The Big Bus Chicago - Premium Ticket 1 Day

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.

Tour Stops Red Line 1. Old Town Square 2. Na Florenci 3. Mala Strana 4. Prague Castle 5. Strahow Monastery 6. Strahov Stadium 7. Kampa Island 8. Hlavni Nadrazi 9. I.P. Pavlova 10. Main Train Station   Blue Line 1. Old Town Square 2. Intercontinental Hotel 3. Mala Strana 4. St Nicholas 5. Kampa Island 6. Jewish Cemetery   Passengers can hop-on and hop-off at any of the 10 tour stops along the Red Line and any of the 6 tour stops along the Blue Line. If you’d prefer, stay on the tour for a full loop – Red Line (90 minutes) and Blue Line (50 minutes).   Additional Information: Vouchers must be redeemed for a City Sightseeing ticket at the following address: Main Office, Grevin Museum, Celetna 15, Prague 1, 11000. The audio commentary is available in the following languages: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Russian, Czech Buses are wheelchair accessible.

30 Minute Scenic Nature Tour Discover territory that remains unaltered by man in the wilderness of the Central Florida Everglades. Let the experienced Master Captains take you into the breathtaking beauty of natural wonders, including wetlands, cypress trees, and wildlife. Ride with a certified U.S. Coast Guard Captain and see Florida Alligators, turtles, birds and more in their natural environment. This safe, exciting and educational airboat ride is filled with surprises and fascination. View wildlife on a U.S. Coast Guard Inspected 17 passenger airboat. Each airboat tour is a unique experience and never the same. You will enjoy whisking across the surface of the water at speeds up to 45 mph while shooting between walls of tall grass. NOTE: The best time to see alligators is early in the morning (before 10:00) during hot weather and later in the day in the cold. You don't have to be a space junkie to enjoy NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the only spot in the United States from which humans have been hurled into space. The plethora of hands-on exhibits, IMAX movies, and sheer magnitude of the shuttles will surely impress the most passive fan. Space Shuttle Atlantis℠ Your journey begins in the Atlantis theater where we bring to life the story of the people who dared to do the impossible. Gaze in wonder at a close-up view of Space Shuttle Atlantis, displayed in mid-flight glory. With more than 60 interactive exhibits, it's a moving celebration of humankind’s greatest achievements.  Twin IMAX® Theater 3D Films Two incredible, five-story 3D presentations tell stories certain to inspire. One explores breathtaking images of Earth in A Beautiful Planet, and the other details projects that NASA is currently working on, like sending astronauts to Mars. Shuttle Launch Experience® Shuttle Launch Experience immerses visitors in the sights, sounds and feelings of a Space Shuttle launch, an incredible journey of launching into space and orbiting Earth aboard a Space Shuttle. Guest crewmembers strap in and go vertical for launch in a one-of-a-kind custom-designed crew cabin. Meet an Astronaut You’re invited to meet a veteran NASA astronaut at the live Astronaut Encounter show. Offered multiple times daily, this exciting presentation features an astronaut every day with more than 30 of the approximately 500 hundred men and women who have flown in space scheduled throughout the year. Numerous Shows and Exhibits*   Space Shuttle Atlantis℠ Exhibit  Your journey begins in the Atlantis theater where we bring to life the story of the people who dared to do the impossible. Gaze in wonder at a close-up view of Space Shuttle Atlantis, displayed in mid-flight glory. With more than 60 interactive exhibits, it's a moving celebration of humankind’s greatest achievements. Appollo/Saturn V Center  Relive the wonder and excitement of the Apollo era in this one-of-a-kind exhibit that celebrates the unprecedented achievement of putting man on the moon and the joy felt in that moment by all humankind. Rocket Garden  At NASA, it is often said that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Rocket Garden. Behind every rocket you see are great men and women engineers and astronauts, designers and thinkers who turned dreams into history. It is here you find the first rocket to break free from gravity. Eyes on the Universe  Journey through time and space to the farthest reaches of the universe at “Eyes on the Universe: NASA’S Space Telescopes,” the newest and only 3D 4K resolution show at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. NASA Now   After discovering the history of America’s space program at Kennedy Space Center, view the NASA Now exhibit in the West Gallery of IMAX Theater building to explore the future of NASA’s Commercial Crew program and the Journey to Mars! Astronaut Memorial  At the Astronaut Memorial, we honor NASA’s fallen heroes, those among the elite astronaut corps who gave their lives in the pursuit of knowledge that lies beyond our Earth. Journey To Mars:  Explorers Wanted  The future of space travel lies with you. Learn more about what it takes to explore Mars in this inspiring show. Exhibits provide a look at prototypes and designs that will launch the next generation to Mars and beyond, including rovers, simulators, and the Orion crew capsule. Children's Play dome  Imaginations will soar at the Children's Play Dome, a one-of-a-kind space-themed playground. With the majestic Rocket Garden as a backdrop, children can take off in a spacecraft, climb a moon rock wall, crawl through rocket tunnels and slide to the surface of the Moon. KSC Bus Tour  There’s no better way to get a glimpse of Kennedy Space Center than on one of our daily tours, departing by bus every 15 minutes from the Visitor Complex. Our experienced tour guides will take you past some of the most iconic NASA landmarks.  

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, 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   SHEDD AQUARIUM EXHIBITS AMPHIBIANS! Get ready for a toadally ribbiting experience! Shedd’s new special exhibit, Amphibians, hops into the aquarium May 16 and is included with admission. ​In Amphibians, you’ll meet 40 species of frogs, salamanders and rarely seen caecilians. Learn how amphibians’ lives are full of change, from their life cycles to their adaptations to live in nearly every environment on Earth. Find out how too much change can spell trouble for amphibians — and how you can help them cope with big changes in our world today! Waters of the World Travel the world in 80 habitats. Dive into Oceans, from coastal kelp forests to the seafloor. Explore the self-contained ecosystems of Islands and Lakes. Visit Rivers—big and small—and learn more about our local waters in the new At Home on the Great Lakes exhibit. Meet hundreds of amazing animals, from tiny mantella frogsto a a giant octopus, from a Grand Cayman blue iguana to Nile knifefish, and from moon jellies to sea stars. We even have map turtles, in case you get lost. Caribbean Reef Take a 360-degree tour of an underwater reef community. Follow a green sea turtle. Peek at a moray eel in a rocky crevice. Watch regal rays glide by. Get eye-to-eye with parrot fish and sharks. Visit Caribbean Reef, Shedd’s award-winning 90,000-gallon circular habitat in the grand rotunda. Amazon Rising Take an exotic journey in the Amazon, home to one-third of all living things. Watch out for anacondas and piranhas, spiders, rays and a camouflaged caiman. In churning river channels, still lakes and even flooded treetops look for tetras, turtles and fruit-eating fish called tambaqui. See how the region’s animals, plants and people adapt to the water’s dramatic annual rise and fall. Abbott Oceanarium The Abbott Oceanarium immerses you in the vibrant coastal ecosystem of beluga whales, Pacific white-sided dolphins, sea otters and sea lions. You’ll also find a host of fishes and invertebrates that make their homes where freshwater flows into the ocean or where tides turn seascapes to landscapes and back again each day. Use our self-guided map to discover how animals are linked to each other, their homes and you. Polar Play Zone Kids have a place at Shedd that they can call their own—Polar Play Zone. It’s cool as ice and twice as nice! The penguins think so, too. Play! Splash! Pretend! What would you like to be? A sleek sliding penguin? A deep-sea explorer? How about both? In Polar Play Zone, you can slip into a penguin suit and try being a bird in the Icy South play area. From there, head to the Icy North to explore the belugas’ Arctic waters in a kid-sized submarine. Don’t forget to shake hands—or is it arms?—with colorful sea stars in the touch pools. In Polar Play Zone, you’ll learn about polar opposites—big and small, fast and slow, shallow and deep, even north and south—while you play. The Oceanarium Aquatic Presentation​ is included however based on available seating and remaining show times at the time of guest arrival. (2018 Aquatic Presentation Schedule) Stingray Touch (seasonal experience) is included. Open late May through October. 4D Experience is not included however the 4D experience tickets may be purchased at the theatre for $3.00 per -person

Each whale watching excursion is slightly unique. We follow the whales' migration path to bring you up close for the best sighting spots, which change every day. In the beginning of the season, the southbound whales swim closer to the coast, so the maximum distance is about 3-5 miles. Toward the end of the season, when the northbound whales swim further out, we can cruise up to 9-12 miles off the coast.   WHAT TO BRING We suggest dressing in layers. The temperature and winds can be unpredictable even if it's sunny out. warm clothing- dress in layers binoculars camera sunscreen sunglasses hat medication - If you may be prone to seasickness, plan ahead. Medication only works when taken BEFORE boarding the vessel. Wristbands for motion sickness also can be effective. Either can be purchased at any drug store.

A List Beneath the stars, high up in the hills of the Californian countryside you have been invited to the most exclusive party in town...  The party is filled with the most glamorous and gorgeous A-Listers all waiting to meet you. George Clooney has reserved a space for you on the sofa in the VIP area - sit down next to him and watch as the lights dim and create a romantic setting. Gaze at the stars with Leonardo Di Caprio by the open balcony. Elton John stands at a grand piano, waiting for you to join him to entertain your guests. Madame Tussauds San Francisco is inviting you to this ultimate star-studded party. Film Join the stars on set to recreate some of the most iconic scenes in film history. No homage to San Franciscan movie history would be complete without a scene from both Bullitt and Dirty Harry. Pose with Steve McQueen next to a replica of his green Mustang. Perhaps you feel more comfortable behind the camera? No problem! Steven Spielberg has reserved his Director’s Chair for you on the set of Jurrassic Park! You can also put your own martial arts skills to the test by taking on the kung fu master, Bruce Lee. History and Leaders As you enter the Leaders and History room witness the moment Johan Sutter first discovered gold, setting off a chain reaction that would see the beginning of the great Californian Gold Rush.  Visit Alcatraz prison cell and experience first-hand what it was like to be behind bars on ‘The Rock’, then plan an escape with your friends and hear the sirens go off. Meet Civil Rights campaigner Rosa Parks and join her on a bus ride which changed history! Stand proud with Martin Luther King as he delivers a speech and meet with the Dalai Lama; a man who not only won the Nobel Peace prize but who also influenced the peace loving hippies of 1960s California.  Continue on your epic journey of discovery with a trip to the White House to meet Barack Obama, the first African American president of the United States of America, then finish you trip meeting a couple of the most famous entrepreneurs of the current generation. Spirit of San Francisco A street sign points you in the direction of Haight Asbury where you travel back in time to the era that shaped San Francisco’s liberal attitudes and gave birth to a generation of free thinking idealists and iconic musicians. After a very special welcome from Ed Lee, the Major or San Francisco, you will marvel at grafitti from a local artist as well as become a participant in Harvey Milk's triumphant campaign for equal rights.  As you follow the winding path of Lombard Street you end up outside the Sentinel Building home to Francis Ford Coppola’s movie production company. The man himself is waiting for you outside with his latest film script in hand; perhaps he has you in mind for the leading role!  A short distance away you can hear the faint sounds of music and smell burning campfires. As you investigate closer you step into a living breathing festival. Jimi Hendrix rocks out to Purple Haze on the main stage waiting for you to step in and jam with him. The dominant stance of the iconic Golden Gate bridge frames the middle of this area. As you step through the red arch you step further back in time, witnessing the bridge's construction, before picking up the hose and colour the Coit Tower in beautiful patterns. and many more!!