As I said in my last post, deciding between Skagway, Alaska and Georgetown, Grand Cayman was a very difficult decision. Georgetown won out and is my #1 vacation destination.  We went to the Caymans as part of our first Jaguar cruise, in 2004.  Browsing through the various excursions, we settled on the Atlantis Submarine Tour.  This submarine takes you about 100 ft and shows you shipwrecks, schools of fish and other sea life.  It was totally awesome. For 45 minutes you can see the undersea world and you don’t have to know how to scuba dive.  The colors of fish are breathtaking, and the shipwrecks were really fascinating. Being only a 90 minute tour overall also leaves plenty of free time, if you take an early tour like we did.  Afterwards, we walked around the city and did some shopping and sightseeing.  There are more stores there than you can imagine, and the owners are willing to deal.  We were very much looking forward to returning in 2008 and even had an island tour with Captain Marvin’s booked, but the seas were too rough for the tenders to take the passengers from the ship to the shore, so we had to skip Georgetown last year.  We would definitely return in a heartbeat.

As part our Web Integration class, one of our assignments was to create a new web 2.0 style logo for the apple iPod.  This was done strictly for educational purposes, so please, Mr. Jobs, I mean no infringement.  This is my design. I hope you like it.

Deciding between my first and second favorite vacation destinations has been a really difficult decision. I love both cities and had great time in each. Unfortunately I had to rank them and ultimately, Skagway, Alaska comes in at number two. Skagway is a small gold rush era boom town nestled in the Alaska’s Inside Passage near the northern end.  The town is very much still a frontier town, though by 1992, when we were there, they had adapted as a cruise ship destination. We booked the Skagway Streetcar Tour for our excursion, thinking it would be a nice, casual, easy day. What a great decision that was.  Steve, our driver and entertainer, is one of the most knowledgeable tour guides I have ever witnessed.  The small town charm is in full evidence, also, as he would wave to townsfolk while driving and fill us on their family life. Everyone knows everyone else in Skagway. The bulk of the narrative in the Streetcar Tour concerns the Gold Rush and one of the most prominent, and corrupt, citizens of Skagway.  His name was Soapy Smith. Smith ran Skagway for a couple years until one of the townspeople shot him.  When we got to the town cemetery, we were shown Smith’s grave, it lies outside the boundaries.  The people did not want his body disgracing their hallowed ground. Steve was extremely entertaining in his storytelling and I do not do the presentation justice.  Suffice it to say, if you go on an Alaskan cruise, you must take the Skagway Streetcar Tour.  You will not be disappointed.  After the tour, you are treated to a show back at the Arctic Brotherhood Hall and given honorary memberships in the Arctic Brotherhood, an honor I still hold to this day. Unfortunately, we primarily took video that day, so there are no photos to share, but you can visit their website at http://www.skagwaystreetcar.com/

St. Thomas

When cruising the Caribbean, there are usually three options, Eastern, Southern, and Western.  In 2006, I won the third of my four Guild Awards, and the reward was a seven-day Southern Caribbean cruise. Our final stop before return to Puerto Rico to fly home was St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  This island paradise is situated just east of Puerto Rico in the Windward Islands.  Being the final stop, this city is a huge shopping destination.  For two blocks wide and three miles long, the shopping district of St. Thomas offers anything you may need, duty-free.  From jewelry to alcohol to clothing and accessories, you can find it here, often at very reasonable prices.  One caveat, however, the store owners know the next cruise ship is docking tomorrow, so haggling can be a challenge.  The better deals are actually found away from the shopping district.  One such area is Paradise Point. This shopping center is 700 feet up the side of a mountain across the street from the cruise ship pier.  You need to purchase a ride on the gondola to get up there, but it is a view you will not soon forget.  Lisa and I brought our Santa Caps with us to take our Christmas picture, but could not get the self timer to work properly, but we still took many amazing photos of the bay. The shops in Paradise Point are just as varied as the shopping district, but are much less crowded.  After our trip up the mountain, we did catch a taxi to the shopping district where we walked through much of it.  The second highlight of our stay in St. Thomas came at the far end of town.  After stopping off at a few historic churches, we caught a water taxi across the bay, back to the cruise ship pier.

St. Thomas, from Paradise Point

One of the great things about traveling is that you are never really sure where it lead you.  In 2001, I won a competition at work and won my first of four trips with Jaguar Cars.  This trip was to Liverpool, Stratford, and London, England.  While in Stratford for only two days and much of that taken up by group outings, Stratford is still my 4th favorite vacation destination.  It is almost hidden away in the center of the island country, a couple hours northwest of London.  The town is very picturesque, yet ancient.  The birthplace of William Shakespeare, Stratford is a quaint, small town.  We arrived in Stratford after the shops had closed, but it was still light out, so we walked around the town and saw many really fascinating old buildings.
Not far away from Stratford is Warwick Castle, Jaguar had arranged for any of us who wanted to see the castle to get a free tour.  We sacrificed our free time in Stratford for the excursion, but it was well worth it.  The castle has been restored and “populated” by Madame Tussaud’s wax figures.  Walking through the castle, each room contains figures portrayed in period costume “living” the life of the ancients.  Some rooms were devoted to upcoming battle, while others were dedicated to a weekend festival.  The wax figures were so lifelike, in one room I waited probably 10 minutes waiting for one to move.  The eerie thing is, they have real people dressed in period costume in some rooms to tell you about the history, so you never know which are people and which are figures.
After the morning at the castle, we proceeded to Coventry, England, and Jaguar Cars World Headquarters where we were given the full factory tour.  The Browns Lane facility was very cool, especially the wood room, where they made all of the veneers for the cars from scratch, and the upholstery room, with all the hides stacked up ready to be cut by hand and stitched into the car seats.  We also happened to be next to the assembly line when lunch break for the workers came, so to see the whole place slow to a stop was pretty neat.
Even without the factory tour (that facility has since closed), Stratford, England is still one of my favorite destinations and I would return in a heartbeat.

Nestled on an island off the Yucatan Peninsula is my sixth favorite vacation destination, Cozumel, Mexico. Cozumel is a fun, vibrant city with tons to do.  One of the most fascinating parts of the region, however, is only a 3 hour bus trip away.  On our first trip to Cozumel, we wanted to see some of the Mayan ruins in the area, so we booked an excursion to the Tulum Mayan Ruins. We were visiting Mexico at the end of June and it was hot. I’m talking 104. Fortunately, the bus was air conditioned.  We arrived at the ruins and were taken aback by the scale of it all. They really are an amazing achievement.  As we took in the grand vista, our tour guide told us that the air conditioned portion of the area was just around edge of the largest temple.  We walked over expecting a visitors center and gift shop, but we met with the most awesome view of the Caribbean some 150 feet below and a cooling breeze that dropped the temperature and humidity drastically.  When we returned to Cozumel four years later, we walked around the city and took in many of the sights and shops we missed on our earlier trip, since the excursion to the ruins takes all day.

The gem at the top of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Mackinac Island is my fifth favorite vacation destination. We spent our 11th anniversary on the island tucked between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. A five hour car ride and forty minute ferry ride from our home near Detroit, Mackinac Island is a true paradise not too far away.  We stayed at the Mission Pointe Resort and toured the island on a horse-drawn carriage.  Since only a few emergency vehicles are only allowed on Mackinac Island, getting around the island presents only three choices, walking, bicycling, or travel by horse.  We walked most of the time, but opted for the horse-drawn tour, since the island is pretty large, and it has been far too long since I navigated by bike.  Mackinac Island does boast a unique record which I don’t think will ever be broken. Highway M-185 circles the island, but since the only motor vehicles on the island are police, fire and ambulances, there has never been an automobile accident on the Highway, so it is the safest road in America.

City number 8 on my top ten list of vacation destinations is Oranjestad, Aruba.  Known for its nightlife, Aruba is a very fascinating island even during the daytime.  Having come to Aruba via cruise ship and only spending one day, our options for travel revolved around tour buses or taxi.  As soon as you leave the cruise terminal, the taxi stand has all of the most popular destinations and how much the taxi fare is, so the drivers can’t gouge tourists.  We took the island tour, seeing an aloe vera facility, the Casabari Rock formation (very cool, it is also one of the highest places on the island and you can see for miles),  and a natural bridge spanning one of Aruba’s river mouths.  After our tour, we still had several hours on the island, we decided to hire a cab and go to Our Lady of Alta Vista chapel.  This picturesque chapel sits near a precipice overlooking the Caribbean Sea.  They hold services outside with pews set up for this purpose.  The most exciting portion of this side trip was the cab ride.  Being fans of “The Amazing Race”, this cabbie made us think we were on the race.  He could have been race driver and we came through unscathed, but we did say an extra prayer while we were at the chapel.

Juneau, Alaska is my seventh favorite destination and it was very difficult to place it this low.  On our honeymoon cruise, my wife and I took an Alaskan cruise.  Being novice travellers at that point, we had no clue about excursions or travel in general.  Once on the ship, the cruise line held a program to explain the various excursions and side trips.  The activity that caught our attention the most was the Mendenhall Glacier Helicopter tour.  We signed up for the tour immediately, even though it was very expensive.  As we were cruising into Juneau, the ship announced that we were sailing through a whale migration route and it was possible that we could see a whale.  So, we got up at 5:00 in the morning and tried to see one. Unfortunately, another ship had preceded us into the area and scared away any whales that might have been there.  When we finally docked in Juneau, we boarded our helicopter for one of the most exciting trips of our lives. We flew over the glacier field and our pilot set us down on a plateau and we got out and walked around on the glacier.  Definitely, one of the major highlights of our honeymoon, and an experience I will never forget.

The Lincoln Memorial on our night tour of monuments

As I begin this blog of my top ten favorite vacation destinations, allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Jim and I work a Jaguar Cars dealership in Michigan. Working for Jaguar has many bonuses, including earning trips through nationwide competitions.  I have four of these trips to date, and six of my destinations are featured in my top ten list.
My number ten entry in this list is our nation’s capitol, Washington, DC.  I have travelled to Washington twice in my life.  Once, as a child, with my family.  My most vivid memory of that trip was losing my wallet in the Smithsonian museum. It was returned to me some weeks later by a fellow boy scout who found it and mailed it back to. Not the greatest of memories. My second trip to our capitol came with my wife Lisa, in 2005. By Jaguar’s rules, you can only win a trip every other year, to allow more people to win them, so 2005 being a “Blacked Out” year for me, we decided to do something different.  Our 3-day trip to Washington taught us something very important. There are some cities that you never seem to have enough time in as a tourist.  There is an enormous amount of things to do.  We toured the Capitol Building, walked through the mall, took a bus tour of the major landmarks at night (extremely cool tour, our bus driver let us vote if we wanted to do the tour as designed, or cut the Jefferson Memorial stop short and see where the jet crashed crashed into the Pentagon. You can guess where we went, the Pentagon!!), and had dinner at Filomena’s (excellent Italian food, my favorite non-hometown restaurant) in Georgetown. Georgetown is an amazing part of Washington, you’d never guess it was part of the city. It is vibrant and buzzing with activity.

The Washington Monument at night