San Antonio, TX - River walk

Our family went on this vacation about two years ago and it is one of those experiences that stayed fresh in my mind. I don't know if we will go to Venice, Italy and sail the great canal in a gondola. But this vacation came close to that experience. :) The official "San Antonio Riverwalk" website describes this attraction as a "Public park open 365 days a year, lined with individual businesses composed of restaurants, hotels, attractions and more." And what a awesome public park it is!! This river and riverwalk in located one story below the downtown of San Antonio city. 

     During this vacation, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency by the banks of the San Antonio river. There are many hotels like this by the banks of the river and all of these hotels usually have an entry to the riverwalk path by the river from their lobby or ground floor. Our hotel had one too. On the ground level if you exit the hotel by the road side, you will see the regular downtown streets.But if you exit these building by the riverwalk entry, you will see the beautiful river lined on both sides with hotels and other business, with walkways on both sides also having bridges across the river in a few spots for walkers to walk across from one side of the river bank to the other. Furthermore, even in the street-level there are stairs and entry ways in certain areas of the sidewalks from where we can join the riverwalk. 

There are two ways to experience the riverwalk:

1. Taking a historical tourist boat ride through the river. It is a 35 minute narrated history boat tour of the San Antonio river walk.
2. Taking a narrated walking tour by the riverwalk paths.

Dinner cruise boats and private tours are also other ways to experience this riverwalk.

We did a narrated scenic boat ride of the river. And it gave us an experience similar to the gondola rides of the great canal in Italy. But in a smaller level. 

    Another wonderful sight to behold is seeing the riverwalk after dusk. With all the business and hotels having their lights and signs lit up. Also with the street lamps in the river walk lit up. The riverwalk looks so romantic and lit up like a fairy-land. 

Also, one should not miss going to the Rivercenter Mall in downtown San Antonio where the river passes through. With regards to shops and other attractions, this mall is like any other regular mall. The specialty of this mall lies in the San Antonio river that passes through it... or rather under it. Take a look at the pictures of the mall below:

All in all, this was one spell-binding experience for our family and we are still hoping that if we will get to do this again!! :)

For more interesting facts about the San Antonio river and the riverwalk please check out the following link:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/150years/article/20-Things-to-know-about-the-River-Walk-6088171.php#photo-6475577

Thank you for reading my posts and see you all again later at another place, in another time. 

Bye

Thanks to the following sites for some of the pictures in this blog:

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/07/18/10-things-you-must-do-in-san-antonio/

http://www.twincityphotos.com/san-antonio-riverwalk-for-the-amazing-destination.html/san-antonio-riverwalk-restaurants

http://imglop.com/san-antonio-riverwalk-at-night.asp

http://www.usatoday.com/story/dispatches/2013/10/03/san-antonio-river-walk-expands/2903501/

7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise on the Royal Caribbean's "Allure of the Seas" - Part II

  

            As I mentioned earlier, this part of my blog will be a little about the western Caribbean islands that we visited on our 7-night cruise. We visited three ports of call in our cruise:

• Labadee resort in Haiti - This is Royal Caribbean's own private resort near the beach. This resort is owned and operated by Royal Caribbean. But of course, to see the REAL Haiti you would have to go beyond the resort limits and spend your own money for transportation and all. The Labadee resort is also the place where Royal Caribbean arranges a big get together for its employees once a year. There was lots of swimming and shopping for souvenirs here. Also they had a grill with lots of food. And people who did not like eating anything served in the grill restaurant, they could go back to the ship and eat and one of the restaurants on board.

• Falmouth, Jamaica - This was our next stop. Falmouth is the chief town and capital of the Trelawny parish in Jamaica. In Falmouth, you start out at the dock with a compound having duty-free shops for jewellery and precious stones etc. with some restaurants. There are a lot of shore excursions here like the 1700's great house and plantation tour, Chukka zipline canopy with Dunn river falls, Dolphin touch experience etc. Also there are trolley tours of the real Falmouth, outside the dock compound. Since our DS was back at the ship, in adventure ocean and we wanted to have a family lunch, we chose only the trolley tour excursion. But it was a very informative and interesting sight-seeing excursion which we loved. We had a wonderful tour guide who witty, engaging and also was a font of information on Falmouth and Jamaica. Though there was a lot of info that we saw and heard about Falmouth, one thing that made an impact on us was this painting on the right, that we saw in the St. Peter's church. This painting was painted by the painter William Zidnic in 1966. It is the image of Christ when you look from far, but upclose you will see faces of prominent leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and some other common faces of people. This painting was a wonderful reminder of the truth - though we all are different in different ways, all of us a one with God!

• Cozumel, Mexico - This was our last port of call on sea before we headed back to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. In Cozumel too there were a lot of shore excursions like Tulum Mayan ruins express, Whale shark encounter and snorkel etc. And only in Cozumel, once we get get down, we directly go into the city and use cabs and other public transportation to explore the city ourselves. Of all this, we only visited the Forum shops, a hub of duty-free shopping and were back at the ship. This day too, our son chose to be at the adventure ocean for kids on the ship, so we had to hurry back. But what of Cozumel we saw, we really enjoyed it and it was beautiful. 

• Everglades, Ft. Lauderdale - Technically, though this was a place we went after we disembarked from the cruise ship, I thought I should talk about this place. We went to Everglades for the famed "Airboat ride" through the swamps of the River of grass tropical wetlands, along with that we got a chance to enjoy a free show of one of the "Gator boys" with their alligators.The airboat ride was beautiful!.. here are some pictures from this excursion:
  

Now coming to the cruise lingo that I promised:

• The transportation that you are on in a cruise is always called a "Ship", not a "boat" - I remeber a joke by our cruise captain - "A ship has a captain behind the wheel and a boat has an angry husband!!"
• Staterooms - the rooms in a ship.
• Deck - floors inside a ship. Fun fact - a cruise ship does not have a 13th floor to avoid bad luck.
• Bow - front of a ship
• Stern - back of a ship
• Port - left side of the ship when facing forward (the bow)
• Starboard - right side of the ship when facing forward

Also here are some fun facts about the Allure of the seas:

       Ship Statistics

       225,000 gross tons                                            30 feet draft

       1,187 feet long                                                  208 feet wide

       46 wheelchair accessible staterooms                22 knots cruising speed

       5,400 guests (double occupancy)                     6,296 guests

       24 guest elevators                                             2,180 crew

       16 passenger decks

       

        Staterooms

        Total: 2,704                                                     Outside: 254

        683 Staterooms with additional berths            Inside:   496

        Balcony: 1,956

Finally, here is one photo which I don't want to miss sharing with you all. This picture is of the Allure of the seas and the Navigator of the seas, another ship of the Royal Caribbean docked side by side:

With this, let me say good bye and thanks for reading my blog. 

7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise on the Royal Caribbean's "Allure of the Seas" - Part I

Hello everyone,
                  Hope all is well with your lives. I for one got caught up in the regular grind of life and had not posted for quiet sometime, as you know. Sorry for that. But finally now I decided to get myself going with the blog. Like I said before, this blog is mostly about our travels around the US. And this time I would be sharing with you our family's most recent vacation, the  "7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise" with the Royal Caribbean Cruise lines ship - "Allure of the Seas".

When it comes to this cruise, there are two things that I should write about. The ship - "Allure of the seas" and the western Caribbean ports we went to. But mostly, it is going to be about the ship I think.
Also since I have a lot to talk about this cruise, I am going to do this blog in two parts. And this is Part - I for you!.

Now about that ship......The 225,282-ton, 5,400-passenger Allure of the Seas is the world's largest cruise ship -- by five centimeters. (5,400 is double occupancy -- the full load is 6,360). Some say this is "THE" largest ship on our oceans right now, even compared to navy vessels of the world.  Few facts about this awesome ship:

• 16 decks tall (floors)
• 7 distinct neighborhoods: the central park, boardwalk, royal promenade, the pool and sports zone, youth zone, entertainment zone, Vitality at Sea & fitness center. 
• First Starbucks at sea
• 2,384 crew members to serve us
• 25 different dining options of which 13 of them are complimentary. Eat in any one of these complimentary restaurants when they are open
• Among other things, the ship houses an ice skating rink, surf simulator zone, rock climbing, zip line, mini golf range, basket ball and table tennis courts, casino, a theater, disco den, night club, carousel and gaming zone.
• Adventure ocean - An area exclusively for kids, with lots of activities and a theater only for kids. 
• Lots of theater, ice-skating and aqua shows in the awesome aqua theater for us to enjoy. All of these shows are performed by professional artists.
• The Rising Tide bar - Which is a moving bar, that climbs up and down four decks.
• Elaborate swimming pools, kids pool, Jacuzzi tub, sun deck in the pool zone.
• Dreamworks experience with character dining, parades and meet & greets with many Dreamworks characters.
• Complimentary youth program at the Adventure ocean in the youth zone.
  
  
  

As for living in a ship for seven days. We didn't even feel it!! The real feel that you would have in this ship would that of living in a hotel located inside a big shopping mall like the Mall of America or a resort. There are different levels of rooms available in this cruise ship like any other ship, the suite, stateroom with balcony, stateroom only etc. We had a stateroom with a balcony. Though our cabin was compact, we didn't really mind it, because the only time we came to our cabin was to sleep at the end of a long, fun-filled, very busy day!!
Here are some pictures of our cabin:

Every day the room service cleans our cabins twice - once in the morning and once in the evening. And in the morning our room steward leaves a planner called the "cruise compass" which shows the events/ shows happening on deck that day, the restaurants, shops, pubs, clubs on deck with their open and close times and any specials etc. Also if you have kids who you registered in the on deck kids camp the "Adventure Ocean", then a cruise planner exclusively for the kids activities is also left with the cruise compass. The room steward also used to leave some cute surprises in our room, which our 6yr old DS used to really enjoy!! here are some pictures of the surprises:

Here is a snapshot of some of the shows that we got to see and stuff that we got to do during this cruise:

• Aqua theater shows - OceanAria, fountain show, Dreamworks "Sail off" party.
• Dreamworks character breakfast with Shrek, princess Fiona and Puss-in-boots
• Dreamworks Move it! Move it! parade with all the Dreamworks characters
• Watch Dreamworks movies like "how to train your dragon", Puss-in boots and many other at one of the movie theaters on board
• Ice shows - Game show, "How to train your dragon - on ice"
• Theater shows - Chicago, Headliner show by MO5AIC, the Blue planet.
• Character meet ups with Kungfu panda - Po, King Julien, Princess Fiona, Shrek, Alex the lion and many more.
• Some of the restaurants on board that we tried: Sorrento's - Only pizza, Windjammer marketplace, Adiago -  formal dining resturant, Park Cafe - Salad bar and deli.

Now let me stop this post here and say good bye for now. So meet you in my next post - Part II of our cruise vacation. Also look forward to read some fun facts and cruiser lingo in Part II!!

See you later then!

Our trip to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch - San Antonio, TX

Hey all,
       I back again, ready to post some new content. This time I am going to talk about our trip to the "Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch - San Antonio, Texas". I know that my blog is starting to sound more and more like a travel blog. But Hey! I can only write about things which awed me right?... So here goes -" Our trip to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch - San Antonio, TX".

First of, this post would a short one, because I am going to let my pictures speak and not so much my words. Also for this experience, it is more like "seeing is believing". The interesting thing about this trip is that this wildlife ranch was NOT a part of our plan. Then how we ended up there you ask? Well.. you see, in the year 2013, we used to live in Houston, TX from where we went on a road trip to the SeaWorld in San Antonio for our son's birthday. We also visited the city of San Antonio famous for something called the "Riverwalk" and few more things. On the way back we saw that there was a place called "Natural Bridge Caverns" - a system of naturally formed limestone caverns. I will blog about all these places in my future posts. But anyways, as we entered into the Natural Bridge state park, we saw two entryways - one leading to the caverns and another to the wildlife ranch. We went to the caverns after which, out of curiosity we went to the wildlife ranch too (though we have never heard of it!!). And this was one of the best experiences for us and our dear son.

     For people who have gone to African safaris (yes... its you dear sums) this experience may not be that awesome. But we have never been to any safaris and it was the coolest experience for us!! This place is a real wild animals petting farm. They do not have lions, tigers or other ferocious beasts here. But there are zebras, ostriches, wild buffaloes, bison, giraffe, rhinoceros etc. So here is what happens, once we enter the ranch, we pay the entry fee and get some packets with food pellets to feed the animals. Since this is a drive through ranch, we don't park anywhere till the end where we exit the wildlife area to a petting barnyard, restaurant and souvenir shops. So we start following the road through the park. The rangers will inform us about the ranch rules even at the start: no honking, no yelling or loud noises that would scare the animals away or make them go wild.

Then as you drive by slowly as a snail, the animals start coming to you one by one and know what to expect from you, with all the feeding that goes one everyday. They stick their noses into the open window of your car or take food pellets from your outstretched hands.

This is a picture taken of the cars trailing ahead of us. 

We had gazelles, deer, wild goats, ostrich, and many more come, take food from our hands. That's our DS with a deer and a zebra feeding out of his hand.

Also here are some of the animals that we saw up close.

 

 It was so cool when the ostrich in the above picture walked ahead of us till we drove out of the wildlife park and then walked back into the park in the same sedate pace.

The rhinoceros, giraffe and some other animals are kept in large enclosures. For ensuring safety of the visitors and the resident animals, there are always park rangers driving around inside the ranch. Also at the end of our drive through, there was a petting barnyard with goats and llamas to pet & feed. The kid goats were so after the food pellets and very mischievous that we felt like we were among a bunch of preschoolers!!! There are some monkeys and some birds too in enclosures.

Now coming to the ranch's location the Natural Bridge wildlife ranch is located between San Antonio and New Braunfels, Texas at:
26515 Natural Bridge Caverns Rd.
San Antonio, Texas 78266.
For more details and information check out their website:
www.wildliferanchtexas.com. 

Don't forget to checkout more cool pictures of the animals and photos posted by visitors for the safari photo contest in the website. Also all the pictures posted by the visitors in the website's photo contest are real, taken by people like you and me, not by professionals for advertisement purposes.
Also when you Google for this ranch, you will get to see more photos of the animals. This is one trip where you have to see more pictures, than hear or read more words to know about the place.
Hope I expressed myself well, to give you an idea about the Natural Bridge wildlife ranch and thanks for reading my post.
See you later in an another post, about another place...

  

Our Trip to the "Museum of Science + Industry - Chicago"

            Recently I was going through my trip souvenirs collection and realized that our family seems to have traveled quiet a few places in the USA that we can talk about!. So, result.. this blog!. In my blog, you will see reviews on various places our family went, or events that we attended or products that we used etc.
       I know this makes you feel that my blog is a mish mash of various topics, which it will be. But I can promise you one thing..... no two posts of my blog will be the same.
Now, getting back to the title's purpose, I decided that I will start my blog with a review of the most recent trip we made. It was to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL.
 When I say that one day will not be enough for going through all the exhibits of the museum, I am saying the truth. We reached the museum around 10 am in the morning and we were there till closing time of the museum.
     The museum is set up in 4 levels, with the entry hall being the base level and another 3 levels spanning above this entry hall. Below are only some of the many interesting exhibits that captivated us:

Level 1- Lower Level

Farm tech area has cool displays of John Deere's harvester and combine tractors. Also there are simulation consoles where, on screen you can try your hand on driving a combine and planting/harvesting crops!!

     The Colleen Moore's fairy castle display is a sight to behold!. This is the fairy castle which was created by actress Colleen Moore for her own collection and later donated to the Chicago MS&I by her. You will be so impressed to see all the miniature size furniture and structures inside this fairy castle!! Something so cute!!! (couldn't stop myself from saying this -:) )

 The "Idea factory" is an ideal place for younger kids to spend their excess energy, in a way they like. It has water works, float-sink kind of games that we usually find in a children's museum.

Level 2 - Main Level

This level's coolest area would be the "Science Storms" - a science lab which has a two stories tall tornado vortex as its main feature. Science demonstrations about tornadoes happen every 20 mins near this vortex.

      Also there are exhibits demonstrating various concepts of physics such as force, friction, momentum etc. This science storms exhibit also spans up to the Level 3.

The other "must see" is the "Toy Maker 3000". This area has a robotic assembly line, where you can, for $5.00, place customized order for something called the "Gravitron" - a top with your name etched on it. And you can follow the assembly line, as the top is assembled for you. Our 6 yr old DS best loved the part where  the top is packed it its box, the packaging robot arm lifts the box and shows us the top, as though asking - "What do you think of it?..."

Also this area has robot which sketch as you sketch something, a dancing robot and some more!!!. Here is a picture of the "Gravitron" assembled for us. It would be a cool souvenir to have and is more than worth the money.

Level 3 - Balcony Level

Look out for the below in level - 3:
YOU! The experience - Find more about the internal workings of your body and see a GIANT heart beat to your rhythm.
727 Take flight - Take flight in the real size 727 flight. Also see a model of the first flying machine that the Wright brothers designed.
Also, keep an eye out for new exhibits are displayed periodically or new movies shown in the unbelievably large OmniMax screen
Finally, do not miss the following specials:
1. The First ever GPS: Invented in 1909 by J.W. Jones, called as the "Jones Live Map" : Found in the 80 at 80 area of Level 1
2. The Sweepers Clock   - A real-time video created in 2009 by Dutch designer Maarten Baas shows two men keeping time by sweeping trash piles laid out in the shape of clock hands. This is the first video to be a part of the museum's collection. Also found in the 80 at 80 area
3. The Eye Spy display  - Challenge yourself with these eye spy exhibits and see how many objects can you spot in each of them - again in the lower level
4. The Future energy Chicago - Look out here for the Vertical Farming simulation! Don't miss it!. This is in the second level, near the fairy castle exhibit.
5. The U-505 On-board tour  - Found in the lower level 1, walk around and look at the real size submarine.

Well, that's about what I can recollect from our mind-boggling trip to the Chicago Museum of Science + Industry. Hope my post was useful to you and hope you get to visit the museum. Have fun as much as our family did or even more!!.