Vacation


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Scarab Sages

Having just gotten back from my honeymoon, and having had such a wonderful experience on the cruise we did, I was wondering what are some folks favorite vacations.

Mrs. Zombie and I did a cruise honeymoon out of new Orleans (which has a very nice cruise terminal, by the way). It was a Carnival cruise that left Monday, spent all Tuesday at sea, Wednesday in Costa Maya (Mexico), Thursday in Cozumel (also Mexico), Friday at sea, and then Saturday back to New Orleans. We had a blast. We did three excursions while in port, saw some of the ships shows (including to great comedians), and eat at least 4 meals a day. the crew were polite, friendly, and very professional. The food was great. The passengers were just the right mix of old, middle-age, and young. All in all, it was a great experience and we can't wait to do it again.

Anyone else want to share?


Umm...I spent mine moving... :( No relaxation time for me, sadly. I badly need a day of playing video games and general goof-offedness.


I've been goofing off at home since I graduated college. I would like to hit Philedelphia to see the Museum of Medical Oddities before I finally manage to get a day job and hopefully move back into NYC. When I sort-of dated a girl from the midwest, I wanted to check out The House on the Rock from American Gods, but that didn't work out. Stupid failed relationships ruining my quirky, fun vacation plans.

My family goes up to Manchester, Vermont every other summer or so. I haven't gone the last few times (in favor of playing D&D, which inevitably gets canceled because other people wouldn't show up, despite my valiant sacrifice), but usually it amounts to my mother and sisters doing a lot of shopping while I'm just dumped at the Northshire Bookstore to read and look at used cds for a while, then I check out the scenery. We also visit family and look at local attractions in the surrounding area. Not bad.

Liberty's Edge

I redirect you here.

Dark Archive Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games

Sounds like you had a great honeymoon, AZ!

I'm in the process of planning my own honeymoon, and since my blushing bride-to-be hates beaches, my original idea of Aruba didn't go over so well. Now, I'm leaning towards San Diego and the Hotel Del Coronado. It's warm, and there's tons of stuff to do that's not beach-related. I'm hoping this will be my favorite vacation.

Although it'll be hard to top my trip to Kentucky: Mammoth Caves AND a tour of the Jim Beam distillery...


We honeymooned in Vegas. My wife couldn't get herself to spend her gambling allowance on gambling, so she bought shoes.

Favorite vacation was a 2 week trip to Germany in 2000, showing my American family around my hometown and surroundings. Visited Bastogne to see the war memorials and real life Sherman tank in the city square, went to Hamburg, Hannover, Cologne and explored castles and such. It was also a Christmas vacation so it was doubly nice to be able to see my German side of the family for Christmas for the first time in many years.

Liberty's Edge

Dang, I keep reading the thread title as 'Vatican'. I never got laarned in skool real good.


The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
Dang, I keep reading the thread title as 'Vatican'. I never got laarned in skool real good.

Whew! I'm not the only one!

My favorite vacation was just this year. We were finally able to take a real family vacation and took the kids (minus the one in college) down to Six Flags Marine World. It was great! We got to pet dolphins and watch a killer whale show. And the rides were awesome! It was the first time in years my 16 year old son wasn't walking around with a scowl and the "I'm just too cool for my parents" attitude. It was good to just laugh and be a family.


My wife and I took a 3 week honeymoon in New Zealand and Fiji in January 2005. It was awesome. We trekked around the north island for 2 weeks in a campervan - went spelunking, bungee jumping, visited Hobbiton (Matamata), flew over Mount Doom (Mount Ngauruhoe), sampled good food and wine, went mountain biking in Rotorua, etc. Then we spent a week on the beach in Fiji just relaxing. Unforgettable; hands down the best vacation I've ever been on.


Glad you had a good time on your cruise, Aberzombie. I have a list of things I want to do before I die, and go on a caribbean cruise was right up there. Two years ago, as a birthday gift, my husband & I (and my Dad & his girlfriend) all went on a Carnival cruise. It was okay but my overall impression was one of disappointment. First, just getting around on the ship was a nightmare. You had to go up to the fifth deck, for instance, take a couple twists and turns, and then go back down in order to get to the third deck. I had heard people rave on & on about the quality and quantity of food. That wasn't my experience. All the meals were pretty harshly dictated time-wise (especially dinner), had miniscule portions of beautiful looking but mediocre tasting entrees with pretty limited varieties. Most of the on-board activities that we were interested in doing/seeing took place either late at night or some other inconvenient time. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, had a charge/fee attached to it. We even had to pay to play the board games, which were locked down as if they were national secrets in a library, which was also locked the huge majority of the time. I knew they would charge me for alcoholic beverages (not an issue, since I don't drink) but I didn't realize they would charge me for water or any other beverage! It was almost $25 a minute to use the phone in our room (I tried to call the kids once a day). My husband & I watched a football game on the large screen, which was out on an upper deck. It wasn't a great experience since we had to endure freezing rain and the only available nurishment was a $4 tiny bag of stale popcorn and a $6 styrofoam cup of hot cocoa (about 4 ounces of liquid). These you had to wait in a huge line to receive. For being a fun ship, we spent most of our time onboard either entertaining ourselves ;) or being bored. My father and his girlfriend smoke and I felt really sorry for them as it was a full-time job and a forty minute workout to get to a section of the ship that allowed smoking. Some of the crew was friendly - mostly those looking for a big tip or needing your positive opinion on the final satisfaction report. Others, including the folks at the pursuer's desk, were incredibly rude. There were kids running everywhere - clogging the pools, running up and down the hallways to all hours of the night, etc. I was surprised by the sheer volume of white trash on the ship. Our ports of call were Freeport, Bahamas; Grand Cayman; and Costa de Maya, Mexico. We had an awesome time at the actual destinations: on the tours, scuba diving, etc. My father paid for the cruise itself but we had to pay for our own expenses which came to almost $3000 (not including gambling, souvenirs or similar expenses). I'd really have been torqued if I had shelled out the full amount for such small return.
Anyway, my favorite family vacation was when I was 15 and my Dad took my older sister & I to Florida (from upstate NY). We planned the trip down to every detail for a whole year previous to leaving. We camped in tents and hit all the major tourist traps. We had all kinds of goofy and/or sentimental bonding moments. Almost thirty years later, we still all remember it fondly.
In fact, between Spring Break and various other occassions, my husband & I have done the whole Florida scene almost a dozen times. At one point, it *did* start to get a little old but we're already planning a trip next year to take the kids to Disney, etc. I know it'll be fun.
We hit several places in NY; then Atlantic City,NJ on our honeymoon. We had a great time but I'm sure it was mostly the situation more than the destination.
For our first year anniversary, we went to Niagara Falls and that was fun. There's a lot more to do than just see the falls. We stayed a full week and still didn't see everything we wanted.
We've done Virginia Beach area several times with different groups or by ourselves. That's a cool place with something for everyone's tastes.
A couple years ago, we (hubby & me) went to Las Vegas. We had fun but, again, were largely disappointed. It's not all it's hyped up to be. Of course, we're not big gamblers. YMMV. I was shocked at the number of families there, especially with really young children. I didn't personally think that was terribly appropriate. We stayed five days, though I was ready to go home after day 3. We saw everything we were interested in seeing. We had fun but my advice to others is - Don't believe what they show in movies/tv.
My favorite more recent vacation has been to the South Pacific and Asia. Wasn't terribly appealing to me at first, but ended up having a blast. I'm a history buff and there are a lot of historical sites and interesting ancient things to see/learn about. The asian cultures are just so different than American culture, it's startling and awesome all at the same time.
Another great place for unexpected fun - Seattle. Stayed there a week and saw all kinds of neat things. The Fish Market, Space Needle, museums, sports, Mt. Ranier. It's a surprising niche of so many various cultural activities. We had a great time.
In two years we'll be doing a tour of Europe. I'm very excited.
Anyway, sorry for babbling...


My recent trip to France was pretty good. Although, I hate playing "tourist", especially since I hate other tourists as much as the Parisians do (the sign says NO CAMERAS!!! YOUR FLASHES ARE FADING THE PAINTINGS YOU F*@@TARDS!!!).

My ideal vacation would pobably be a summer touring Europe and staying in youth hostles (no I have not seen "Hostle" and I never will), and just basically being a traveller rather than a tourist.


Glad to hear you had a great honeymoon Aberzombie! Mines in 10 days :)
We originally wanted to do a cruise too but changed our minds in favor of a beach.


Congratulations on the nuptiuals AZ.

I've several really good vacations, in no particular order here they are...

1) Spending a week in Melbourn Austrailia visiting a friend and her husband. It was my first trip out of the continental US. The flight back is what killed me. Left Melbourn at 2:30p on a Wed, got to LAX at 2:00p on that same Wed and home (well Dallas) at 6pm that evening. (I want to know the time travel spell the pilot used) :o)

2) A driving trip (about 5 yrs ago) with my Mom & Grandmother (R.I.P.) to White Sands, New Mexico. The scenery was gorgeous, especially around the Inn of the Mountain Gods and Cloudcroft.

3) Another road trip with them (3 yrs ago, the last road trip with them before Grandmaw's Alzheimers kicked in). We went to Tennessee, where Grandmaw's family was from. Drove the Naches Trail from Louisiana thru Alabama and up to Tennesse. It was stinking gorgeous too. Toured 2 Civil War battle grounds and then headed to the mountains of Tennessee up around Lebanon. I wouldn't trade those days for anything.

The Exchange

Good job, Zombie! I actually went to Aruba for my Honeymoon and had an all inclusive package. It was nice. I liked the resort we stayed at and having a mixed, frozen drink in your hand all day long is nice. The diving was good, I enjoyed snoorkeeellllinnnnggg! The topless beach was nice, specially when the wifey got up her nerve;P, one thing to note though most people who decide to be topless shouldn't be, and most men who want to wear spandex banana hammocks shouldn't (I am looking at you, mister 280lb(40-50 of which was body hair) Italian gorilla that I couldn't tell you even had suit on from the back, eeeewwwwww!).
Another thing to note, most people like tropical islands more than desert islands, and Aruba is a desert island.

FH


Fake Healer wrote:

one thing to note though most people who decide to be topless shouldn't be, and most men who want to wear spandex banana hammocks shouldn't (I am looking at you, mister 280lb(40-50 of which was body hair) Italian gorilla that I couldn't tell you even had suit on from the back, eeeewwwwww!).

Well, people usually get less self-conscious about their bodies when they get older, which means that they don't dare to let it all hang out until it all really starts to hang out...

This includes me, btw...I am much more open to nudity than several people I know with much better-looking bodies.

So it is not fault of those who go topless, it is fault of those who don't.

Scarab Sages

All I know, is that I saw MANY people on the ship and in Mexico who were wearing WAY TOO LITTLE clothing. I swear that sometimes I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out.


Aberzombie wrote:
All I know, is that I saw MANY people on the ship and in Mexico who were wearing WAY TOO LITTLE clothing. I swear that sometimes I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out.

Do it, you're a Zombie--it'ss make you scarier.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I have travelled much, and many trips I have forgotten.

But the best trip was when my nephew and I went to South Africa. I had saved up frequent flyer miles and went on British Airways First class. My nephew left from a different city in the US and went on United and South African. We met up in London and spent the day there. City tour on the red buses, Tower of London, etc. My nephew wanted to eat lunch in the original Hard Rock cafe so we did.

On my flight down to Johannesburg the flight attendant served me a glass of wine , and then another, and then he said, "Shall I just go ahead and leave you the bottle then, sir?" Me:"Why, certainly, thank you." Nighty night.

From there we went on to Kruger National Park for a safari. Loads of fun going out in the open Range Rovers with groups of 10 of us from all over the world. Met interesting people and saw majestic animals in the wild.

Capetown was beautiful with Table Mountain and the harbor. Just outside Capetown we went on a day trip to see the great white sharks - you know those active ones near Seal Island that leap out of the water. This was the one thing my nephew was really looking forward to. Unfortunatley for him he got seasick on the ride out and never got to see them. Too bad, they were awesome. I kept feeling like sheriff Brody "We're gonna need a bigger boat." At least 12-15 of them came circling our boat. Some people went down in cages to see them firsthand, but you have to be dive-certified.

Great fun.


Best trip I ever had was going to Japan as part of a class last year. We stayed 2 months with host families in Tokyo, and went to language classes in the Chiyoda prefecture. I had a great host family, and was able to explore parts of Tokyo like Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ueno and Roppongi.

We were also able to travel in groups during Golden Week, a time where several large holidays happen around a week in April. Many people take this entire week off to travel and get out into the countryside.

My group went to Miyajima, Hiroshima and Kyoto, visiting local sites, and staying in youth hostels. Some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen, as well as some of the best food! Stands as one of the best times I've ever had in my life, and I plan to go back in Spring of 08!

Scarab Sages

I've done Japan twice. Both times, however, were work related. Nevertheless, I spent 2 weeks each timem and had time to go sight seeing and eat some fantastic food.

I was in Yokosuka both times (the Navy has a base there), but on the weekends we'd take a train to Kamakura (spelling?), walk around, visit the statue of the Great Buddha, and eat at some fo the local restraunts. There was a great little place on the bay at Kamakura run by a German ex-pat.

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