Adventure Photo Tours - Zion National Park Tour

Highlights: A day of fun in the sun on the Gulf Coast of Mexico at Clearwater Beach  Enjoy a relaxing day at the beach Café lunch to enjoy at your leisure Free time to enjoy the beach, walk along the pier, take a swim etc  MENU   SANDWICHES (served with French fries & coleslaw)-Hot & Cold varieties   SALADS Greek-Caesar-Chef-Chicken or Tuna   PASTAS-Choice of Spaghetti-Ziti (Variety of sauces)   PIZZAS-Various toppings   GREEK SPECIALS-Chicken Souvlaki-Gyros   SEAFOOD (served with French fries & coleslaw)-Fish & Chips-Grilled Grouper Sandwich   KIDS-Burgers-Hot Dog-Chicken-Fingers-Fish & Chips     Pirate Cruise (Duration 2 hours) Go back in time and travel around the way the seafaring seadogs did. Board the famous Captain Memo’s pirate ship and join his crew of pirates for and adventure you won’t forget.  Listen to the cool sounds of island reggae as you sail through the open waters keeping an eye out for dolphins.  Every guest will get their choice of a soft drink, beer or wine whilst on the ship   

There are no hotel pickups for the Hop-On-Hop-Off Tours. However, all Hop-On Hop-Off routes pass within 5 blocks of nearly every major downtown tourist hotel as well as in various locations at Fisherman’s Wharf. A hotel shuttle to Fisherman's Wharf is available in the morning. For further information and specific schedule times, please call the City Sightseeing office at +1.415.440.8687. AUDIO GUIDE in VARIOUS LANGUAGES: The tour is available with audio guide in English, Spanish, German, Mandarin, and Korean on every other bus throughout the day. Please ask at the City Sightseeing office for further information.

Athens half day tour begins with a panoramic drive around Syntagma square, passing by National Garden, Hadrian’s Arch, St. Paul’s Church, Parliament, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Catholic Cathedral,and Schliemann’s House. You will then drive past the Athens Trilogy which includes the University of Athens, the Academy of Athens, and the National Library. Your licensed guide will explain more of Athens’s history old and new as you look at these stately buildings. Continue for a photo stop at Panathinaiko Stadium where the first Olympic Games took place in 1896. It is the only stadium built out of white marble. Proceed, passing by Zappeion and Temple of Olympian Zeus. Make your way to the archaeological site of Acropolis an UNESCO’S world heritage monument and visit Propylae the monumental entrance to the Acropolis which blends Doric and Ionic building principles, and the small temple Athena Nike, which stands on a protruding mass of rock, protecting the gate to the citade and of course the Parthenon, and Erechtheion with its porch of Maidens. With this half day tour you will enjoy one of the top UNESCO'S world heritage monuments, Acropolis.  

Shearwater is a classic Newport-style schooner yacht, only recently recognized as a national landmark in 2009.  The vessel was built by Rice Brother Corporation in East Boothbay, Maine, back in a time when yachting was a rare combination of elegance and adventure; Rice Bros. were well known for building luxury pleasure yachts and produced some 4,000 hulls over a period of 64 years. The keel was laid down on January 4, 1929 and a news clip from the Boothbay Register reflects alongside a photograph "Tyler Hodgon at the old Tide Mill is getting out timbers for the schooner to be built at Rice’s. Vessel to be built of native white oak." Traditionally built from hand-hewn native white oak, she was the last boat to be constructed at that yard - likely due to the ensuing Great Depression brought on by the Stock Market Crash that occurred later that autumn.  East Boothbay was a small coastal town with shipbuilding being its only industry. About 40 workmen were employed for the construction of SHEARWATER. Her designer Theodore Donald Wells was born in Hudson Falls, N Y on October 22, 1875. He was a naval architect and marine engineer, a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and also the Institute of Naval Architects London. His education included post-graduate work at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He began his career as a member of the firm Herreshoff and Wells, N. Y. City in 1902. Working with Herreshoff no doubt had an influence on his designs, which bear similarities to many of the famous Herreshoff designed yachts of that time. From 1903 to 1907 he worked for Wintringham and Wells and then began practicing his profession under his own name. Mr. Wells joined the Navy Department in March 1917 and became Superintending Constructor of the Baltimore District U. S. N. Notable yachts designed and constructed under his supervision are "Viking" a 272 foot steel motor yacht built for George F. Baker in 1929 by Newport News and "Karina" a three masted schooner built for Robert E. Tod in 1932 by Staten Island Shipbuilding. Mr. Tod was a well-known offshore yachtsman as was his former yacht ‘Thistle", which competed in the Emperors Cup ocean race. SHEARWATER was launched on May 4, 1929 and photographs in the Boothbay Register reflect her graceful and elegant lines. Her first Captain, Leon Esterbrook of Edgarton, MA, arrived to take charge of the fitting out. Her owner Charles E Dunlap was a member of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, Oyster Bay, NY and this became SHEARWATER’s first homeport after her completion in late September 1929. It was there in Oyster Bay that she first started to thrill those who sailed in luxury aboard her and those who were privileged to crew her on race day. Since her launching and documentation in Lloyd’s Register of American Yachts in 1929, she has had a colorful history and has been carefully maintained and restored to standards that few contemporary vessels are able to match and is truly a piece of American Maritime History. On November 7, 1942 SHEARWATER was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration and became a member of The United States Coast Guard’s Coastal Picket Patrol during World War Two. She was painted gray and bore the numbers CG67004. Based at Little Creek, Virginia she patrolled the waters east of the Chesapeake Bay entrance and south towards Cape Hatteras. Her skipper during that period reflected on how they used their free time while out on submarine patrol to race against other yachts and in his own words "sailed in tandem with the schooner Lord Jim, racing in and out of port, up and down the east coast and winning." She was designed and built as a gaff rigged schooner but during this period was changed to a Marconi rig. She carries over 2,550 square feet while under full sail. A true veteran world cruiser, she first transited the Panama Canal in July 1946 and in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s completed a two and a half-year global circumnavigation. In December 1971 Mrs. John B. Thayer of Rosemont, wife of a former trustee and treasurer, donated SHEARWATER to the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Environmental Medicine. She was used by the university as a laboratory for research on physiological responses to the stresses of living and working underwater. Captained by James Shearson, she was fitted with compressors, generators, monitoring instruments and a small decompression chamber. She has participated in many Ancient Mariner and Classic yacht races in U S waters as well as racing in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand while on her circumnavigation in the early 1980’s. It is rumored she was once dismasted in the famous Newport to Bermuda race. She was last raced by the current owners in San Diego in May 1995 in the American Schooner Cup and finished second overall. She entered the yacht charter industry in 1966 whilst on the West Coast sailing to the Channel Islands and was again used to generate income to keep her shipshape while owned by the University of Pennsylvania. During the chartering industry’s infancy in the Caribbean, SHEARWATER was known as the " Queen of the Fleet". Today she continues this tradition offering the most unique sailing experience and has passed rigid Coast Guard inspections and can carry up to 49 passengers. We welcome you to join us for an excellent opportunity to experience the ambiance of a vintage sailing vessel while delighting in the splendors of The Manhattan sky-line, the Statue of Liberty or the beauty of the oceans beyond.

HELICOPTER DAYTIME TOUR Your total helicopter experience with the pre-flight briefing and customer experience center will be about 1hr. Photography is allowed throughout the flight experience. Guest pick-up is available from Chicago downtown hotels for additional charge. All tours depart from and return to Chicago Helicopter Experience 2420 South Halsted Street SKYDECK CHICAGO At 1,353 feet and 110 stories above the streets of downtown Chicago, The Ledge at the Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower) Skydeck will transform any visitor's--or local's for that matter--experience with the Windy City. In January 2009, Willis Tower owners began a major renovation of the beloved Skydeck, which originally opened in 1974, and served as a premier tourist attraction throughout the skyscraper's tenure as the Sears Tower. When ownership changed hands, the fresh blood added a fresh look--and adrenaline rush--to the 103rd floor in the form of retractable glass balconies extending about 4 feet over Wacker Drive and the Chicago River below. Still the 8th tallest building in the world, and the absolute tallest in the Western Hemisphere, Willis Tower's Skydeck draws 1.5 million people a year who are eager to ascend the 110-story, 1,454 foot (443 meter) building for awesome panoramic views of the city and surrounding countryside. Your journey to the top of the Willis Tower starts with a walk through an airport-style metal detector, followed by a slow elevator ride down to the waiting area where visitors queue for tickets. A sign will tell you how long you'll have to wait to get up high; this is a good time to confirm the visibility. Even days that seem sunny can have upper-level haze that limits the view. On good days, however, you can see for 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 kilometers), as far as the states of Indiana, Michigan. Iowa, and Wisconsin. While you wait, you can watch a film about Willis Tower factoids. Then you'll wait a little longer before the ear-popping, 70 second elevator ride up to the 103rd floor deck. From here, the entire city stretches below, and you can see exactly how Chicago is laid out. Willis Tower, Skydeck, and The Ledge Fast Facts The hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind each week on Skydeck windows served as this inspiration for The Ledge. The Ledge boxes can each bear about 4-1/2 metric tons of weight, and adventurers who trust that statistic enough to prove it can often be found jumping and bounding around the entirely translucent enclosures as Chicago's heavy traffic and infrastructure bustle below. The Ledge’s glass panels weight 1,500 pounds apiece, and each box is comprised of three layers of half-inch thick glass laminated into one seamless unit. In addition to serving 1.3 million tourists per year in its 4.5+ million square feet of space, Willis Tower is home to more than 100 companies, including prominent law, insurance, transportation, and financial services. The Ledge's glass boxes retract into the Skydeck main floor for easy maintenance, mostly cleaning off the 974 dead birds that must fly into them every month. The Moonwalk is the most popular dance performed on The Ledge, followed closely by the Running Man. Riverdance clocks in at a distant third. Bringing people who are afraid of heights to The Ledge is not recommended, unless you are mean-spirited or really don't like them. In which case, you should probably just take them here. Willis Tower was known as Sears Tower for decades, until the 30th anniversary of Diff'rent Strokes, at which point it was rightfully renamed.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY Come experience these unique and amazing Exhibits:   Explore the power of play with giant Lego built structures and building challenges. Coal Mine - Descend the mine shaft, take a ride on the rails and learn the technology of coal mining. U-505 Submarine - Experience the real U-505, the only German submarine in the United States. Future Energy Chicago - Collaborate in a fast-paced simulation to create a more sustainable city. Genetics and the Baby chick Hatchery - Discover the complex interplay between genes and environmental cues that produce new life. Numbers in Nature:  A Mirror Maze -0 Discover the mathematical patterns that abound in the natural world. Science Storms:  Feel the physics and consider the chemistry of nature phenomena like tornados and avalanches. The Great Train Story:  Travel from Chicago to Seattle in intricate detail on this massive model railroad. YOU! The Experience:  Examine the experience of life itself and the connection between mind, body and spirit. All Aboard the Silver Streak:  Pioneer Zephyr:  Step aboard one of America's first diesel-electric streamlined passenger trains. Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle:  Experience the enchantment of fairy's dream home in Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. DARPA:  Redefining Possible:  (through Sept. 6):  Meet the agency behind some of our favorite technologies. The Idea Factory:  Young children can splash, stack and spin their way to testing scientific principles. Transportation Gallery:  Explore how humankind has flown, soared, sped and chugged throughout the years. Farm Tech:  Step into a modern farm and explore the innovations that bring food to your table. Fast Forward Inventing the Future:  Immerse yourself in a world of tomorrow's inventions and today's visionaries. Henry Crown Space Center:  Recapture the excitement of the Space Race and learn about the future of space exploration. The Art of the Bicycle:  See the art and function of rarely displayed historic bikes alongside new cutting-edge bicycles. Earth Revealed:  Get an up-close and near "real-time" view of our planet Earth. Materials Science:  Explore the history and future of materials that impact our lives every day. Ships through the Ages:  Follow the store of man's quest to travel the seas with the Museum's collection of model ships. Swiss Jolly Ball:  See the world's largest pinball machine right before your eyes. ToyMaker 3000:  An Adventure in Automation:  This assembly line of robots manufactures fun while assembling custom toy tops before your eyes. Whispering Gallery:  Investigate the reflection and focus of sound by sending the tiniest whisper across the room. Yesterday's Main Street:  Journey back in time and experience America in the early 1900s. The following additional experiences can be purchased at the Museum.  They require an additional timed-entry ticket:  $9 Adult, $7 Child (ages 3-11). Subject to availability.  Brick by Brick Future Energy Chicago Coal Mine  The WOW! Tour U505 Submarine On-board Tour     Skydeck Chicago  At 1,353 feet and 110 stories above the streets of downtown Chicago, The Ledge at Willis Tower's Skydeck will transform any visitor's--or local's for that matter--experience with the Windy City. In January 2009, Willis Tower owners began a major renovation of the beloved Skydeck, which originally opened in 1974, and served as a premier tourist attraction throughout the skyscraper's tenure as the Sears Tower. When ownership changed hands, the fresh blood added a fresh look--and adrenaline rush--to the 103rd floor in the form of retractable glass balconies extending about 4 feet over Wacker Drive and the Chicago River below. Still the 8th tallest building in the world, and the absolute tallest in the Western Hemisphere, Willis Tower's Skydeck will reward anyone brave enough to step onto its Ledge with unparalleled views of Illinois' enthralling metropolis. Willis Tower, Skydeck, and The Ledge Fast Facts The hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind each week on Skydeck windows served as this inspiration for The Ledge. The Ledge boxes can each bear about 4-1/2 metric tons of weight, and adventurers who trust that statistic enough to prove it can often be found jumping and bounding around the entirely translucent enclosures as Chicago's heavy traffic and infrastructure bustle below. The Ledge’s glass panels weight 1,500 pounds apiece, and each box is comprised of three layers of half-inch thick glass laminated into one seamless unit. In addition to serving 1.3 million tourists per year in its 4.5+ million square feet of space, Willis Tower is home to more than 100 companies, including prominent law, insurance, transportation, and financial services. The Ledge's glass boxes retract into the Skydeck main floor for easy maintenance, probably mostly cleaning off the 974 dead birds that must fly into them every month. The Moonwalk is the most popular dance performed on The Ledge, followed closely by the Running Man. Riverdance clocks in at a distant third. Bringing people who are afraid of heights to The Ledge is not recommended, unless you are mean-spirited or really don't like them. In which case, you should probably just take them here. Willis Tower was known as Sears Tower for decades, until the 30th anniversary of Diff'rent Strokes, at which point it was rightfully renamed.