Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:57:33 GMT | 1 comment
(Suzanne) Today was our first of two days in St. Petersburg, Russia. Our main goal in Russia was to visit our friends, Eugene and Luba. Since we booked this trip at the last minute and procrastinated in getting visas (you must have a visa if you want to get off the ship), it seemed like the opportunity to see them wasn’t going to happen unless we booked an excursion on the ship (where you’re covered on a blanket visa) in order to get into town. So, at the last minute, we booked a Hermitage tour without the kids. The kids stayed on the ship in the Fun Factory (they were happy about this after the Estonia trek) while we took the tour.
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Posted in Trips and Vacations
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:39:29 GMT | no comments
(Suzanne) Today we reached our first port of call—Tallinn, Estonia. After 2 days at sea, we were excited to get on land. We ended up buying Tallinn City Tour tickets at the end of the pier from these 2 girls who didn’t look over 16 years old and spoke very good English. It was an hour long tour that took you around the city with a pre-recorded voice that told you about it’s sights and history. The best thing about it is that it had various stops so you can get on and off whenever you want. Great, we thought…we can get off on the first stop and find an Internet cafe to retrieve our mail, etc and then continue on the tour. On top of that, the kids won’t have to walk so much. Happy kids make very happy parents.
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Posted in Trips and Vacations
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:02:52 GMT | 5 comments
July 30/31, 2006 – Sunday/Monday: “But I don’t want to go, Daddy’s making me.” “Just give it 3 days, ” I said, “That’s all I ask and if you don’t like it then you won’t have to go anymore.” Hearing those words at the start of a 14 day cruise was not what I wanted to hear, especially with the first 2 days out at sea. But knowing Claire, and her past cruising experiences, I knew that the odds of her not having fun were next to nothing. We’ve hardly seen her (and Maxie) since.
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Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:50:30 GMT | 2 comments
July 29, 2006: Slept in, went to the train station, had breakfast, went back to the hotel, checked out, got on the train to Dover, rode for 2 hours, got on a bus (because they were doing work on the train tracks) to finish the trip to Dover, got on a taxi, got on the boat (took less than 20 minutes to check-in and get on the ship), went to our room, ate, walked around, went swimming, went to dinner, kids went to the kids program, went to bed. That’s it.
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Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:31:12 GMT | 5 comments
July 27, 2006: We probably pushed the kids a little too hard today. After finally getting everyone up and out to breakfast, Suzanne and I were excited to see some sights. But less than two hours after setting out for the London Eye, the kids just wanted to go back to the hotel and swim. So we didn’t do very much besides eating and riding buses. But the buses were pretty fun and gave us a nice view of London, especially the double-decker buses which are driven fast and furious, skimming people and cars along the way, which gives the feeling of being on Mr. Toads Wild Ride in DisneyLand.
Here are some more details of the day from Suzanne:
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Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:52:42 GMT | 4 comments
July 25-26, 2006: Getting to London was amazingly easy. We had a friend drop us off at the San Francisco airport, the flight was non-stop to London, and then we took an Express Train and Underground to the hotel. Easy as pie! The Landmark Hotel was very nice and the service was great. We ate at the Giraffe Restaurant which was very colorful and kid-friendly, then took a swim and went to bed. Here are more details:
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Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:00:58 GMT | no comments
Last weekend, the Workman’s organized a camping up in the Santa Cruz mountains and we went along with the Cousins, Ferraris, Petersons and some other friends. I wasn’t expecting much out of it, no actually I was expecting it to be a pretty boring and uncomfortable time. However, I was surprised that it was actually kind of fun and, as I told Gary, didn’t “totally suck”. I especially had fun on all the hikes.
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Posted in Trips and Vacations
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 03 Jul 2006 19:20:00 GMT | no comments
This summer, we all threw around some ideas for vacations. The kids wanted to go on a cruise (as always!) but Maxie also said he would like to go to London or Paris (which was a surprise).
Well, like most of our vacations, this one came together at the last minute. Suzanne emailed our brilliant cruise specialist and he came back with a fabulous cruise to Northern Europe. So we are going to be able to combine going on a cruise and visiting Europe.
This should be a good way to take the kids to Europe since they only have to unpack once, and when they get tired, we can just go back to the ship. However, it will be a long trip since the cruise is 2-weeks and we are going to arrive a few days early in London, so it will be interesting to see how the kids stand up.
Here is the agenda for the cruise:
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Posted in Trips and Vacations
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:01:00 GMT | 26 comments
For our spring vacation in 2006, we didn’t really know what we wanted to do, so we decided to just pack the car up and start driving. Here are the pictures of the trip and comments from our family members:
Posted in Trips and Vacations
