The Good Review thread

:3 I'm kind of new to SL (I think around 3 months), anyway, this thread is for your good reviews of places and services. Got any good clubs to mention, or good shops with great customer service, or interesting attractions? List them here for everyone else to experience! I do want to stay away from reviews on apparel and skins, just because there are so many out there, but if you see something out of the ordinary, list it :3

Interesting places:

United Federation Starfleet - You can rp as a Star Trek officer and they have tons of duties, events, and people to mingle with.

Ahern - You can find a lot of gossip and chit chat there ;3 It's like the forums but in SL :3 Great for new players to meet people and hear about what's going on in SL

An interesting service: I haven't really found one yet

Ahern? Really? I never had a pleasant experience there, but that could just be me.

The club scene has become a bit tedious for me lately. I'm enjoying parks and unusual builds. I'd like to list some places that don't get overly mentioned, but should be visited once in a while:

Silvanus , Dreamworld SE (30, 59, 33), a wonderful mystic forest experience.

Costa Rica has produced several sims and islands that are quite interesting with more activities than there is room here to list. Some of it is under contruction so the landmarks don't work perfectly right now. I like to start with canoeing through the rainforest at Volcan Tenorio 98, 102, 22. It's very relaxing - plus they have anteaters!

Garden of Da Vinci, Kalepa (180, 188, 25) is a very nice build on a par with the Lost Gardens of Apollo or Svarga that get mentioned so often. Here you can get your very own working Da Vinci copter free.

In researching this post I found a lot of my landmarks are gone -

A few more from my landmarks:

Tunnel of LIght, Tunnel of Light (80, 162, 25) This is like riding through a 3d version of a WinAmp visualization. Very psychedelic.

JAPAN TEMPURA ISLAND, tempura island (130, 128, 27) is a massive beautiful build with a permanent sunset and tons of highly detailed grottos and architectural niches to explore. It's quite the lag-fest though. Still worth seeing.

The Canyon Stage @ Red Rock, Native Lands (144, 85, 21) is (sort of) an imitation of Red Rocks in Colorado with the famous amphitheater. I enjoy just wandering around all the rock formations.

Fantasy buildings: Damania, Svarga, Lost Gardens of Apollo, Nautilus City, Princeton University sims.
Real-world replica: Dresden gallery.
Heavy metal / goth music: Sanctuary Rock club.

Thanks for this, just what I was looking for!!

Oddyssey for offbeat art.

Oooh I'll be sure to check those out! I really love interesting builds. I saw a youtube video on the making of "starry night" the sim ^_^ I'd love to visit if it's still out there.

Glad to help, Ambrose :3

What I would really like to visit would be cities modeled after the RL cities such as New York, Paris, Tokyo, and London :3

Well, the Dublin sim is very true-to-life in it's accuracy etc. I'm from the RL Dublin and I was very impressed with it's SL equivalent...so you may want to pay it a visit...

slmaps.com
Some simple collection of SL maps.

slnamewatch.com
Get the last name you want.

http://neighbours.maxcase.info/index.php
See who your neighbour is.

wikitipi.com
Create and share packs of locations.

zonkster.com
Send IMs from outworld.

And plenty more.

I'd recommend the sims Insilico and Sick... amazing, futuristic cities...

these builds knocked my socks off...

both were, at one time, listed in the showcase as "hot spots" but have been taken off the list to make room for the winter tours.

why, I wonder, couldn't they make a *new* tab for the winter thingie and let those sims already on the list stay there?

I had a devil of a time finding the name 'Insilico' again.

pity.

Great, I'll check those cities out! Thanks! I have been to Dublin (I think) but only for a short amount of time with a friend and I couldn't explore.

Thanks for the services, Slack! :3

There is a gorgeous sim recreated from actual photos of Venice Beach, California you might want to check out. I've been to the real Venice Beach, California hundreds of time and it's very realistic down to minute details.

Also, you might like The Moulin Rouge just to visit. A very nice place to sit for a chat.

Another for newbies or couples is Sweetheart's Jazz. It's hardly ever laggy and very well managed. I'd recommend that place for couples who want to get away from lag. At least that's been my experience about Sweetheart's, very lag free and well managed.

XD Thank you so, so much! I can't wait to visit all of these wonderful places. I'm kind of stuck at home/work this week without much chance to get on SL (bandwidth issues) so it's kind of like waiting for Christmas to visit these awesome places!

I've never been to Venice Beach, California. That's one reason I love SL. You can visit places without ever buying the plane ticket and getting a really cool 3D look at the place :3