distinct lands, all surrounding the tree of life, which stands 14 stories tall above the park. It is wonderfully educational and will introduce your children to species from continents that they may not have even learned about yet.

Epcot

EPCOT is a travel experience and a geographic phenomenon. Your children can learn about 11 different nations that they share their world with. They will be able to see and experience what their neighbors across the oceans and seas eat, and learn about their different cultures. EPCOT should be on all school curriculums.

All in all, a Disney family vacation is about much more than just childish fun. The abundance of fun works for the all ages, but there is also an opportunity to broaden the horizons and minds of your children who won’t even be aware of how much they are learning.

And Don’t Forget a Disney Cruise!

Disney provides the perfect setting for the whole family to build the perfect memories. The Disney cruise vacation will add to the family fun all the while adding exciting ports of call. The family will be treated like royalty that adds the time of their lives for the little ones.

Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or purely Burton, is a sizeable city spanning the River Trent East Staffordshire, England. The people of Burton are generally known as “Burtonians”.

Burton is known worldwide for its brewing tradition, residence to more than 12 breweries in its heyday. It at first grew up around Burton-on-Trent Abbey, the monastery of Saint Modwen, and had expanded right into a industrious market city by the early modern era. While Burton’s great bridge over the Trent was in poor repair by the early 1500s it served as “a comen passage backward and forward many countries to the grett releff and comfort of travellyng individuals”, in response to the abbot. The town, which had an projected population of 64,449 in keeping with the 2001 Census, lies inside the Nationwide Forest.

There is some confusion as to whether Burton on Trent is located within the West Midlands or the East Midlands, even though all the town centre is southwest of the River Dove, which forms the Derbyshire/Staffordshire border. This is in all probability as a result of it was formerly inside the East Midlands Utility (electricity and gas) areas, and has Derbyshire postcodes (DE13-DE15).

For hundreds of years, Burton on Trent has been connected with the brewing industry. This is owing to the quality of the local water, which accommodates a high proportion of dissolved salts, principally caused by the gypsum within the surrounding hills. This allowed a larger proportion of hops, a natural preservative, to be incorporated in the beer, thus allowing the beer to be transported further afield. A great deal of the open land within and in the area of the town is protected against chemical treatment  to help preserve this water superiority.

The opening of the River Trent Navigation on the start of the 18th century allowed Burton beer to be shipped to Hull, and to Prussia and on to the Baltic Sea, in addition to to London the place it was for sale in 1712. Several breweries opened within the latter half of the 18th century to seize advantage of this trade. The Napoleonic blockade brought this to a stop, resulting in an amount of consolidation and a redirection of the business to London and Lancashire via canals. When Burton on trent brewers succeeded in duplicating the Pale ale created in London, the advantage of the water’s qualities allowed the progress of the trade of Burton India Pale Ale (an ale specially brewed to keep for the length of the prolonged sea journey to India). The construction of rail links to Liverpool enabled brewers to export their beer throughout the British Empire.

Burton on trent came to dictate this commerce, and at its pinnacle one quarter of all beer offered in Britain was produced in Burton. In the latter part of the nineteenth century there was a development in native breweries, supplemented by outside brewing businesses shifting into the area so that greater than 30 breweries had been recorded in 1880. Nevertheless at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a drop in beer sales causing a lot of breweries to fail, unhelped by the Liberal government’s anti-drinking attitude. This time however, no new markets were found and as a result the breweries shrank by closure and consolidation from 20 in 1900 to eight in 1928. An extra course of mergers and buy-outs resulted in 3 main breweries remaining by 1980: Bass, Ind Coopes and Marstons. In the current day, just Burton Bridge brewery stays as an unbiased brewer.

The town’s association with the brewing trade is widely known by a statue of the Burton Cooper, which is currently located within the Coopers Square shopping centre in the centre of the town.

Should you have an upcoming holiday getaway to Cardiff, there are a number of cheap hotels in Cardiff that won’t empty your wallet. From plain, one star motels with few amenities to three and four star hotels at acceptable rates, there are actually cheap hotels in Cardiff to meet every price range. These lodging choices are located all throughout Cardiff, like City Centre, Cardiff Bay, as well as other relevant areas of the city. Discover all of the tradition, culture, and sights this fabulous location has to offer. From the Cardiff Castle to the Millenium Center to the New Theatre Cardiff, there surely is something available for all here. Cardiff, the capital of Wales, is a centre for business pursuits, like conferences, trade shows, as well as other business events. Get out and enjoy this locale whilst not having to spend a small wad of cash every night on your lodgings. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to find cheap hotels in Cardiff.

Everyone loves a good deal and that includes finding cheap ski deals! Regardless if you happen to be merely wanting to hit the slopes for a day or two or you really want a week long vacation in the mountains, there are numerous methods for you to uncover the cheap ski packages that cover your own desires. First off, check with the lodges directly. Many times, you will find cheap ski vacations which might be significantly cheaper than those by way of a travel agency. Secondly, plan your cheap ski trips when the ski slopes are not packed with men and women. The best times are usually at the beginning and at the conclusion of the season. Finally, if you’re searching for weekend ski breaks,take along your family members. It is usually much more cost-effective to take a trip with a group as compared to with only 1 or 2 people. These would be examples of the best methods for cheap ski deals and retaining more dough in your wallet!

Planning a trip to the captial city of Wales?  There are several cheap hotels in Cardiff that won’t require you to give up all the amenities in exchange for a low price.  From the City Centre to Cardiff Bay, many hotels offer terrific rates, especially during the week.  Tips for finding cheap Cardiff Bay hotels include calling the hotel directly, traveling with a group, or buying a travel package.  Since most hotels aren’t booked solid, you can have fantastic luck by calling the hotel.  Ask for a lower rate than what you found online or through your travel agent. Many times, the reservations agents have the authority to offer you a better deal when you ask.  If you travel with a group, you’re likely to see significant savings, because these trips are usually booked in blocks of rooms or airline tickets.  The savings gets passed onto you.  Finally, if you would like hotels in Cardiff City Centre, considering buying a full travel package.  You could end up with a bonus or two and a great rate!