Dubai's Palm Islands are the world's largest man-made island clusters. Sometimes they are also called the eight wonder of the world. These are located at three different places across Dubai's coast, namely Jumeirah, Jebel Ali and Deira. These islands, which are also known as The Palm Dubai or Dubai Palm are layered with rocks and sand upon a ten meter deep seabed. Sand meant for laying down these sites is obtained by dredging in the nearby sea. The Belgian dredging firm Jan De Nul and its Dutch counterpart Van Oord have been supervising the whole operation. Work is in an advanced stage in Jumeirah and Jebel Ali while it has also picked up in the Deira section.

Dredging ships propel sand over an area, which is decided by the coordinates of Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS). This process is called rain-bowing; the name is indicative of the arc which is created due to the falling sand here. Each Dubai Palm has a breakwater constructed at its periphery, which provides it a separation from the murky seawaters. These breakwaters are constructed by laying down several layers of rocks over the seabed by sea vessels. These vessels are called pontoons and the split-hopper barges. The Jumeirah Palm alone required a staggering 7 million tons of rocks to construct its breakwater.

Each of these Dubai Palm Islands is designed to depict a date palm tree, with a trunk, a crown and several fronds. The crescent islands at the periphery are assigned to play the role of breakwaters. The construction of the Palm Jebel Ali was started by Jan De Nul in 2002 and completed by the year-end of 2006. It required a 4 km long peninsula to be built, surrounded by a 200m wide and a 17 km long breakwater. This asked for reclaiming roughly 135,000,000 m³ of rock, sand and limestone. About 5,000,000 m³ of rocks were needed for strengthening the slope.

Dubai Palm islands, which are bound to increase Dubai's costal length by an additional 520 km, will host water theme parks, luxury hotels, shopping malls, freehold villas, furnished beach apartments, health spas and similar other facilities. It was always Sheikh Maktoum's dream to see Dubai grow in free trade and tourism, and that's how these islands were conceived. The UAE property developer, Nakheel Properties, is supervising this whole work.

The Palm Jumeirah, which is 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers in size, will have a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding 11 kilometer-long breakwater. It will create 4,000 new homes over the period of next 3 to 4 years and add 78 kilometers to Dubai's shoreline. In fact, the residents began moving into their Palm Jumeirah homes by the year-end 2006, five years after the dredging in the area had begun taking place.

The Palm Jebel Ali, which is expected to be the home of 1.7 million people by the year 2020, will be completed by the year 2008. It will be much larger in size compared to the Palm Jumeirah, however, the tag of largest one will go to the Palm Deira, which is expected to be completed by the year 2015. Due to its mammoth size, the construction of Palm Deira is expected to take place in several phases. Dubai's tourism sector will heavily rely on these Dubai Palm Islands for its revenue, once they fully got completed.

Cruises to the Caribbean – The Perfect Option for your Holidays, Thanks to its magnificent landscapes and amazing beaches, the Caribbean has rapidly become one of the most desired holiday destinations in the world. The hundreds of fabulous tropical Caribbean islands welcome millions of tourists each year, drawn by the beauty of their exotic landscapes, the importance and the variety of their tourist resorts, the impeccable accommodation conditions and the quality of the overall offered services, as well as the open-minded, libertine and welcoming character of the locals.

For people in search of peace, quiet and relaxation, the Caribbean Cruise is the perfect place to spend their holidays, this exotic region being regarded as “a corner of heaven” by both locals and visiting tourists. Calm and invigorating during the day, the Caribbean isles become vivid and vibrant at night, being the best destination for people in search for fun and excitement just as well. Regardless of age or sex, people who travel to this splendid destination experience the best time of their lives, finding it very difficult to leave behind the Caribbean paradise!

If you decide to spend your vacation in the Caribbean, don’t miss the opportunity to visit the region of the Bahamas, a major center for tourism, popular for the exotic beauty of its landscapes, shores and beach resorts. The islands of Grand Bahama, Abaco and New Providence offer tourists the opportunity to visit a wide range of attractions and tourist sites, combining beautiful, wild, tropical landscapes with sumptuous and imposing, modern architecture and infrastructure. The unique, intriguing contrast between exotic landscapes that seem to be untouched by man and modern architectonic colossi, breathtaking skyscrapers and state of the art technology renders the Bahamas the perfect holiday destination for tourists in search for adventure and excitement.

To get the most out of your holiday, you can opt for an extended set of cruises in the vicinity of the Caribbean region. If you decide to cruise to the Caribbean, you will be rewarded with a magnificent, unforgettable experience! Thanks to the wide range of benefits they offer, Caribbean cruises, especially Bahamas cruises are much desired and appreciated by tourists from all over the world. An invigorating Caribbean cruise can help you escape from the routine and the stress of your daily life, accounting for a complete package of impeccable services and amenities and combining the pleasure of traveling with high comfort conditions and safety. In order to make sure that you benefit from the best travel conditions and services, you should choose a solid travel company that can satisfy your needs and requirements with professionalism, in exchange for competitive and affordable prices.

Good travel companies provide clients with a wide range of cruise packages, allowing tourists to effortlessly choose among the best journey options available. By relying on the services provided by a competitive travel agency, you will be able to fully customize your vacation cruise according to your needs and your overall holiday budget. Whether you are looking for cheap cruises or luxury cruises, a good travel agency will provide you with the best holiday offers, striving to accommodate you as well as possible and help you have a great time over the entire course of the journey.

Ask for the services of a reliable travel company and you will receive guidance and advice in choosing from an extended cruise package that includes Carnival cruises, Princess cruises, Windstar cruises, Royal cruises, Celebrity cruises and many more. Each cruise option provides customers with professional, reliable services that are focused towards ensuring a good level of accommodation and comfort, transforming the journey into a remarkable, unforgettable experience! Find the cruise package that suits you best, cruise to the Caribbean, and you will have the best vacation ever!

Digital Camera on Cruise Ship Vacation - A great time that you have on cruise ship for sure deserves to be preserved for future memory. We all know by now that the best tool for that is a digital
camera. However, proper use of digital camera is not something that everyone is familiar with.
What camera is perfect for me? How to get best of it? What needs to be considered when taking camera on cruise?

Today’s market is overwhelmed with tons of different models and new ones are being launched almost weekly. Top brands cover all aspects of digital
photography as well as all types of users.
First choose the right camera and decide how many mega pixels (MP) resolution you want. Basic rule of thumb says that 2MP will give you film-quality photos
up to 6x9 inches, 3MP up to 8x10, 4MP up to 11X14 inches and 5MP up to 14x17 inches. Of course, more mega pixels means more expensive camera so this
choice depends on funds you have for this purchase.
Amount of mega pixels is not the only thing that determines quality of pictures, though it is the most significant.
However there are many more features you need to consider when choosing a camera. Here are a few that are most important:

Choose a camera that has optical viewfinder beside the LCD screen. LCD screen has one drawback that is almost unusable under sunlight, and of
course, cruise vacation means a lot of sunshine scenes. That’s why you should definitely need to have option of using optical viewfinder.

Image storage – this question depends on few sub-questions. How many pictures do you plan to make? How long your cruise is going to last? Do
you have your computer (laptop) with you? Here you need to make a simple calculation before you go to cruise vacation.
First check how many pictures you can store on your present card. Then multiply that with how many pictures you are about planning to make during cruise and you can approximately know how much memory you need. Example: your camera store 60 pictures on one 128MB card. Then you decide: “On my 7-days cruise I will make about 100 photos”. So simply get another 128MB card, which makes 256MB total capacity, and it should be enough for about 120 photos.
Tip: Always have more cards with smaller capacity rather than only one with big capacity. In this way if one card gets corrupted or damaged you will have
your photos saved on the others.
Whole different situation is if you carry your laptop with you on cruise. If that’s the case you can transfer your photos on it on daily basis. Also, on almost
every ship there is a photo shop available so you can use their service (either for transferring photos on some media or having them printed out), but keep in
mind that they will charge for it. Price of this service varies from company to company and if you plan to use it, you better check prices before.

Batteries are also very delicate detail. Most of today’s modern cameras use rechargeable NiMH batteries. Murphy’s Law says that they will get dry
out right at the moment you need them the most and there is no place near by where you can buy the new ones. This has been confirmed so many times
that you should really follow general rule - always and absolutely always carry an extra pair of batteries with you (not to mention they should be charged
night before).

Take some time and read manual and find out about settings. Learn how to use outdoor mode for shutting beach scenes and at evening dark mode
for formal night. If you fail to manage these functions you will end up with pictures of poor quality.

Watch out for water - digital cameras are not waterproof, unless it is strictly specified. If you plan to have some photos during water sports
activities it is good idea that instead of using your digital camera buy and use one cheap disposable waterproof camera that are usually available around.
Preserving moments for lifetime memories has never been more affordable and easier.
Top brand manufacturers offer variety of choices and options to
help you make the most of your cruise experience.