25/7/2010 - New York, NY, USA - New York, New York tour.
Very early start this morning - we were told not to miss the sail in to New York as we pass by the Statue of Liberty. We were up at 5am to see the sail in, it was quite impressive!

We docked at Pier 88, Manhattan! which is right on 48th street. Interestingly we were right beside the USS Intrepid - an old Aircraft carrier which was turned into an Air, Sea and Space Museum! The view from my window included lots of military aircraft and one of the old British Airways Concords!

Our tour was a bus trip, showing us many of the major things to see in New York - our guide was excellent, he knew which rich and/or famous person lived - he also gave us his opinion on living in New York and a basic overview of how things such as Co-Ops work. We went around Central Park, saw the Apollo Theater and the Guggenheim Museum before coming to our first stop - the Rockefeller centre!
We had some great views of the city - including an excellent view of the Empire State Building and Central Park! If you visit New York - you have to go up the Rockefeller centre, it's totally worth seeing - puts the place in perspective!


This was one of the more interesting street signs I noticed!

Our tour bus had a bit of a problem with the air conditioning at that point - so we went to lunch a little early at the South Street Seaport. We bought our own lunch, it wasn't included as part of the tour - but the food was excellent so that was ok!
We passed through times square, since it was a Sunday our guide said it was quiet (to me it looked busy, but he assured us that what was saw was very tame). Next we stopped at the Wintergarden and looked at Ground Zero, our guide gave us a talk about what the area was like during the 9/11 attacks. It looks like things are starting to progress here, new buildings are going up and it felt like a positive thing that they could come back from something so horrible.
Our tour then continued down to broadway and we had a look at wall street. Our guide pointed out various movie/tv related places along the way (places where they filmed movies like Men in Black, Tv shows like Law and Order, and a host of others!).
It started raining late in the tour, another afternoon storm! We arrived back at the ship feeling a bit tired, but glad to have gotten a glimpse of the city! You could probably spend a month here and not see it all!
The sail out on the harbour was impressive, all of the buildings began lighting up as dusk approached.

New York was a lot of fun and I hope to go back at some point in the future and spend more time there!

We docked at Pier 88, Manhattan! which is right on 48th street. Interestingly we were right beside the USS Intrepid - an old Aircraft carrier which was turned into an Air, Sea and Space Museum! The view from my window included lots of military aircraft and one of the old British Airways Concords!

Our tour was a bus trip, showing us many of the major things to see in New York - our guide was excellent, he knew which rich and/or famous person lived - he also gave us his opinion on living in New York and a basic overview of how things such as Co-Ops work. We went around Central Park, saw the Apollo Theater and the Guggenheim Museum before coming to our first stop - the Rockefeller centre!
We had some great views of the city - including an excellent view of the Empire State Building and Central Park! If you visit New York - you have to go up the Rockefeller centre, it's totally worth seeing - puts the place in perspective!


This was one of the more interesting street signs I noticed!

Our tour bus had a bit of a problem with the air conditioning at that point - so we went to lunch a little early at the South Street Seaport. We bought our own lunch, it wasn't included as part of the tour - but the food was excellent so that was ok!
We passed through times square, since it was a Sunday our guide said it was quiet (to me it looked busy, but he assured us that what was saw was very tame). Next we stopped at the Wintergarden and looked at Ground Zero, our guide gave us a talk about what the area was like during the 9/11 attacks. It looks like things are starting to progress here, new buildings are going up and it felt like a positive thing that they could come back from something so horrible.
Our tour then continued down to broadway and we had a look at wall street. Our guide pointed out various movie/tv related places along the way (places where they filmed movies like Men in Black, Tv shows like Law and Order, and a host of others!).
It started raining late in the tour, another afternoon storm! We arrived back at the ship feeling a bit tired, but glad to have gotten a glimpse of the city! You could probably spend a month here and not see it all!
The sail out on the harbour was impressive, all of the buildings began lighting up as dusk approached.

New York was a lot of fun and I hope to go back at some point in the future and spend more time there!
Our tour stared with us driving through Newport - the main thing that Newport has is rich and famous people's homes. There are some massive places overlooking the harbour that cost ridiculous amounts of money - and apparently they were built only with the intention of using them six to eight weeks a year!
One interesting sight was this below picture - this house is built out in the middle of the harbour! it has no running water or electricity - but it has some awesome views!
I experienced my first thunderstorm while on board the ship later in the afternoon (at least a storm I could go out on a balcony and watch) - quite a large thunderstorm struck around 4pm - turning over small sailboats in the harbour, it was an impressive sight (got some good video of it!).
Dave, Marylyn and I all started feeling a little homesick after the storm - it felt so much like a summer afternoon on the sunshine coast!
The first part of the tour was the Harbour cruise. This is a good way to see a lot of the sights, as the harbour is a major focus of the city. We sailed past the place where the Boston Tea Party occurred, down to the fort that defended the harbour and the memorial. We sailed past "Old Ironsides" a ship used in the American revolution that was notorious amongst the English forces because cannonballs would bounce off it's thick wooden hull.
After the cruise we had a bus tour of the city, it's a nice comfortable place, lots of green and some very interesting buildings. There are way too many interesting places that we saw to list them all - but a few of the more notable - the pub that the TV show Cheers was based on, Boston Common and Trinity church.
Boston was a good place to visit and I think I'd like to go back and spend a little more time there.
The Choir performed just before we arrived in Boston, singing American




We had fish and chips for lunch at an 
We drove past Scotland Yard, and then the rain began - it was quite heavy, a bunch of the people on our tour got caught out in it - thankfully we were waiting in the bus at the time!
London felt much more cramped than Paris, also the buildings were a bit strange - very little
First stop in Paris was the Eiffel Tower for some photos, lots of people selling little Eiffel towers, etc. We then took a drive under the tower and looked at the thousands of tourists lining up to go up the tower - thankfully we weren't going up. The observation deck on
We then started our drive around the city, driving by the Military
Next was
After a break for some shopping/etc it was time to get back on the bus and we took a drive down the Champs-