Up Close and Personal

It is difficult to pick one favorite moment from our recent Florida vacation – however our Serengeti Safari at Busch Gardens in Tampa, stands out as a moment we will treasure for a long time. There are many ways to see the animals of Busch Gardens but there are a few unique opportunities to get up close and personal.

The Serengeti Safari experience takes you in an open-truck on the African veldt. This is an intimate experience that is prebooked with a time reserved for your party. As you explore the 65-acre Serengeti Plain, you’ll meet some magnificent animals and learn a great deal too.

Get nose-to-nose with a giraffe. Learn a thing or two about zebras. Understand exotic species like bongo, eland and ostrich as your guide helps bring you closer to the wildlife and wild places in this world we share. No two experiences are the same.

The highlight for my family was hand feeding the giraffes. Roman lettuce is their green of choice. These guys are big—and my children were far more comfortable with them than I was.

Photo opportunities on the Serengeti Safari are unbelievable. Be sure to bring your camera so you can share your Serengeti adventure with everybody back home. Plus a photographer goes out with you too, so this might be the chance to get the perfect family photo.

The 30-minute, open-truck tour is $33.99 USD, but the memories are priceless!! For more information check out.

And if you go say hi to Dolly for me – she’s the oldest (and friendliest) giraffe there, based on our photo together I doubt she’d say the same about me.

Until next time,

Melanie Taljaard

I’m Outta Here

 
If I could put an out of office on my blog, this would be it. I off to Florida to be inspired for my April blog entries. It’s a long overdue family vacation.

This time around we are trying the Holiday Home approach, and friends with children of the same age will be joining our family. Our hopes are that once the children are asleep we can enjoy the living room and patio as adults. Given what’s on the schedule I might be turning in when the kids do….It makes me wonder if you can call it a vacation when you cram in more half a dozen theme park days, an NHL hockey game and various trips down memory lane.

I have vowed to keep my computer time to a minimum while away but I’ll pack a note pad, and I’ll be blogging again in mid April.

In the meantime, if you have a moment, check out the last minute/ hot deal section of our website and you might be travelling too, with deals like this it’s hard not to think about being spontaneous and doing a last minute sun getaway
http://www.maritimetravel.ca/hotdeals.asp Once on the last minute page you can select a gateway and see the specials from the closest airport.

Happy Travels

Melanie

Travel vicariously; follow the Smar’s World Cruise Journey

Have you ever dreamt of embarking on a world tour? I have often thought about going over-land from London to Cape Town, or buying an around the world air ticket and planning my stops as I go. More recently, I have been inspired by customers from Smith’s Cove, Nova Scotia who have embarked on a 117 day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Stockholm with stops throughout the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal and South Pacific; South America and Australia; Asia and India; and the treasures of ancient civilizations in the Southern Mediterranean and Europe. (In fact there are more than 37 port of call on this amazing cruise).

These intrepid travelers are logging their journey with daily updates as they globetrot. Karen and Carson Smar, originally from Alberta have retired to Smith Cove, Nova Scotia and for almost half of 2009 they will call the Tahitian Princess home. Here is a link to the ship http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/ta/index.html

For a sense of this exciting itinerary check out next year’s equivalent “&gt”>http://www.princess.com/pb/itineraryDetails.do?voyageCode=K003&tourCode=&date=0110&noOfPax=2&resType=C&definition_name=”>”&gt

Charlene Walker from our Digby branch helped the Smars put this journey together and has agreed to post their almost daily updates to her own webpage. To follow the Smar’s journey of a lifetime, view Charlene Walkers’ personal webpage http://www.maritimetravel.ca/1168/CharleneWalker the entries are in reverse order.
Until Next Time
Melanie