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Ok so here goes:
1. if you don't mind me asking, how much did u spend each day (food, tips, souveneirs, optional extras, etc)....ok as far as each day went it varied heaps depending on what i did how average i was feeling for the night before but in total i spent about $5000 aust....but i went all out and i didnt gamble in vegas so the two sort of cancel each other out.....drinks are ridiculously cheap over there (as in from a 7/11 or whatever) i think we paid us$6 for a six pack and that it all depends what your going to spend your money on.....the girls on our tour spent a fair bit at the outlets in vegas but the guys stuff wasnt impressive pretty plain as far as clothes go. i did about us$700 worth of optional extras

2. what optional extras did u do, which would u recommend....in l.a the only optional i did was to tijuana mexico which wasnt listed on the site because of government travel warnings but they were lifted just before we left.....was absolutely awesome you do a little bit of shopping (most of the stuff is dodgy) except for the tequila shop where the guys see's the bus coming and has a sign out the front saying do you want to get drunk and gives you heaps of tastes of tequila and stuff like that.....then (if you can go) find a place called la placita has really cheap margaritas and cecent food and is great to sti up on their roof and get really toasted and smoke a cuban( all relatively inexpensive) in san fran i did the sunset sailing which was really worthwhile its a really beautiful cruise and is great to have a few drinks and have a few laughs with your tour. they dont have alcatraz as an included thing but is really worthwhile go to alcatraztours.com or something like that?! (it says somewhereon the contiki website) in vegas i did the variety show and the helicopter flight to the grand canyon....the show wasnt amazing but it did provide a few laughs and breaks things up a little by that stage we had been drinking every night and it was good to delay the drinking for a couple of hours with something different......the grand canyon helicopter flight is good.....i wasnt as impressed with the grand canyon as i thought i would be which was a bit of a bummer but for me it was something that i was definately going to see while i was there in new york i did the logner helicopter ride....personally i would advise on not doing this i really didnt think it was worth the money and the tour guide did not give us any info at all ( i think he had to concentrate on air traffic) but it wasnt worthe the money for me

3. how are the flights between cities? did u have to wake up at the crack of dawn every few days when u were due to fly out? as far as waking up at the crack of dawn you get up early pretty much every day....if you want to have a nice cruisy holiday where u have sleep ins and walks on the beach and all that sort of stuff this is not really the thing for you....im thinking perhaps contiki in general...its pretty full on from dawn until near dawn! obviously you can head to bed early after dinner and that but as a note the best times together are head post 1am the flights are generally pretty short except for the new york (i think it was 6 hours) but you'll probably sleep on that one as you have to be up at 5am to leave for it (or did on mine) and its your last night in vegas i think i got back at about 3 and just stayed up playing cards and bumming around the hotel cause i didnt want to miss the plane....i think the main adavantage this tour has over most of the others is that you don't spend the majority of the time travelling you end up getting heaps more time in each city than you would on a bus tour

4. did u guys end up bonding really well even though it was only 2 weeks? yeah hey i just got back on sunday and im missing everyone massively....i had never been on a contiki trip before and id heard about how close you get to the people around you after about 3 days i was thinkin that it was a load of bull but by the end of the tour just spending 20 odd hours a day together just having an awesome time everyone does get really close all teary saying goodbye and all that sort of business

5. was it loads of partying/drinking/not much sleep? did you end up with the contiki cough?