Dubai cruise tourism

The number of cruise passengers who visited Dubai rose 37 percent last year and is expected to grow another 30 percent in 2010, according to figures from the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM.Around 250,000 cruise tourists visited the emirate in 2009. In 2010, it is expected that the new Dubai Cruise Terminal will host 120 ships and around 325,000 passengers.

The new Dubai Cruise Terminal is expected to become fully operational by the end of January and will enable Dubai to handle bigger cruise liners. Spanning an area of 3,450 sq m, the new terminal is designed to handle up to three to four ships simultaneously.Costa Cruises set up its regional base in Dubai in 2007 and will be inaugurate its latest ship, the Costa Deliziosa, on February 23.

Last month, Royal Caribbean International announced it would begin seven-day cruises around the Middle East on board the vessel Brilliance of the Seas.Dubailand, a member of Dubai Properties Group, and Royal Caribbean International, will offer the new holiday cruise package from January 18 until April, the firm said at the time.

The Brilliance of the Seas cruise will stop at Muscat, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain and include visits to some of Dubailand's tourism developments, like Dubai Autodrome in MotorCity, Dubai Outlet Mall in Outlet City, The Global Village and Dubai Sports City.

Sea, Sky and everything in between!

Madeira: A safe haven from today's modern society and just a short traveling distance from most European major cities.

Where is Madeira? It's located in the Atlantic Ocean, just north-west of the Canary islands and a little further away from Africa, which gives it the balmy summers and warm winters it's famous for... the ideal holiday destination all the year round.

In this website you will find general information about Madeira, plus specific information from various tourism service providers. We hope you enjoy browsing through our pages which have information on hotels, bed & breakfast, property for sale, levada walks, big game fishing and much much more . . . .

Start off by looking through the menu items above or look at the LIVE WEBCAMS where you can see what the weather is doing at many points around the island, and then perhaps come back to the home page to check hotel reviews and what's happening in Madeira over the coming months

Madeira Carnival

4th - 8th March
Madeira Carnival is an extravagant bonanza, celebrated in the capital, Funchal. Costumes, music, food… Everything you could ask for is here. No costume is too crazy for this beautiful Carnival!

Flower Festival

7th – 8th May
The Madeira Flower Festival attracts thousands of visitors from all around the world to witness what is, arguably, one of the most beautiful sights you will ever see! Fresh flowers flood the streets and a delicate fragrance fills the air. If you choose to visit Madeira, make sure you attend this event. It is not to be missed!

São João Festival

June
This festival takes place on the island of Porto Santo, just off the coast of Madeira. Though it is of a religious origin, it also symbolises the beginning of summer festivites for all Madeirans. The festival encompasses beautiful firework displays, music and plenty of local gastronomy to try out!

Atlantic Festival Fireworks Competition

4th, 11th, 18th and 25th June
This breathtaking festival boasts some of the fireworks displays you will ever see. Combining fireworks with the best classical music creates a feast for your eyes and your ears!

Funchal Jazz Festival

July
Jazz fans flock to this Mecca of the jazz world, taking place annually at the Parque de Santa Catarina in Funchal.

Madeira Wine Rally (European Rally Championship)

4th – 6th August
If racing is your thing, visit Madeira in August to witness some of the best rally car racing in Europe!

Madeira Wine Festival

1st – 9th September – Shows and Exhibitions in Funchal
This festival commemorates Madeira's wine-growing roots with traditional old-style wine making processes, such as the treading of grapes, along with many other activities. Any wine lover cannot afford to miss this!

Columbus Festival - Porto Santo Island

15th – 17th September
This festival celebrates the life and adventures of the famous navigator Christopher Columbus, who lived on Porto Santo Island for a couple of years. The festival takes place on Porto Santo Island itself, with various activities taking place, the highlight being the re-enactment of Columbus' arrival at Porto Santo Harbour.

Christmas Lights

Late November to early January Fantastic Decorations and Exhibitions

End of the Year Madeira Festivities

Madeira celebrates the festive season in style, and when I say in style, I mean it! Mind-blowing fireworks displays, street parties and people flooding through the streets to celebrate. Madeira is the perfect place to celebrate your Christmas or New Years, and make it one to remember!

travel to Switzerland

If you could travel through only one European country, which might you choose? Italy?France? Germany? How about a taste of three in one? That can only mean Switzerland!

ADVERTISEMENT

Known as a summer and winter sports paradise (just look at those glistening white 4000m-plus Alpine peaks and glittering lakes), Switzerland is where people first skied for fun. Illustrious names evoke all the romance and glamorous drama of the mountain high life: Zermatt, St Moritz,Interlaken, Gstaad, the Jungfrau, Verbier and more. Cities like Geneva (the most cosmopolitan), Zürich (the most outrageous), Basel and Lausanne heave with heady artistic activity and sometimes incendiary nightlife.

Beyond the après-ski chic, edelweiss and Heidi lies a complex country of cohabiting cultures. It not only has four languages (Swiss German, French, Italian and Romansch), but the cultural variety to match. You could be chomping on sausages over beer in an oom-pah-pah Stübli one day and pasta over a glass of merlot in a granite grotto the next. And if over-indulgence becomes a problem try one of the country's thermal baths, from Yverdon-les-Bains to Scuol.

The grandeur of the finest churches, such as the cathedrals in Lausanne and Bern, contrasts with sparkling but lesser-known treasures like the frescoes of Müstair or the abbey complex of St Gallen (both World Heritage sites).

The list of enchanting towns is endless: from Lucerne with its covered bridge to Neuchâtel and its fountains; from Gruyères with its cheese, and Grimentz with its traditional timber houses to the sgraffito-blazoned buildings of Engadine towns like Scuol and Zuoz.

Whether visiting the remotest Ticino villages or sampling the finest of Valais wines, you'll find Switzerland a chocolate box bursting with unexpected flavours.

Turning Your Travel Dreams into Reality

Homeschooling families often turn the impossible into reality. For many families, the dream of turning the learning into a tangible reality often however seems too far out of reach. Imagine, after studying the life of Leonardo De Vinci, traveling to his birthplace in the small Tuscan town of Vinci or visit Clos Luce Manor in France, his home in the Loire Valley. In 1516 King Francois I gave this home to Leonardo along with 700 golden crowns per year and asked only for the pleasure of listening to Leonardo converse. See first hand the underground passage connecting the manor to the Royal Castle Amboise which gave the King direct access to the home of De Vinci.  Leonardo De Vinci is buried in the small chapel at Amboise, and much of his work can be viewed in the museum which is on the grounds of his former manor. 

The problem is who has the thousands of dollars to take their family to such destinations? Not us. However, we have spent summer after summer doing just this. How do we do it? How do you turn what should be an $18,000.00 vacation into a $3800.00 experience of a lifetime? 

For many families their yearly vacation is one of fun, but for our family it is an adventure of learning and fun, exploring this entire world, both new and old, and all it has to offer. We began five years ago researching how we could travel cheap. The interesting thing was, the more we researched the more we discovered that much of our travel could be free. After spending several summers in Europe many asked us to share our tricks with them so they too might be able to have similar adventures. We eventually wrote a book entitled Have Kids - Will Travel which has changed the way many families travel, opening the doors of the world and creating adventures families could only dream of before. 

Our family consisting of my wife and I, our four children, ages 8, 14, 16 and 18 have visited such places as England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. We have also traveled extensively throughout the United States including a two and a half week Revolutionary War self guided tour of the East Coast which cost us just over $700.00 for the entire family, including air, car, places to stay, food etc. 

Traveling cheap and free isn’t something you can do next week. It takes both time and planning. We usually plan our trips one to two years in advance. After deciding where we want to go we start the planning process of gathering our frequent flyer points, free accommodations, car etc. The free flights take the longest to accumulate. The great thing about frequent flyer points these days is that you don’t have fly to get them. There are so many companies that will give them to you for doing business with them. The great thing is, you are probably already doing business with many of them already. They include credit cards, internet providers, cell phone and long distance phone companies along with many more. The first trick is to learn how to create an accumulative effect with your points so you are not collecting a few points in different programs, but that they all go into one big pot. The second trick is to collect enough points without buying things you don’t need and or going into debt. This is simply a matter of changing the way you purchase the every day items we are already buying. 

Getting free accommodations for your trip can be accomplished by using the same methods the Kings of old did. They contacted a Duke, Earl, or someone else who had a castle and asked if they wanted to exchange castles for a time.  There are hundreds of thousands of families just like yours, living all over the world who would love to exchange homes with your family. This is very popular among the upper middle and upper classes in Europe. We usually get around ten offers from families all over the world and many of them include the use of their cars which takes care of an additional cost. 

In our book we talk about other ways to get free airfare, free hotel, very cheap car rentals, how to save on food and much more. We go through the safety aspects of traveling abroad with children and how to see sites both free and cheap. Using these methods we have spent over three weeks in Europe for less than it would cost a family of four to visit Disneyland. Yes the kids have had to trade Mickey Mouse for the Eiffel Tower, or swimming in a hotel pool for swimming in a crystal clear lake of the Swiss Alps. Or maybe you will have to trade a long hot car ride for an airplane ride with TV’s and movies in front of every seat. Maybe you will have to substitute a tour of the studio where they filmed Jaws for the beautiful city of Salzburg where they filmed Sound of Music, creating memories and adventures which will change the way our children look at history and the world.