Ah, Summer

August has begun. This is when I start to get into the "Summer Funk." All I want to do is lay on a beach in the warm sun, enjoying the warm awesomeness of the summer. Instead, I am stuck in a dreary office with no windows. It is probably the worst possible way to spend the summer. Being an adult sucks.

However, I am taking a vacation this year! I don't usually take a week-long vacation because my family rarely goes anywhere. (Not by choice, mind you.) We aren't going away this year but we are doing a bunch of things in the area that we have been wanting to hit.

1. Camelbeach

Camelbeach is a pretty awesome waterpark that we try to go to every year. My daughter, who isn't big on amusement parks, loves this place. The best part is that they have specials on 4-packs of tickets. Since there are only three of us in the family, my daughter gets to bring one of her friends. After all, hanging out with your parents is laaaame.

2. Da Vinci Science Center

The Da Vinci Science Center is a sort-of hands-on museum type thing. It is aimed at getting kids interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) programs. While my daughter isn't a huge science nut, she is involved in her school's branch of the Technology Student Association so things like this help her both in the classroom and in clubs. And it's fun!

3. Lehigh Valley Zoo

Since we live in the Philadelphia area, we have been to the Philadelphia Zoo many times. However, we have never been to the Lehigh Valley Zoo, which isn't particularly far from our house. Everyone in my family loves animals (heck, my sister is getting married at a local zoo in September!) so it should be a great trip.

These are the main pieces of our vacation. (No, I'm not going to say "staycation." That is a terrible word.) We will probably find a couple of other places to visit and maybe we'll even spend a day relaxing by the pool. I really do love summer. Now if only I could get rid of the desk job....

The Ride

Going back to my trip to New York City for a moment, the final thing we did in the city before we left was take a bus tour called The Ride. This is the infamous "sideways bus." Yes, the seats on this particular bus are situated so that all of the passengers have a window view. Instead of facing forward, the seats face the one huge window on the right side of the bus. The seats are set up stadium-style so the top row is higher than the bottom row and everyone has a good view of what is going on outside. The Ride has two tour hosts - Jackie and Scott. It is obvious that both of them have had improv training of some sort. Both of them were absolutely hysterical as they poked fun at the passengers and the people walking past on the street. In this case, the tour operators really do make the attraction much more fun and enjoyable.

It's a little difficult to explain The Ride if you have never been on it. It is a tour so you do get to see some of the touristy things in New York. You get some basic information on Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building and some other notable places. What sets it apart from other city tours is the sidewalk entertainment. There are a couple of stops where entertainers, dressed as regular people on the street, perform for you. For example, a man in a UPS-type uniform sets his package aside to do some breakdancing for us. Since he is right there on the street, there are regular people walking past him. Not only are the performers awesome to watch, it's also funny to watch the reactions of the people trying to get someplace.

The Ride is on the expensive side of things. It costs $59.00 per person for an approximately 75 minute tour. (Note: The box office is located at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. It can be difficult to find but once you get to the museum, it is literally right there.) However, I do think that it is worth the price. All three of us spent the entire ride with smiles on our faces. I would love to do it again the next time I am in New York City.

Sapporo

Just a block or two from Times Square is one of the best ramen shops in New York City. Sapporo is on West 49th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, about a block away from the M&M store. Keep an eye out for the red and white awning. Sapporo is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall type place. It isn't listed in the AAA New York City tour book. But the place is amazing. While they do serve other dishes, their main fare is traditional Japanese ramen. My daughter had the Miso Ramen, which is a basic ramen dish with both minced pork and two slices of roast pork. I had the very similar Tokyo Ramen, which added a fish cake and seaweed to the Miso Ramen. My aunt chose the Tomato Omelette and a mini Chahan - Japanese fried rice.

All of the food was delicious. I don't think I have ever had a better bowl of ramen. The best part was the size of our meals. Both ramen bowls were huge. The omelette and chahan were a bit smaller but both of those are listed either as appetizers or side dishes. And the price wasn't too bad either. Overall, we are extremely happy with our lunchtime choice. I was only disappointed the size of my stomach. I really wanted to eat more!

Aladdin

One of the main reasons we went to New York City was to see Disney's newest Broadway play, Aladdin. The last time we were in the city, we saw The Lion King and Mary Poppins. I know what Disney can do with a stage so I was very excited to see what they would do to the Aladdin movie.

For those of you that haven't seen the movie, Aladdin is the story of a poor street rat who rubs a magic lamp and becomes a master to a genie. He uses the genie's powers to help him win the heart of the kingdom's princess. Meanwhile, the Sultan's royal vizier is trying to get rid of Aladdin and the princess so he can take over Agrabah.

When the movie was first scripted, there were more characters. Aladdin had a couple of friends and his mother had recently died. Due to time constraints, those characters were cut. Aladdin's only friend (before Genie) was a pet monkey named Abu. The musical does cut out Abu (and Raja, for obvious reasons) but brings back the three friends and the parental storyline. With these changes came the reinsertion of a couple of songs that were cut from the movie. If you had the 1994 CD release The Music Behind The Magic, you will recognize the new songs.

The musical is absolutely amazing. Despite having a fairly small cast, they are able to bring so many different characters to life. (Let's put it this way: The 21-member ensemble actually brings the entire parade into the castle during "Prince Ali." So. Many. Quick. Costume. Changes. It is mind-boggling.) Adam Jacobs, who plays Aladdin, is adorable. Not only does he bring the non-threatening wittiness of the character to life, he also has a wonderful singing voice. He did not disappoint with "Proud of Your Boy." Courtney Reed also did a good job with Jasmine. Unfortunately, she isn't really the highlight of the show. She is very pretty and has a lovely voice but it seems like she doesn't spend a whole lot of time on stage. The evil Jafar is played by Jonathan Freeman, who also voiced the character in the animated movie. Much like Jasmine, he was good and it was awesome to hear the voice we all know coming out of Jafar's face but he still seemed lacking somehow.

I think the reason everyone else seemed so small is that the Genie has such a huge stage presence. James Monroe Iglehart plays our beloved Genie and he is amazing. He is somehow able to bring Robin William's manicness into reality. During "Friend Like Me," he slips in a few verses from "Beauty and the Beast," "Under The Sea," "Colors of The Wind," and a few more. I was just stunned how easily he moved between all of the songs. He has been nominated for a Tony, which he richly deserves to win.

If you can get to New York City to see the show, please do. You will not be disappointed. You will be awed, you will laugh your pants off, and you will be left wondering how the magic carpet actually flew. But you will definitely not be disappointed.

The View

During our first night in New York City, the three of us ate dinner at The View Restaurant & Lounge. We also had their Sunday morning brunch. The View is a revolving restaurant on the 48th floor of the Marriott Marquis. The center area of the restaurant, where the kitchen and hostess area lies, is stationary. However, the outside area, where you are seated, slowly turns to allow you to see many of the gorgeous sights that New York City has to offer. Thankfully, the drink napkins feature a mini-map so you can try to discern which building is which. (Hint: It is not that easy to figure out, even with the map!) While the view from the restaurant is nice, the food is the star attraction. I had the Spring Lettuce prelude (that's a fancy word for 'appetizer') and a center cut tenderloin as my main dish. As I have noted here before, I have a bit of a weakness for salads. The spring lettuce salad featured a line of whipped gorgonzola cheese underneath the vegetables that made the entire dish delightful. My daughter had the same prelude but she didn't like the vinegar-based salad dressing as much as I did. (What can I say, she's 12.) My tenderloin was quite juicy and cooked to perfection. It was accompanied by baked steak fries (basically sliced pieces of baked potato), glazed onions, thyme roasted carrots, and soft truffled camembert cheese. The only reason I didn't finish everything on my plate was dessert.

But first, let's discuss brunch. Brunch handled buffet style. Every adult gets 2 breakfast mimosas then you are sent off to pick whatever you would like. And there are a ton of choices. There are three main stations. The first holds the cold selections. There are a variety of Italian meats and cheeses, as well as breads, pastries, and salads. The second station is hot selections. This is where you find omelettes, Belgian waffles, deep dish pancakes, applewood smoked bacon, eggs benedict...it really is difficult to list everything you would find there. The sheer amount of food is amazing. The final station holds the desserts. The main feature is the chocolate fountain but there are other items, such as mini-cupcakes, cookies, biscuits, fruit, cups of chocolate or strawberry mousse, and much more. I'm generally not a breakfast person but this was an awesome way to start off the day. At $59 per person, the price is a little steep for brunch. It is well worth it though.

And now dessert. My aunt had told the restaurant that we were there to celebrate my daughter's birthday. As a result, we received a dark chocolate mousse cake at both meals. Each cake was almost identical. The only difference was the chocolate piece on top. At dinner, it read "Happy Birthday." There must have been a mix-up at brunch because there is read "Happy Anniversary." (That is the picture below.) Not that the wording mattered much. My daughter gobbled both of them up. The cake itself was a bit big for one person to eat so we shared it. As expected, it was absolutely delicious. It was so delicious that, for our dessert with dinner, we took home two of the smaller mousses as well as a cheesecake. (The dessert came with the dinner so there was no reason to leave it behind.) If you like dark chocolate, I highly recommend the mousse.

I fully enjoyed both of the meals we ate at The View. Since it is New York City, expect the prices to be a little on the high side. However, if you can fit it into your budget and schedule, it definitely is one of the "must visit" places in the city.

Marriott Marquis

I went to New York City with my aunt and my daughter this past weekend. Over the next few days, I'll be giving you reviews of the places we visited. I'm going to start out with our hotel. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis right on Times Square. This is the same hotel we stayed at the last time we visited New York City back in August 2010.

Our room was nice. We were on the 12th floor with a corner room. It was a pretty standard hotel room with two double beds. I was a little surprised to find that the room did not have a refrigerator but it wasn't a deal-breaker.

If you follow me over on Instagram, you would have seen a picture of the view from our hotel room. This was the view on Saturday morning. See the Sony screen almost in the middle of the top of the shot? If you follow those billboards straight up, that is where the New Year's Eve ball hangs. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good shot of the ball from our hotel room due to the massive amount of brightly lit billboards under it. Towards the center of the shot, next to the building roof and near all the orange construction cones, is where all of the characters wander around begging for people to pay them for pictures. (No, we didn't take pictures with any of them.) On the left-hand side of the picture, under the Bachelorette's face, is Toys R Us.

One of my favorite things about this hotel is the elevator system. All of the elevators are located in a circle in the center of the hotel. You go to a number pad and enter the floor number you wish to go to. The number pad then tells you which elevator to get on. The elevators are each given a letter. So if you push in floor 12, it might tell you to get on elevator J. It is much easier than having everyone pile into one or two elevators then having to wait for each floor, especially when you are on a higher floor.

The down part of the elevator system is the way the hotel is organized. The lobby/concierge/registration desk is located on the 8th floor. If you want to eat at the hotel's rooftop restaurant, The View, which is on the 48th floor, you have to go to the 3rd floor to get the only two elevators that go to the top. But if you want to leave the hotel, you need to go to the 1st floor. So if you have a question for the concierge before you leave the hotel, you have to take an elevator to the 8th floor to get your answer before going down to the 1st floor to go outside. And if you have dinner reservations at The View, which we did, you have to go down to the 3rd floor to go all the way up to the 48th. It's a lot of work.

With that said, I do highly recommend the hotel. If you are willing to pay for a room with the view of Times Square, the view is pretty amazing. All of the hotel staff that we encountered were extremely nice and eager to assist. And, best of all, it is right in the middle of everything you would want to do in the Times Square area. I am very likely to stay there again if we can manage another trip to New York City.

Schuylkill River Outdoors

I really thought I wrote about this already. Apparently I have lost my marbles.

On Saturday afternoon (after we were sure any impending storms had passed), I went tubing down the Schuylkill River with my family and one of my daughter's friends. For anyone that really knows me, I'm not a fan of water. I can swim - I would rather avoid it though. Luckily, tubing doesn't really require going into the water much.

Basically, tubing (on any river) is where a person sits on an inner tube or raft and lazily floats down the river. Until fairly recently, the only place to do this in my area was on the Delaware River in Point Pleasant. It was a little exciting to know that we didn't have to drive so far anymore. The Schuylkill River isn't usually as deep as the Delaware. However, it is still deep enough for the kids to splash and have fun.

It's also a fairly cheap activity. For a 4-6 hour trip on a one person tube, it only costs $20. If you pay attention to Groupon or Living Social, you can usually pick up a good deal around the beginning of summer. We managed to get a trip for 4 people for less than $30. An awesome deal, if you ask me.

So, if you need something to do on a sunny day and don't feel like getting mobbed at the pool, I'd definitely recommend going tubing. A fun time will be had by all.

Camelbeach

My family didn't get a chance to really go on vacation this year. Instead, we took the day off yesterday and went to Camelbeach, the water park at Camelback Resort. Since it is only a two-hour drive from our house to the park, it was absolutely perfect for a one-day summer getaway. Luckily, the weather cooperated with us. For the most part, anyway. The park itself isn't huge. There are around 10 slides, varying between mat slides, tube slides, and family tube slides. My daughter's favorite slide was Spin Cycle. One or two people ride tubes through a shoot before swirling around a bowl only to be spit out at the end. It was tons of fun. My favorite ride was Sandstorm. A family tube, that fits up to 4 people, splashes through two funnels that throw the occupants into complete darkness. The best part about the park is that we managed to go on a majority of the water slides (there were a few none of us wanted to hit) before a thunderstorm rolled in around 4:30PM.

Price-wise, the park is pretty reasonable. General admission (purchased online) is $33. However, you can buy a 4-pack of passes for only $100. The catch is that all 4 tickets must be used at the same time. I think the park was way more fun with four people anyway.

If you are in the Pocono Mountain area in the summertime, this is definitely a must-visit place. And I recommend reserving a cabana. Not only do you receive a complimentary fruit basket in the morning, you also receive a complimentary dessert basket in the afternoon AND there is a waitstaff that will bring you whatever else you need. Very worth the money.

Busch Gardens

Who could go to Williamsburg without visiting Busch Gardens? While this is the finale of the vacation posts, we didn't just go to the park for one day. My family had 7-day bounce passes that allowed us to visit Busch Gardens, Water Country USA, and Colonial Williamsburg as many times as we wanted. So we ended up spending one full day at the park, as well at eating dinner there a few nights.

Busch Gardens in Virginia is a European themed amusement park. The park is divided into countries: Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and New France. (New France is actually western-themed. It's based on the French colonies in North America's Old West.) The rides mostly match up with their country's theme. For example, Escape from Pompeii, a thrilling boat ride, is in Italy while Alpengeist, a ski lift themed roller coaster, is in Germany. The food vendors also line up with the appropriate country. Ireland has stew and pork loin, but New France has wood-smoked chicken and ribs. The park, as a whole, is a delight to wander through.

During this trip, we decided that my daughter would try her first roller coaster. Since she loved Water Country, she agreed to try it out. (Our family rule is "You have to try it before you say you don't like it.") We picked Apollo's Chariot, the only coaster in the park that does not have loops. (The idea of loops freaked her out.) While my husband and I loved it, my daughter, unfortunately, did not. Ah well. Instead, she liked the more "classic" rides - bumper cars, Roman Rapids (a white water rapid ride), and Turkish Delight (that ride in almost every park that spins in a circle, forcing you to squash your ride partner). There were a few others that she enjoyed but these were the main ones.

I think my daughter's favorite part of the park was the nightly fireworks display. Called IllumiNights, the main fireworks are launched from the train bridge between Italy and Germany. (The best spot to watch them is on the pedestrian bridge between those countries. Just make sure you are on the train bridge side and not the Loch Ness Monster side.) Smaller side fireworks are occasionally launched from both Italy and Germany as well. Of course, there is a soundtrack to go along with them. My daughter loved the display. It was a nice way to end the day.

Amazingly, Busch Gardens is one of those amusement parks that you can enjoy even if you don't like rides. The various European stores and restaurants are enough to keep someone interested for most of the day. However, I'd really recommend giving the Loch Ness Monster a try. It's one of my favorite roller coasters and I only hope that I can convince my daughter to ride it one day.

Water Country USA

On Wednesday, we left our hp netbooks at the hotel and went over to Water Country USA. It is a pretty typical water park. There are something like 12 different slides plus a pool, a wave pool, a lazy river and another lazy river-type attraction that doesn't use inner tubes. (I scraped my knee on that last one.) And, of course, there is a water-based acrobatics show, though we didn't stick around to watch it.

This was my daughter's favorite part of our vacation. This is also the first year she's actually enjoyed going on water slides. We hit every slide, except for two. Vanish Point is a brand new slide that basically drops the floor out from under you, which didn't sound very fun to us. (Well, I think my husband wanted to try it but neither my daughter nor I had the guts for it.) Rampage is a water toboggan that looked interesting but we were getting pretty tired by the time we got to that area of the park.

The rides that we did go on were awesome. I normally don't like slides that go through tunnels. (I have this fear of getting stuck in them.) However, I sucked it up and went on all of them for my daughter's sake. I tried my best to keep my eyes open the entire time and managed to have a lot of fun. I think, if we had a few more days to spend in Virginia, we would have gone back to the park for another day. It was definitely a great time.