TravelDuties

The Orlando Dolphin Resort is just A+. Bordering its fellow sister Starwood resort, the Swan, both of these two hotels tower over the Orlando skyline and have massive sculptures fixated in top of their hotel. The hotel has a grand lobby with a grand waterfall in the middle and is quite relaxing. Around the lobby are shops, restaurants, and elevators. Todd English hosts his famous restaurant, Bluezoo that features some of the state’s best surf and turf. The Shops have something for everyone. They offer items from Candy to Rolex Watches.

The Restaurants are some of the finest. Shulas Steakhouse has a very nice dining room. The Corral Cafe’ has a cool breakfast buffet with the Characters. The Dolphin Fountain offers quick snacks as well as nice dinner meals. Ice cream is also server at the Dolphin Fountain. Their transportation from the Swan and Dolphin to MGM Studios and EPCOT is great. They offer boat transportation. The rooms are huge. You can see the swan resort, as well at Epcot center, and many Disney MGM Studios attractions from your room view.

Lisbon, the biggest city in Portugal and also the nation’s capital, is a hot tourist destination offering a multitude of attractions and high-class resort accommodations for travelers. With a population of over 500,000 people, Lisbon is a melting pot of different cultures that brings together a variety of interesting points of view. This cultural mix means that there’s something for everyone looking to spend a vacation in Lisbon.

I’m going to focus this post on three of the more popular “districts” in Lisbon: the Baix, Bairro Alto and Chiado. These areas of the city are easily reachable from any of the fine hotels in Lisbon. On that note, if you’re looking for a nice place to stay there are plenty of agencies offering worldwide hotel bookings that can help you find the right hotel for your stay.

The first district, the Baixa, is better known as Lisbon’s downtown area. If you’re a history buff, this is the place to go and see some of Lisbon’s finest historical monuments such as Commerce Square and Rossio Square. There are also several lovely churches in the Baixa such as the Church of São Domingos of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição Velha.

Bairro Alto, located in central Lisbon, is the center for shopping and entertainment in the city. If you’re interested in the youth culture of the city or its nightlife than this is the area of Lisbon you’ll want to find yourself in. The bar and club scene here in Bairro Alto offers a nice mixture of cultures as well as a collection of tourists and locals alike.

Chiado is where you’ll find Lisbon’s best cafes and art galleries. For anyone interested in ancient architecture, Chiado has fine examples of Portuguese buildings. The local art galleries in Chiado also contain some fine examples of Portuguese art. The best place to find that would be at the Museu do Chiado.

As you can tell, Lisbon offers lots of opportunities for vacationers and travelers interested in visiting Portugal. With it’s close proximity to Spain, anyone thinking of visiting the Iberian peninsula might want to consider a two-country travel itinerary. You can easily start your vacation in Spain by staying in one of the fine hotels Madrid Norte has to offer.

What is a Fastpass? The Fastpass was created by Disney so that its park guests do not have to wait forever in line for a specific ride. Not all rides have the Fastpass available but the more popular thrill rides accommodate. The only way you can get a Fastpass is when you go to a Fastpass Station by the ride entrance and use your park entrance ticket. You enter your ticket and you get a small pass and it will times on it like - “Enter Between 3:00 and 5:00pm”- Then you come back to the ride during those times and go to the Fastpass Return Entrance. You show the Cast Member the Fastpass and you walk to the front of the time with little or no wait.

If you don’t feel like waiting for the Fastpass, Universal Orlando offers something exactly like the Fastpass named the Universal Express Pass. The only difference of these two passes is that instead of standing in line like usual for both, you can purchase the Express pass booklet for $50 which includes all of the rides for the park and two tickets for each ride.

Photo by: A Syed

Extended bachelor parties, better known as stag weekends, are the new trend these days. Grooms-to-be looking for one last getaway before they settle into married life are no longer satisfied with just one night out on the town with their friends. The feeling now is that a weekend away before the big wedding day is a much better plan for guys about to end their single life. This is becoming increasingly common in the United Kingdom, even more so than in America, in recent years. No where is it more popular than in the city of Manchester.

Manchester stag weekends are usually put on by local companies to help relieve any of the stress involved with planning and staging upwards of two to even three days worth of events. There are a wide variety of activities you can participate in during your Manchester stag weekend. Some of the more popular packages include tickets and accommodations for a soccer fans, tours of the cities best nightclubs, a trip around town on a party bus, a weekend of paintball with and against your friends or an entire weekend at the race track. That’s only a short list of all of the things you can see and do during your stag weekend in Manchester.

Stag parties in the UK, and long bachelor parties in the US, will only continue to grow in popularity as more and more events and options are made available. For those of you in the United Kingdom, this phenomenon isn’t only restricted to Manchester. The same kind of stag weekends, and stag service providers, can be found in places like Brighton, Liverpool, Blackpool and Edinburgh. If your group isn’t against a bit of air travel, you can also have a great stag weekend in places like Dublin or outside of the UK in Prague or Amsterdam.

Mauritius is a little known, but growing in tourist popularity, island in the Indian Ocean that’s just off the southwestern coast of Africa. The island of Mauritius, since it’s 1968 independence, has grown from a primarily poor and farming based nation into a middle-class country with an economy spread amongst many sectors including tourism.

Thanks to it’s mix of various cultures including Chinese, Creole and Indian there’s been a sudden surge in interest from tourists. A vacation to Mauritius will most likely see you visiting white sandy beaches and coral reefs, or traveling into the interior of the island to visit mountains and rainforests. All of these vacation options are made possible thanks to the fantastic weather in Mauritius that one finds while visiting.

The island nation’s biggest draw seems to be for people celebrating their nuptials. Mauritius honeymoons are very popular with newlyweds from all over the world. Many of the resorts on the island offer beachfront honeymoon suites with private balconies and fantastic ocean views. It’s also quite common for entire groups of family and friends to travel to Mauritius to attend the actual wedding ceremony itself. The island is constantly playing host to weddings year round.