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Further Information All the necessary equipment, including map, helmet, chain and a basket for your convenience • Well-maintained bikes for men, women, and children who dream of enjoying the Bridge and surrounding areas • Located just two blocks from the Bridge Operate every day of the year. Clothing tips: In warm weather, dress light, wear sunblock & bring comfortable shoes. In cool weather, wear layered clothing to ensure comfort.
Our first stop is the world famous Rock and Roll hot spot, “Guitar Center” located on the legendary Sunset Blvd. Guitar Center is the nucleus of the Rock & Roll World with hand prints in concrete and bronze plaques of all the music greats. Next we arrive at the one and only “Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.” This is the “Center of Hollywood” where you have ample time to visit the Kodak Theater (Dolby Theater) & Chinese Theater (homes of the Oscars with movie stars handprints forever in concrete) as well as the stunningly ornate Roosevelt Hotel where stars and famous people are often seen having lunch; the Hollywood Wax Museum; Ripley’s Believe It or Not; Madame Tussauds; American Cinematheque & Egyptian Theater. Stars such as Tom Cruise, Madonna, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, Jack Nicholson and so many others live in the magnificent mansions throughout this area and are seen regularly. Romantically stroll along Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame with the stars at your feet; find your favorite star and take a photo. You also have a wonderful view of the iconic “Hollywood Sign” from the Patio of the Kodak Theater. Don’t forget to pick up a souvenir at one of the many gift shops in this area. Most of our time is spent in the wonderful Hollywood Blvd., area but we still see great views of many famous film locations, the Landmark Biltmore Hotel, Magic Castle, Hollywood United Methodist Church, Warner Brothers Studios & Soundstages, Walt Disney Studios, where most of the classic animated movies were made such as Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Mary Poppins, Armageddon & the Pirates of the Caribbean, to mention only a few. We also see Pixar Entertainment and ABC Studios alongside Disney. Welcome to Hollywood, the Movie, Music and “Movie Star” capitol of the world! You will love this fun and fascinating day touring through the Hollywood Hills of Southern California! What to Wear Hiking or athletic walking shoes Temperatures are cooler from October – February, so long pants and a warm jacket are appropriate March – September temperatures are warm where shorts, hats, and a light shirt are comfortable
SHEDD AQUARIUM EXHIBITS UNDERWATER BEAUTY – A SPECIAL EXHIBIT Our living world is full of wonder. Celebrate with us the unbelievable beauty living in our oceans, lakes and rivers in a new special exhibit at Shedd Aquarium: Underwater Beauty. Get a glimpse of the grandeur beneath the waves as 100 species from around the world come together in an evocative new space. What is beauty? Spark your curiosity as you see all the ways beauty moves and coexists. Watch sea jellies pulse, eels ribbon and a rainbow come alive with reef fishes. Feel the rhythms, embrace the colors and savor the patterns found only underwater. Experience a world worth celebrating – and saving. 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. (2019 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 Pets are not allowed in the aquarium SHEDD AQUARIUM (Buy your tickets now and skip the long lines) Shedd Aquarium (formally the John G. Shedd Aquarium) contains over 25,000 fish, and was for some time the largest indoor aquarium in the world with 5,000,000 US gallons of water. The Shedd Aquarium, which opened on May 30, 1930, was the first inland aquarium with a permanent saltwater fish collection. Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, Shedd Aquarium brings you eye-to-eye with more than 32,500 aquatic animals. Explore the recreated environments of the Amazon River and Philippine coral reefs. NEW - UNDERWATER BEAUTY – A SPECIAL EXHIBIT Our living world is full of wonder. Celebrate with us the unbelievable beauty living in our oceans, lakes and rivers in a new special exhibit at Shedd Aquarium: Underwater Beauty. Get a glimpse of the grandeur beneath the waves as 100 species from around the world come together in an evocative new space. What is beauty? Spark your curiosity as you see all the ways beauty moves and coexists. Watch sea jellies pulse, eels ribbon and a rainbow come alive with reef fishes. Feel the rhythms, embrace the colors and savor the patterns found only underwater. Experience a world worth celebrating – and saving.
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 UNDERWATER BEAUTY – A SPECIAL EXHIBIT Our living world is full of wonder. Celebrate with us the unbelievable beauty living in our oceans, lakes and rivers in a new special exhibit at Shedd Aquarium: Underwater Beauty. Get a glimpse of the grandeur beneath the waves as 100 species from around the world come together in an evocative new space. What is beauty? Spark your curiosity as you see all the ways beauty moves and coexists. Watch sea jellies pulse, eels ribbon and a rainbow come alive with reef fishes. Feel the rhythms, embrace the colors and savor the patterns found only underwater. Experience a world worth celebrating – and saving. 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
Some of the sights you will see: The Statue of Liberty The famed gift from France that served as the symbol of America to millions of immigrants and citizens alike was erected in New York Harbor in 1886. The Brooklyn Bridge Completed in 1883, the iconic Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, and the view from underneath is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The World Trade Centre Site See history in the making as the construction cranes rise from the World Trade Centre site where, once completed, One World Trade Centre will be 1,776 feet tall! The Empire State Building Built during the American Great Depression in 1930, this astounding building has 102 floors and 6,500 windows, and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
A day of fun in the sun on the Gulf Coast of Mexico at Clearwater Beach Enjoy a relaxing day at the beach Free time to enjoy the beach, walk along the pier, take a swim etc
