Vacations

Traveling in Comfort

rmiles7721August 3, 2008Travel

While I much prefer driving when we travel sometimes there are just instances where you have to fly such as when we went to Nassau back in February or when our son comes home from California at Christmas. It’s just too far to drive in one instance and impossible in the other.

I hate flying and as the years go by it keeps getting more and more uncomfortable. First they took away most if not all of the food on domestic flights. Then they start charging you for ALL of your luggage. Now, even though it hasn’t really been covered in the press, they aren’t even carrying pillows or blankets on board. That just plain sucks. Flying is uncomfortable enough and that just adds to it.

Cabin_cuddler

When we flew home from Nassau we ended up getting diverted to the other side of the state and sat there for several hours due to storms that were over Atlanta. What should have taken us and hour to an hour and a half ended up taking several hours. It was hot and then it was cold, the flight was awful due to the storms we had to fly through and I was just ready to walk home by the time we finally arrived.

It’s hard to travel prepared for all emergencies that might come up but the Cabin Cuddler does take care of some of it. Believe it or not but most of us get cold flying in the winter, not the summer. That’s because we travel for comfort. Shorts and a T-Shirt are my traveling clothes of choice but when you get on a plane and the AC is cranked to max then you start getting cold. If there is a blanket at all on the plane now there’s no telling when the last time is that they did laundry. On my last flight the crew had flown several different routes over a 15 hour period, basically just landing long enough to take on fuel and passengers. The sure don’t wash anything in between stops. Yuck!

The Cabin Cuddler comes with it’s own inflatable pillow and the tote bad turns into a pillow case. The travel blanket completely covers you and there is a pocket at the bottom that keeps your feet warm. As often as we drive around the southeast U.S. it would come in handy in the car as well. Instead of carrying three or four pillows and blankets I could just throw a couple of these in the trunk.

The girls love to go on vacation with us but they are always cold as well. When I drive, particularly in the summer, I always crank the air conditioning. Since I am right there in front of the windshield I am usually several degrees warmer than they are in the back seat and the air also helps to keep me awake as well. When I showed the girls the Cabin Cuddler video on the linked website they were amazed. Of course they are children but their comfort is even more important to me than my own.

Let me know if you have one of these or have used one before. I am really interested in hearing from folks that have some experience with them.

Sponsored by Cabin Cuddler

Zemanta Pixie

Superclubs Resorts

rmiles7721March 11, 20082Travel

About a week after we got back from the Bahamas I was emailed a link from the hotel booking site I had used and asked to fill out a survey as well as leave a comment for other folks that might be going through it. We had such a great time I was more than happy to do so. Superclubs all inclusive resorts actually has several of them spread out through the Caribbean including Breezes in Nassau which is where we stayed as well as all inclusive jamaica resorts. I’ve seen pictures from the places in Jamaica and it really looks like a cool place to visit. Prior to booking the vacation in Disney for June I had toyed with the idea of flying to Jamaica and staying there but we decided on something a little more friendly for our five year old.

That’s the view of Breezes Bahamas from the beach at around 7 a.m on Sunday morning before we left to come back home.

The Superclubs all inclusive resorts are just that, all inclusive. That means your hotel room, all food, drinks (including alcohol), gratuities, transportation to and from the airport, sports activities, snorkeling and all kinds of other stuff is included in your booking price. Pretty sweet deal actually. If not for shopping in some of the duty free stores in Nassau I wouldn’t have spent a dime there. I do have one recommendation though and that’s that anyone that wants to do some site seeing either rent a car or scooter. The low-cost transportation we used was cool but it’s always nice to be able to just pick up and go.

There are actually nine all inclusive jamaica resorts that Superclubs runs, ranging from the family friendly to more exclusive adults only resorts.

That’s a shot of the fountain at the end of one of the pools, which is just off the beach as well. Behind where I was standing is the main restaurant, which is mostly buffet style but was still pretty darn good. Eat and drink and sleep by the beach, what else could you ask for 🙂

Breezes Bahamas

rmiles7721January 24, 20082Travel

So I’ve booked the hotel for next month. I got one of those all-inclusive packages because, well, alcohol can get mighty expensive and it’s included as well. Not that I am a lush or anything, that’s only when I am on vacation.

Oh, wait, that is my vacation. I have permission to be a lush then.

The Breezes is on Cable Beach on the main island rather than Paradise Island but it is also several hundred bucks cheaper than Atlantis or Paradise Island Resorts. Except for the whiners most of the reviews I read have been pretty decent and there are even a couple of video reviews on youtube. It looks more like a resort where old people and middle class people that can’t afford Atlantis stay, so I should fit in quite nicely.

Bon Voyage et al.

In 45 Days I Will Be Here…

rmiles7721December 30, 20075Travel

nassau

I had almost forgotten to post about it but that last review I did on Costa Rica real estate reminded me.

I booked our flights to Nassau, the Bahamas this morning prior to going to work. I start my vacation on February 14th and I was actually looking for flight information to Key West but after looking around several sites as well as Clark Howard’s (one of my heroes) I discovered that I could fly to Nassau cheaper than I could to Key West. WTF is up with that?

I don’t have a passport or anything and the wife’s is  long expired so I sent off for our birth certificates (actually she did) this morning and I should have them back by the end of the week. Tomorrow morning I will get my passport photos done and then send off for them prior to the end of the week. It’s kind of expensive but you can get expedited passport delivery in something like three weeks. That should give me a couple of weeks to spare.

This is Atlantis, one of the resorts down there…

atlantis

I don’t know that we will stay there but it’s one of the places I have been looking at.

My natural instincts are to get something cheap and deal with that but there are a couple of the all-inclusive resort deals that look interesting. All food, alcohol, activities and gratuities for one price. Not too bad. I am looking forward to the trip as I have never been outside of the United States. Might as well make the first trip to the Caribbean. First I have to deal with the down side though…

What’s the down side you ask?

Getting there.

I would just as soon drive to Miami and then take a cruise to Nassau but since we are going in the middle of February the wife is going to have to take an extra day off of work as it is. We are somewhat limited on time.

Damn.

As I said at the top, I booked our flights this morning.

I hate flying.

The last time I flew was in February 2006 when I went down to the Gulf Coast to work for a week in one of our restaurants.

I hate flying.

I may ask my doctor for a couple of valium just so that I can make the flight. Maybe not Valium, but something else to tranquilize my paranoid ass so that I can make the two and a half hour fucking flight over the middle of nothing but sharks.

Did you know that hitting the water from 30,000 feet is just like hitting cement?

It may be safer to fly than to drive but at least when I am driving I am in control and can pull the fuck over.

It’s not even a matter of facing your fears. I have faced my fear of flying before and every time I do it again it’s worse.

Anybody have any tips?

I don’t want to get so drunk that I’m chasing dwarves around the airport or anything, they might throw my ass out before I ever get on the plane.

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Speaking of Vacationing…

rmiles7721December 13, 2007Travel

It looks like I am going to have to take mine in January. It’s either that or wait until April, which sort of pisses me off. I had hoped to take mine when the wife and kids were out in March but one of my managers already has reservations at Disney, so I decided to take it in the middle of February and maybe go someplace warm, but my newest manager is wanting to go on a cruise in February but was never able to nail down a date or give me any more information so I may just tell him he’s stuck with whatever is left. I have been asking for vacation dates since early October because with ten managers and three districts, not to mention my boss, we have to squeeze everyone in.

My one manager that is going to Disney gave me her requests right away. Two of the three dates overlap what I was hoping to take but she has kids as well so I can work around her’s. My other manager that has been in his store for awhile can’t seem to give me anything definite. I have asked him several times over the last two months and I just called them all a few minutes ago and told them they had to bring me the dates this afternoon at our meeting. His question was ‘all of 2008?’. Well, yeah, that is what I have been f’ing asking for the last two months. The other guy that is new I have only asked for them three times. He just told me it didn’t matter so I am going to sit down shortly and make out a vacation schedule and they can just take any left-over dates that I haven’t taken. I prefer to plan ahead and it irritates the hell out of me that they cannot seem to plan any farther than two weeks away.

RealTravel Travel Blog

rmiles7721September 18, 2007Travel

With all of the writing I do on occasion about destinations I’ve been to, want to go to or only wish I could get to, I hit the occasional travel blog to see what other peoples experiences have been. RealTravel travel blog is a fairly informative blog that I like to go to. They have some well written pieces about all sorts of destinations and I enjoy visiting occasionally.

One of the first things that I usually look for after checking out a couple of photographs is how long the site has been around. I want to know that these folks really have an interest in what they are writing about and with RealTravel travel blog there are several hundred posts which means that they just didn’t throw up a website with a couple of posts and a few ads to make a quick buck. They are in it for the long haul and WANT me to read about these places.

What do I like reading most over there? The Florida Keys and Hawaii of course 🙂 That’s pretty much a no-brainer if you’ve been reading here for any amount of time. I have started setting a bit of money aside this time. I REALLY want to go down to the keys in January or February and when our 20th anniversary rolls around Memorial Day weekend next year I am planning a trip to Hawaii finally. Actually it will be a couple of weeks after Memorial Day because school won’t be out until after that, or at least the teachers won’t and I of course never have holidays off. Anyway, I will probably be doing quite a bit of reading at the travel blog as well as other sites between now and then. I only wish I could DRIVE to Hawaii as I hate flying with a passion.

Pigeon Forge

rmiles7721September 2, 2007Travel

A few years back when my parents still lived in Virginia, on one of our vacations we took a little over a week and first went up to Gatlinburg and stayed for a couple of nights, drove to Alexandria and spent the weekend with my parents, and wound up in Hilton Head where we spent a day or two with our friends down there. It was a pretty exhausting vacation really. I needed a vacation just to recover from the vacation. One of the things that we didn’t get to do while we were in Gatlinburg was go to Pigeon Forge. The wife didn’t seem real interested and I didn’t press it.

I have a friend of mine who lives right outside out Gatlinburg and she says that Pigeon Forge is beautiful and that we need to make the trip, particularly in the fall when it’s not so hot. I have been seriously considering getting a Pigeon Forge cabin rental and staying for the weekend to at least check it out. It won’t be this fall as I have already reserved a cabin in Helen Georgia during Oktoberfest (the blog meet) but maybe in the spring before it gets too terrible hot.

Trinidad and Tobago

rmiles7721August 30, 2007Travel

…I don’t even remember what it was I was watching but there some action flick on last night before I went to bed and the location was down in the Caribbean, which of course got me to thinking about where I want to go on vacation in January or February. My September vacation is locked in already since the boy is graduating from boot camp we will be spending at least half the week in Beaufort, SC. As a matter of fact I just finished reserving a mini-van for the trip this morning and booked rooms last week.

Anyway, after Christmas it’s so dreary around here and that makes it the perfect time to go for a vacation in the Caribbean, perhaps in Trinidad. The weather that time of year is great. From what I understand, the temperature ranges from 70-85 degrees in January, neither too hot or too cold.

If you know your history you will know that Columbus discovered the island in 1498 and claimed it for Spain. Since there was no gold as there was in other parts of the Caribbean it wasn’t settled immediately. He also sited Tobago (naming it Assumption) but it was pretty much ignored until the 1600s. By the time a few years before the American Revolution there were only 800 inhabitants on the island and spain started offering incentives for people that were Catholic to immigrate there, whether spanish or not. By 1797 when the British took control of the island the population had grown to over 16,000 which included 2100 white Europeans and 4500 free Africans.

Since there were so many non-white land owners in Trinidad Britain granted the island Crown Colony status, which meant that the residents were denied the right to vote and kept them out of the political process. Trinidad finally gained independence from Britain in 1962 and Trinidad and Tobago together formed a republic in 1976. One cool fact about Trinidad is that it was the first country in the world to recognize emancipation from slavery.

trinidad.jpg
Like most of the Caribbean Trinidad and Tobago are blessed with warm blue seas and beautiful sunsets. It is the home of Carnival. Even though it is located just off the tip of Venezuela it is not considered part of the South American continent.

Asian Blog

rmiles7721August 9, 2007Blogging, Travel

Since I post quite a bit about vacations and different places I want to go, I also frequent a few sites that specialize in that genre. One of the sites that I have come across is the Asia travel blog. Blogasian has Asian news on travel and hotels, and has nice thorough descriptions and some pictures as well, and we all know that I prefer pictures any day. They have several photos accompanying the blog posts which is a must for me. I like to be able to get a visual to go along with what I am reading.

There is everything over there from a guide to Taj Mahal to the Top 5 Ways to Spot Lady Boys in Thailand, one of those skills that you need to have if you ever go spend time in Asia. The Lady Boys post is particularly funny. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Regarding the Taj Mahal post, here is what they have to say

Walking up to visit the Taj Mahal,
you approach the main gateway onto the grounds, the rest blocked from
view by a wall, which surrounds it on three sides, the fourth blocked
from easy access by the Jamuna river. Through the gateway, you’ll
immediately see the elaborately laid out gardens, with reflecting pools
in the center. Through the archway to your left sits a mosque, and to
your right is, what they believe, may have been used as a guesthouse.
Of course, immediately ahead of you beyond the gardens is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the tomb itself.

It is actually a much longer post but I really enjoyed reading the description and history of the Taj Mahal.

I would like to eventually go visit several places in Asia and as with anyplace else I always read up on the cities and towns that I want to visit, to get a feel for the place. I know nothing is a substitute for experience but it’s always nice to have at least a little bit of knowledge about where you are going before you get there.

Blogasian is a fairly new site, but I have bookmarked it in my RSS reader to see how often they update and to go back and check it out again. With as many sites as I like to visit I like to know if they’ve updated before I go to the page itself.