Most of us have had scary moments with our camera’s proximity to water on holiday.
Well, worrying about dropping your camera in the pool or it getting splashed could be a thing of the past.
Pentax have brought out a 7 mega pixel compact digital camera that is water resistant to 1.5 meters depth (they say for 30 minutes?!). I have read reviews by people who have used it to take underwater photo’s and have been extremely pleased with both the results and the camera’s appearance. It isn’t recommended for ‘serious’ underwater photography such as when diving, but it will certainly withstand the odd pool-side splash or tumble in the waves when trying to get close-up action shots of your kids, or being used in a tropical downpour.
The camera has a built in image stabiliser – but I’m not sure how effective that is, and you will need to get a memory stick and case as it comes with neither. Although the retail recommended price is £230 you can get one through Amazon’s marketplace for around £140, which I don’t think is too bad a price.
There are many guide books available that describe in pretty good detail the attractions in the different parks. This article aims to provide first time visitors with a brief guide to some of the things you won’t necessarily find in the guide books, but may help you make the most of your holiday, not just in the Disney parks.
Car Parking
If you are not staying in one of the resort hotels you will probably be driving to the parks. All of the parks make a charge for parking (in September 2007 it was about $10 per car). The car parks are huge and each area is given a memorable character or symbol to help you remember where your hire car is, however, there are likely to be many many cars of the same make/model as yours. We found it useful to sick something to distinguish our car on the aerial. Also, if you have young kids in buggies – don’t get them straight into the buggy after leaving the car as you are likely to have to board a motorised train (or ‘wally trolley’ as our kids called them) to take you to the park entrance. Kids cannot ride in their buggies on the mini trains. I will post another article soon on common ‘scams’ to be wary of when booking a hire car in advance for Orlando. For a few dollars extra some of the parks offer a valet parking service, or even parking in a preferential area that is closer to the park entrance.
Getting Into the Park & Park Tickets
We bought our tickets from a web site in advance before we left the UK. It’s best to make sure you actually get the tickets sent to you direct, and not vouchers that have to be exchanged when you get to Orlando. Sometimes you can get good ‘2 days for 1’, or a child ticket free when you buy an adult one sort of deals, and it is worth shopping around a little bit. The prices don’t seem to vary that much between the different web sites and the prices weren’t vastly different from those on the door at the parks, but it’s one thing less to do when you arrive and just want to get on with the fun. If you have pre-bought actual tickets you don’t have to go to the ticket office or anything – you can just use them straight away. It is definitely worth getting multi-day, multi-park tickets, but do allow for a day or two away from the parks to go shopping or just ‘chill’.
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Posted by Jill Bowen on Fri 27th April 2007 at 01:07 PM, Filed in Africa
The word Treetops to anyone fortunate enough preparing to visit Kenya will evoke magical pictures in the mind. It conjures up the image of a strange wooden structure, where, if you’re privileged, you will be woken up in the middle of the night to see animals at the water hole. But, however good your imagination, nothing can prepare you for the reality of the experience.
My stay at Treetops came after a two-day safari at Samburu and before a three-day stay in the Masai Mara.
The itinerary stipulated our main suitcases should be left at the Outspan Hotel, and a small rucksack for the stay at Treetops was the entire luggage allowed for the overnight visit.
The Outspan Hotel is worth mentioning; the word colonial comes to mind, beautifully manicured grounds reminiscent of garden in England. The buffet lunch provided by the hotel is English in the extreme, with bread and butter pudding, trifle and rice pudding on the menu. One reason for it’s colonial ambiance is that Baden Powell lived here for part of his life. There is even a small museum dedicated to the scouting movement which is worth a look.
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We approached the Zion national park late afternoon from the east looking for somewhere to stay the night before exploring the park the following day. We had driven through a few towns en-route from Bryce Canyon and hadn’t been inspired, so headed for the town Springdale which seemed to be within the park itself.
Our twilight drive into the park was quite an adventure in itself! We drove on the Mount Carmel Highway which took us through the Checkerboard Mesa. Strange interlocking hills that seemed to have a huge irregular chessboard etched into them purely by the forces of nature. The road winds its way around the bottom of them and enters a couple of tunnels. The first was relatively short, but the second was over a mile long. As we progressed through the second tunnel there was a kind of window cut into the rock that enabled us to get a glimpse of the stunning scenery. There appeared to be a huge ravine falling below us with large rock formations across the other side.
It was really getting dusky when we emerged from the tunnel to find we were a couple of thousand feet up. The road meandered down to the canyon floor through many switch-backs and bends. It had precipitous drops and very little by way of crash barriers that wouldn’t do much to prevent a vehicle going over the side, and barely space for oncoming vehicles to pass. Even the speed limits were extreme – I seem to remember the limit was stated as 5mph on one bend! I think the whole experience was heightened by the fact that we were going down hill. When we finally got to the bottom (it seemed to take an eternity) my partner who had been driving stated he would like to go back up in the morning to get a better look at the scenery in daylight. Whilst the Checkerboard Mesa certainly looked interesting and I would have liked to take some photo’s I didn’t fancy coming back down the road again – I felt going up it would be infinitely preferable!
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Posted by Jill Bowen on Mon 23rd April 2007 at 09:00 PM, Filed in Naturism
Cap D’Agde (situated in the Languedoc region in the South West of France), was my first introduction to Naturist Holidays many years ago. My (then boyfriend) now husband suggested we go, so after a bit of persuasion I agreed. You either love it or hate it, there is no in between!
For some people it is the epitome of a naturist holiday – you don’t have to leave the resort, everything you will need is there; for others, it’s brash, commercialised and decadent!
My first impression was of a charm-less concrete jungle, a guarded entrance barrier, what had I come to, a prison camp with sun and sea? No prison uniform here, in fact no clothes permitted if the sun was out, so everyone walking around totally in the buff! I felt uncomfortable for a couple of days, draping a towel over my ‘nether’ regions whenever possible. But then, I realised that no one actually cared about my physical imperfections – too many to mention – and were accepting me for who I was and not what I looked like…. a completely liberating experience for shy me! The Cap D’Agde experience grew on me, and felt totally normal as I relaxed into its unique ambiance!
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