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Disney's Best For Spring Break

walt disney world in Orlando florida is 49 square miles. The size of a whole city and inside the world, as it is known, there are unlimited ways to entertain yourself. I have listed the ten most enjoyable attractions at disney world appropriate for all ages.

1. From epcot the winner is Honey I shrunk the Audience. The audience in this attraction appears to have been shrunk down to the size of ants as a giant film shows on the screen. As rodents run past in the movie your chair shakes appropriately. When someone on screen sneezes you will get a light mist in your face. This one has everyone squealing with delight. This is an attraction for all ages.

2. From The magic Kingdom comes the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger spin. You are enlisted to help Buzz save the Universe.. The way you achieve this is by way of laser cannons that are set in front of you in a futuristic car hurling through space. Your car will spin while you try to hit targets out in the Universe. The effects are achieve with black light and glow in the dark surfaces. Kids get great joy out of making their parents dizzy on this one. Do not miss this one.

3. disney-MGM Studious Back lot Tour at disney-MGM is an informative excursion. Guests get to tour through movie sets on a tram. It is fascinating to see what goes on behind the scenes to create special effects and different scenes. At the end you are taken through floods and explosions before being shown how it is done.

4. Disneyquest at downtown disney is an often overlooked indoor theme park. This larger than life arcade provides a welcome respite from the broiling florida sun. It is five stories high of interactive entertainment. On the Pirates of the caribbean attraction inside Disneyquest you an up to three others are manning a schooner fighting against pirates and sea monsters. One plays the roll of captain steering the vessel while the others are busy launching cannons at the bad guys. Just when you think it is over a giant sea creature tries to board your ship and you must defend once again. This attraction will take your mind off of anything else as you will be preoccupied with your own survival. Fun is the operative word here, for all ages.

5. Also from Disneyquest is the Extraterrestrial Alien Encounter where you can blast and be blasted inside of small spaceship that you fly. Actually you drive it around a floor painted like the milky way. one person steers while the other shoots large rubber cannons from the ship. If you hit an opponent at just the place it will send their ship into a tailspin. All the more fun is if someone else hits your ship's target spot.

6. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at magic Kingdom provides a bit of nostalgia for parents and a sense of wonder in the little ones . Seeing Pooh and friends come alive in the Hundred Acre Wood will warm your heart. This one gets busy though so you may want to use a fast pass if the park is packed.

7. The fireworks show is best viewed from magic Kingdom. Depending on the time of year there are different themes to this one but one thing remains constant disney doesn't do anything halfway and this is no exception. one year I saw the Fourth of July fireworks and the explosions were in the shape of stars. The show was visible all the way from the disney Pop Century hotel which is not right next door. All ages will ooh and gasp over the show.

8. Mickey's PhilharMagic show is a 3D short movie shown on the largest seamless screen ever built. As per all things Disney it is not just a film. This attraction has the audience watching a scene from Fantasia where Donald Duck puts on Mickey's magical hat and is catapulted into the audience. You will smell the scents and feel water and a surprising but not painful sting as well have a visual experience like no other. This may be the most entertaining twelve minutes you ever spend in a movie theater. Bring the kiddies but don't sit back fully in your chair if you want to avoid the sting.

9. At epcot the are many national pavilions. The best of all is the Mexico Pavilion. Inside there is a slow boat ride around the Rio el Tiempo Volcano. This is a gentle and peaceful ride that serves to calm overstimulated children and quell the fire of aching feet in adults.

10. Dinosaur at Disney's Animal Kingdom is not an Aladar ride as I was led to believe. There is a life size Aladar from the kids movie called Dinosaur standing right outside but don't let that fool you. You and your fellow victims are strapped into large metal jeep like vehicles and taken on a trip back in time to when the great beasts roamed the earth. At the end you find out you have mistakenly transported a dinosaur forward to modern times. It is more transfixing that frightening unless like myself you are worried you may fall out of the car and be electrocuted on the track. My fellow pint sized riders had a rollicking good time while I rode in terror. Take your chances. There is a height restriction on this one of 40 inches.

Ann Childs is a freelance writer and travel editor. Her specialty is caribbean travel including beach vacations and cruises. She is the editor and featured writer at http://www.cruise-travel-review.com Post your own reviews at http://www.cruise-travel-review.com/forums/

posted by 99645 @ 1:31 PM 0 comments

Unlocking the Hidden Spa Secrets of India

If you think about Spas, especially with respect to the treatment methodologies and practices available then undoubtedly the place to go to for some of the world's finest treatments would be India.

India as has once been described is one of the spa worlds greatest trust funds. When you consider it; that is not that an unusual description especially for a country that gave us such a wealth and breadth of wonderful treatments.

It is amazing quite how often treatments have originated from India and gone on to be in such demand worldwide. The leading ones including the following: Abhyanga, Shirodhara, Yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, Doshas and chakras.

Yet the surprising thing about this is that despite the wide variety of treatments that have originated from India, the whole concept of spas and western-style health resorts almost definitely is a recent phenomenon with regards to India.

It was said in the old days that if you wanted to steam, all you had to do was step out into the baking heat of the Indian summer and the fat and cellulite would pour off you in a few minutes. That having said that there were always the centuries old tradition of the various therapies practiced at Hindu ashrams (monastic retreats) throughout the country.

These offered a wide variety of holistic and life enhancing treatments such as Ayurveda and Yoga amongst others. However, modern day India has joined the western worlds demand for more and more exclusive and exquisite treatments with a vengeance.

Today, there is nothing you cannot get in Indian Spas and to be quite frank they do it by and large a lot better than most elsewhere. From packaged contortion, aromatic rubs, aura imaging and herbal body pummelling all are available aplenty within the fast growing market for Spas in India.

However it has to be said that it is the traditional ayurvedic Spa treatments that flourish like a cottage industry in the southern state of Kerala that really encompass and represent India.

Like the vast range geographic and climatic differences that make up India the treatments are accordingly wide and varied. In ananda, high up in the Himalayas where a wellness sanctuary situated in a restored royal palace in the Himalayan foothills claims to have the world's oldest billiards table you can get the benefit of therapeutic treatments based on traditional Ayurvedic and yoga meditation.

From here you can drop down to the historic valley of Indias sacred Ganges River at Rishikesh where each and every day at sunset you can witness the Ganga maha Aarti, a 90 minute ceremony of music and chanting that takes place at an ashram on the bank of the river so there is plenty of relaxation for mind as well as soul!

For the more selective jetsetter travelling within India are a chain of Hotels dotted throughout the north and west of the country managed by Oberoi Hotels. With Wellness Spas provided by Banyan Tree they are much favoured by corporate travellers especially.

In a lot of cases the Hotel industry has benefited in a rather weird and roundabout manner from Indias emergence into a twenty first century democracy. When British rule was abolished in the late 1940s and India gained independence, the large number of Maharajas that had benefited rather well from British rule had their vast incomes from land taken away from them and by and large left with only their real estate or palaces.

The far seeing and forward thinking amongst them realised that there was income and profit to be had from converting these incredibly impressive palaces into modern day hotels and the luxury hotel and spa market in India took off with a vengeance.

It has not looked back since.

Scott James writes regularly on travel issues and more on the above can be found at India Holidays , India Travel and Indian Recipes

posted by 99645 @ 2:30 AM 0 comments