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Holiday 2011 - where are you all going.


Thedelldays

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5 weeks in California:

 

Malibu

Santa Barbara

Monterey

Yosemite NP

Santa Cruz

San Francisco

Napa Valley

Sacramento

Lake Tahoe

Sequoia NP

Las Vegas

Beverly Hills

 

If you're short on time you could well give Monterey (theme park Steinbeck), Sacramento (capital/dormitory town), and Beverly Hills (richly dull, dully rich) a miss. The rest are pretty great.

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5 weeks in California:

 

Malibu

Santa Barbara

Monterey

Yosemite NP

Santa Cruz

San Francisco

Napa Valley

Sacramento

Lake Tahoe

Sequoia NP

Las Vegas

Beverly Hills

 

can i recommend Death Valley to your list, maybe en route to Vegas? Dante's Peak is fantastic, 1700m or so above the salt flats overlooking Telescope Mountain is just breathtaking. Stay over at Furnass Creek, and by 9am it will be 100 degrees (or was when we visited last June)

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can i recommend Death Valley to your list, maybe en route to Vegas? Dante's Peak is fantastic, 1700m or so above the salt flats overlooking Telescope Mountain is just breathtaking. Stay over at Furnass Creek, and by 9am it will be 100 degrees (or was when we visited last June)

 

Agreed - apart from the colossal expense of staying at Furnace Creek, the view across Zabriskie Point at dawn is spectacular.

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Just come back from a weeks cruise to the Norwegian fjords on Aurora (our first cruise) and I have to say that it was absolutely brilliant! The ship, the crew, the food and the scenery were all out of this world. It is not very often that we come back from a holiday without some negative thoughts, but this was perfect. The entertainment may not have suited all but there was an intersting after-dinner talk with Jan Molby. Can`t wait to do it all again!!

 

What ports did you do? I fancy a trip to the Fjords. Last summer we did the Baltics on Arcadia and David 'super sub' Fairclough was a guest speaker.

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What ports did you do? I fancy a trip to the Fjords. Last summer we did the Baltics on Arcadia and David 'super sub' Fairclough was a guest speaker.

We did Stavanger, Olden (which is a bit surreal as it is just a small village with a cruise liner parked in it), Flaam and Bergen. Would highly recommend this cruise and some of the excursions available at each port. Listening to experienced cruisers on board, the general opinion seemed to be that Aurora is one of the best ships to travel on. We think that our next one will be the Baltic on her.

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The beer is 50p a pint and I imagine like myself, he's going for the football.

 

8 of us in a luxury private villa, £70 each for 5 nights, right on the beach. You can't fault the food in Eastern Europe, meat and spuds. Perfect for lining the stomach.

 

I backpacked to the Bulgarian coast in 2003 - got a 2 bed flat all to myself overlooking the sea - 4 euros a night and I didnt even haggle. Mind you it was me and about 1,000 russians on the beach.

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The beer is 50p a pint and I imagine like myself, he's going for the football.

 

8 of us in a luxury private villa, £70 each for 5 nights, right on the beach. You can't fault the food in Eastern Europe, meat and spuds. Perfect for lining the stomach.

 

You have got a very good user name.

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We did Stavanger, Olden (which is a bit surreal as it is just a small village with a cruise liner parked in it), Flaam and Bergen. Would highly recommend this cruise and some of the excursions available at each port. Listening to experienced cruisers on board, the general opinion seemed to be that Aurora is one of the best ships to travel on. We think that our next one will be the Baltic on her.

 

Sounds great. We haven't been on Aurora but I imagine she's very similar to Oriana which we really liked. The Baltics is my favourite cruise to date!

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Just come back from a weeks cruise to the Norwegian fjords on Aurora (our first cruise) and I have to say that it was absolutely brilliant! The ship, the crew, the food and the scenery were all out of this world. It is not very often that we come back from a holiday without some negative thoughts, but this was perfect. The entertainment may not have suited all but there was an intersting after-dinner talk with Jan Molby. Can`t wait to do it all again!!

 

I'm not surprised that you enjoyed it, but be warned! Cruising is highly addictive. We have made a few cruises with P&O, mainly on Aurora, and we are sailing on her to New York, Quebec and back in September. We've also got three cruises booked for next year. You may find the forum useful for any tips: http://www.pocruises.com/en/Community/Forum/ , or just send me a PM if there's any questions you'd like answered. Happy cruising!

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5 weeks in California:

 

Malibu

Santa Barbara

Monterey

Yosemite NP

Santa Cruz

San Francisco

Napa Valley

Sacramento

Lake Tahoe

Sequoia NP

Las Vegas

Beverly Hills

 

I spent 10 days in San Francisco in 1983 and another week in 1984 when I was doing some work for Dolby. I took my wife on the first trip and after a couple of days in the office we drove 1800 miles even doing one day trip into Nevada via Carson City and Reno and back. You might also like to consider Muir Woods ( http://www.nps.gov/muwo/index.htm ). Pebble Beach and Carmel are also beautiful places. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Beach,_California

 

I'm jealous.

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Added a couple of nights staying in Granada to my Gib/Spain tour. Not going to bother with the Alhambra, more interested in just chilling and having some tapas and mozying around. F/cked up with the booking though and booked into a hotel for the wrong nights and was assured this was rectified however according to emails I owe them £155 when infact they owe me £12 because strangely friday and saturday night are cheaper than thursday and friday which i'd wrongly booked.

 

If anyone has been and could recomend a nice traditional restraunt i'd appreciate this.

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I'm not surprised that you enjoyed it, but be warned! Cruising is highly addictive. We have made a few cruises with P&O, mainly on Aurora, and we are sailing on her to New York, Quebec and back in September. We've also got three cruises booked for next year. You may find the forum useful for any tips: http://www.pocruises.com/en/Community/Forum/ , or just send me a PM if there's any questions you'd like answered. Happy cruising!

Thanks very much but it`s too late. We are already addicted! We are planning to do the Baltic cruise next, probably on Aurora. She is a lovely ship. Thanks for the link. We will make use of it. The New York is the "New England" one isn`t it? That also looked good.

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Pebble Beach and Carmel are also beautiful places. I'm jealous.

 

We're spending 6 days in Monterey and while the missus is sun bathing I will play Pebble Beach and Spyglass. Looking forward to 17 mile drive, Big Sur and Carmel. Stopping over one night in Sacramento on the way to South Lake Tahoe, where we will be staying for a couple days. Definitely will be taking a trip to Carson City.

 

Despite travelling to most of the US, during the 11 years I lived there, I never got the West Coast, only getting as far as Pheonix. The decision to move to the States, when I was younger, was largely influenced by being a big fan of the Rockford files. I even bought a Pontiac Firebird. Little did I know that the Jersey shore was nothing like Malibu!

 

Just to make you feel worse, this is where we intend to have brunch, the Sunday we are in Monterey.

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Talking of cruises:-

 

( Onboard a P & O ship )

 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/503533/rough_cruise/

 

:eek:

 

Great fun! You'd pay money for that at Alton Towers. We were on Aurora out of Piraeus last December in what must have been a force 12 of the starboard beam. Green water was landing on our balcony on deck 10, but there wasn't too much movement. Apparently some people had put their suitcases on their balconies to make more space in the cabin and their clothes got soaked. There's something majestic about sitting down to eat and seeing great bigwaves outside your window.

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We're spending 6 days in Monterey and while the missus is sun bathing I will play Pebble Beach and Spyglass. Looking forward to 17 mile drive, Big Sur and Carmel. Stopping over one night in Sacramento on the way to South Lake Tahoe, where we will be staying for a couple days. Definitely will be taking a trip to Carson City.

 

Despite travelling to most of the US, during the 11 years I lived there, I never got the West Coast, only getting as far as Pheonix. The decision to move to the States, when I was younger, was largely influenced by being a big fan of the Rockford files. I even bought a Pontiac Firebird. Little did I know that the Jersey shore was nothing like Malibu!

 

Just to make you feel worse, this is where we intend to have brunch, the Sunday we are in Monterey.

 

Passed through Monterey about 6 years ago.

 

Found the harbour.

 

We had time to kill.

 

I decided to take a Whale watching trip to kill some time expecting to spend 4 hours being moaned at by the ex wife (as usual)

 

After 2 hours I was on target. After 2 hours and 2 minutes the rest of the time turned into the greatest and most memorable travel moment of my or (to date still) my kids)

 

We were surrounded by Blue & Hump Back Whales. At one point I could have stepped off the boat onto the back of a Hump Back. We got covered in Spume, (stank like a Poopey fan for a day) the kids took video that would have been good enough for The Discovery Channel & I got the photo of my life with the whole Humpback tail Flike picture.

 

My only regret from that day. I had an Analogue Canon SLR & only 3 rolls of film.

 

Possibly THE most amazing thing I have ever done, especially as I remember as a Kid seeing the stuffed Blue Whale at the Natural History Museum and being told they were "all but extinct" and we had 10 or more of them around us that day.

 

Under No circumstances miss that opportunity

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I'm not surprised that you enjoyed it, but be warned! Cruising is highly addictive. We have made a few cruises with P&O, mainly on Aurora, and we are sailing on her to New York, Quebec and back in September. We've also got three cruises booked for next year. You may find the forum useful for any tips: http://www.pocruises.com/en/Community/Forum/ , or just send me a PM if there's any questions you'd like answered. Happy cruising!

 

You're right about cruising being addictive! We're doing the caribbean in December on Azura and have 2 more booked for next year, 4 nights on Oriana for P&O's 175th anniversary and Oceana to Venice. The P&O forum is a great resouce, do you post on there? I post as 'Sotonian'.

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You're right about cruising being addictive! We're doing the caribbean in December on Azura and have 2 more booked for next year, 4 nights on Oriana for P&O's 175th anniversary and Oceana to Venice. The P&O forum is a great resouce, do you post on there? I post as 'Sotonian'.

 

Look out for 'Quizzical Bob'. Next year we're doing 12 nights on Aurora to the Baltic in May, 16 nights to Venice with my daughter and her family and 10 nights in November to Casablanca on Oceana. Now we have to find time to go away in the caravan. The only concern I have is that I play fixture chicken because I book them before I know who we're playing. I've been lucky this autumn in that the cruise is for 24 nights and I only miss one home fixture. I suppose that's the benefit of international weekends.

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