The Affluent Travelers

Deep Water Flight

Be among the first in the world to experience a totally new dimension of flight…underwater. Hundreds have traveled to space. No one has yet experienced the incredible thrill of a Deep Flight Adventure. The  Aviator is a new class of hydrobatic submersible craft, built to fully explore underwater flight.  It can even barrel roll with dolphins!

The Aviator is unlike anything in existence, and the underwater experience is unparalleled. In conventional subs, you perch on a seat; in the Aviator, you strap tightly into the same five-point harness restraints used by Indy car racers.

Traditional submersibles are noisy and lit up like Christmas trees. Any organism that can flee, does. The Deep Flight Aviator combines the freedom of scuba and the depth capability and underwater viewing of a submersible with the low intrusiveness of a stealth submarine. The deep ocean is a truly alien world. It has the infinite vastness of outer space, but unlike space, it is heavily populated with alien creatures, geologic features, and ancient shipwrecks awaiting discovery. Sound like an out of this world adventure? You bet it is! 

Frank Sinatra's Twin Palms

Twin Palms, the four-bedroom, 4,500-square-foot mini-mansion where Sinatra lived from 1947 until about 1954, sits plainly and unassumingly a mile from busy downtown Palm Springs.  Back when Palm Springs was a drowsy desert village, Sinatra commissioned the house  as the primary residence for his family. But not long after moving day, Sinatra had a change of heart.  He met Ava Gardner, the love of his life, and promptly left his wife Nancy, who begrudgingly granted him a divorce

Twin Palms soon became the setting for one of the 20th century's great romances, the amphitheater in which Sinatra and Gardner conducted their operatic affair. "Maybe it's the air, maybe it's the altitude, maybe it's just the place's goddamn karma," Gardner wrote in her 1990 autobiography, "but Frank's establishment in Palm Springs, the only house we really could ever call our own, has seen some pretty amazing occurrences."

Amazing was Gardner's catchall word for the intense violence and passion that defined her off-and-on saga with Sinatra. After half a dozen tumultuous years, the two finally  concluded  that they couldn't live together. Sinatra sold Twin Palms and bought a bigger place on the other side of town, which came to be known as The Compound.

Twin Palms changed hands several times in the next 50 years, and eventually fell into disrepair, its roof caving in. Recently, the house underwent a full and careful restoration, and today Twin Palms belongs to three New Yorkers who gladly rent it to the curious and the Sinatra-besotted for $2,150 a night, with a three night minimum. info: theAffluentTravelers@mindspring.com

The Crystal Cage -- The Ultimate Wildlife Adventure

The chance to observe and interact with a Great White shark -- a fish that has been described as "the perfect hunting machine" and "evolution's masterpiece" -- brings with it a sense of awe and wonder that few, if any other animal encounters can possibly match. And if getting close to a great white shark is one of life's magical experiences, it is doubly so when conducted from the interior of the  "Crystal Cage."

It is the brainchild of South African Kim "Shark Lady" Maclean, an oceanographic expert widely credited with introducing the practice of recreational cage-diving to South African waters in the early 1990s.

The cage is a 6 foot x 3.5 foot diameter tube made of Lexan, a transparent, high-resistance polycarbonate plastic with 250 times the impact strength of glass. Lowered into the water inside this protective sheath, the diver experiences a feeling of complete oneness with the shark's natural habitat, his view unhindered by bars or other obstructions.

More important, the transparent Lexan blends completely with the surrounding ocean, making the diver's presence in the water far less disruptive to the shark and its environment.

"For the diver it is an awesome experience," says Maclean. "You feel there is no barrier between you and the shark, that you are completely part of their world. It is the closest you can get to actually swimming free with them.

A day of diving in the crystal cage costs $1,800. Nowhere else will you get the chance to observe at close quarters, and with no visual obstruction, one of the most ancient, majestic and awe-inspiring creatures on the planet.

Balloon Over Turkey

SPECTACULAR SIGHTS via a hot-air balloon rising in the sky at sunrise in Cappadocia, an area of Turkey dominated with ''chimneys'' of stone.

 

It is a surreal environmet, flying across the dry, undulating hills and valleys of pastel tones of tan, pink and gray in the morning light. Below is a broad landscape of pointed hills carved out of the soft volcanic rock, eroded over millions of years by the winds to form cones, domes and the chimneys -- boulders of basalt balancing precariously atop thin shafts of volcanic rock or, as Cappadocians explain it, rocks carried to the top of hills by fairies.

Some of the scenes from the original Star Wars movie were filmed here, with Cappadocia -- an Anglicized spelling of the local Turkish name, Kapadokya -- standing in for Tatooine, the desert planet. During the Middle Ages, the area was home to thousands of Byzantine Christians who fled the Turkish conquest of Anatolia, carving homes and churches inside of the rock cones and in several cases, building underground cities in the rock. Visitors can tour the cities today.

Poseidon UnderSea Resort

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Bruce Jones, who has spent 17 years designing and selling submarines for private use, has $40 million invested to build a luxury hotel where the most expensive rooms will be submerged 50 feet under the sea off Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas.

Unlike the Jules Undersea Lodge - the only undersea hotel now in existence, located off the coast of Key Largo, Fla. - guests at the Poseidon won't need to put on a wet suit and dive to their accommodations. They also won't need to worry about changing pressure levels since the accommodations will be maintained at   above-surface pressure. Instead, they can glide to their $1,500-a-night underwater abodes by escalator.

Each room will feature fortified, transparent acrylic walls that look out onto coral gardens. There will be controls in each room that guests can use to adjust the lighting of the underwater worlds outside their windows and to release food for fish swimming just outside. The rooms will also feature individual Jacuzzis for those who may be inspired by their surroundings to get wet.

It will be a five-star facility offering the finest wine and cuisine and the highest levels of service.  There will be a visiting celebrity program and regular guest lecturers.  Diving lessons and expeditions will be available onsite and a swim with the dolphins program may also be implemented. Excursions on a deep diving submarine are also likely.

The underwater portion of the resort will consist of: - 20 luxury suites - 2 service areas - central corridor assembly - restaurant, bar/lounge, kitchen - Grand Poseidon Suite - Nautilus Suite There are 20 luxury suites, each 550 sq ft in size.

Ceilings and seaward walls are composed of acrylic and offer spectacular views of individual coral gardens and the ocean beyond. Guests may actuate exterior underwater lights and automatic fish feeders from control consoles in their sitting rooms. Two spectacular, large, themed suites, the Captain Nemo Suite and the Grand Poseidon Suite will also be available.

Exotic Aircraft Flight

WarBird Adventures, Kissimmee, FL

The Premier Fighter-Trainer of WWII, the North American T-6 Texan. Also known as the SNJ or Harvard, over 70% of the Allied pilots received their fighter training in these aircraft. You can have a thrilling aerobatic adventure or a smooth straight & level flight, the experience is tailored to   you. And you do the flying.  up to $700

Or take the controls of the most classic helicopter of all time, the BELL 47, and experience something out of the ordinary. Just like our T-6 flights, this is not a ride, but full-blown flight instruction. You will learn how to control and  hover it.  In-flight video is also available. up to $500

Weightless in Ft Lauderdale

For the first time in U.S. history, you are invited to experience Weightless Flight. This FAA approved activity offers everyone the chance to enjoy the fun and exhilarating dream of weightlessness, which is how astronauts have been trained by NASA for 40 years and how Tom Hanks floated in Apollo 13. During a Weightless Flight you can experience what its like to walk on Mars and the Moon and be weightless like you are in Earth orbit.

The ZERO-G Experience is a day-long program in which you will be inspired by hearing firsthand what space is like and about the uses of Weightless Flight direct from a veteran astronaut. You will also learn how to maximize your time in zero gravity and officially become Weightless Certified.

How Does Parabolic Flight Work?

Weightless Flight (also known as Parabolic Flight) is achieved aboard ZERO-G’s Boeing 727 aircraft named G-FORCE ONE™. Weightlessness is achieved by flying G-FORCE ONE™ through a parabolic flight maneuver. Specially trained pilots fly these maneuvers between approximately 24,000 and 34,000 feet altitude. Each parabola takes 10 miles of airspace to perform and lasts approximately one minute from start to finish.
Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G®) is a privately held space entertainment and tourism company headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The company’s first product offering is commercial, Weightless Flights aboard a specially modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft.

                                          
            

Virgin Galactic

Human flight took a significant step forward on Oct 04, 04 as the privately built SpaceShipOne flew into suborbital space for the second time in five days, securing the $10 million Ansari X Prize. With pilot Brian Binnie at the controls, SpaceShipOne rocketed to a winning height of 367,442 feet (112 kilometers), setting a new altitude record for the craft and proving that private industry can build a viable vehicle for sending paying passengers to space.

SpaceShipOne's effort was bankrolled by billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Virgin said its agreement to license technology from Allen's company, Mohave Aerospace Ventures, could be worth up to $25 million over the next 15 years, depending on the number of spaceships built by Virgin. The company said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel, VSS Enterprise, next year.

"Virgin has been in talks with Paul Allen and Bert throughout this year and in the early hours of Saturday signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne's technology to build the world's first private spaceship to go into commercial operating service," Branson told a news conference.

The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts within five years. Fares will start at $208,000 for a suborbital flight, including three days' training.

Branson said the business would "allow every country in the world to have their own astronauts rather than the privileged few."

"Virgin Galactic will be run as a business, but a business with the sole purpose of making space travel more and more affordable," Branson said.

"Those privileged space pioneers who can afford to take our first flights will not only have the most awesome experience of their lives, but by stepping up to the plate first they will bring the dream of space travel for many millions closer to reality."