PREAPARE to meet royalty as we take you on a luxury tour of the world's largest and most glamourous passenger liner.

Grand entrance ... guests are greeted in the Grand Lobby Atrium with sweeping staircases and elegant music.

Luxury lounging ... the ship is decorated in luxury furnishing so you can relax in style.

Star spotting ... the Planetarium offers a variety of constellation shows and virtual reality rides through the skies.

Soothing sail ... there's even a spa club for those after a spot of pampering.

Dark room ... and a private corner for a more intimate spa.

Fit for a Queen ... Queen Mary 2's Grand Duplexes are the most lavish suites afloat.

Sleep easy ... spacious and gracious, the Duplex is a popular option on the QM2,

Slots and lots ... the Empire Casino has over 120 slot machines.

Plenty in your belly ... there are 10 dining venues spread over the ship.

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Cool spot ... due to open in 2009, the Palazzo Versace fashion house in Dubai will boast the first refrigerated beach, so hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.

Water view ... the 10-storey hotel will have 213 rooms, several with their own internal swimming pools, plus 169 apartments .

Stylish hotel ... the hotel will be the second from the fashion designers, who already boast the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast. Here's what we can expect...

Money pit ... the refrigerated beach is designed to give Versace the edge in this battle of luxury lifestyles in Dubai .

Water view ... the 10-storey hotel will have 213 rooms, several with their own internal swimming pools, plus 169 apartments.

Sweet suit ... condominium features include spa baths and leisure lounge.

Poolside ... the hotel lagoon pool and sandy beach will be chilled and guests can also enjoy a scuba lagoon and a pool bar .

Food for thought ... three restaurants will offer guests all-day dining.

Wings of luxury ... Palazzo Versace consists of luxury condominiums in the Ala Destra (right wing) and Ala Sinistra (left wing).

Battle of the brands ... Versace rival, Armani, is planning to build a similarly branded hotel .

In Short : A LUXURY hotel in Dubai is to create the first refrigerated beach so hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days. The Palazzo Versace fashion house will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface..
The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.

"We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on," said Soheil Abedian, founder and president of Palazzo Versace.

"This is the kind of luxury that top people want."

The 10-storey hotel will have 213 rooms, several with their own internal swimming pools, plus 169 apartments. Fifteen more such hotels are planned.

Competition to serve the world's rich is getting intense, especially in Dubai. The city already boasts the world's first seven-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab, while Armani, a competitor with Versace, is building a similarly branded hotel.

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Haven ... Malaysia's Cherating Beach Resort is located between pristine beachfront and unspoilt jungle.



Guests scattered as the raiders grabbed their bounty and disappeared back to the rooftops as quickly as they had arrived.



While the long-tailed macaques sat on the roof enjoying the spoils of their heist, our 18-month-old "monkey'' giggled at the flurry of activity and shovelled more steamed rice into her mouth.

While these cheeky critters sometimes pop by unannounced for breakfast, they're also renowned for opening unlocked doors and windows and rifling through bags looking for food.

Monkeys are not the only entertainment at Club Med's luxurious Cherating Beach resort on Malaysia's east coast.



The resort has 324 rooms set on 80ha of sprawling, manicured lawns and gardens, set between pristine beachfront and unspoilt jungle. Monkeys amble across the rooftops and swing from the trees.



A holiday there can be as adventurous or relaxing as visitors choose.

Club Med was one of the pioneers of the all-inclusive holiday, so guests can eat, drink and try a huge variety of activities without paying extra. Stroll along the beach, swim in the South China Sea or paddle around the resort's huge pool facilities, which include a spa and wading area for children.

The resort has daily water exercise sessions and a well-equipped fitness centre, or guests can try their hands at sailing, kayaking, wall-climbing, roller-blading or bungy-bouncing.

Also available are tennis, table tennis, driving range and putting green, soccer balls, bocce, archery, trapeze lessons and yoga under palm trees as the waves roll in.

Our favourite activity, however, was lying by the pool with cold drinks and trashy novels.



Fun for the kids : The room included a cot, baby bath, change mat, bottle warmers, baby shampoo and food, while the main restaurant had high chairs, booster seats, jars of baby food and plastic plates, bowls and cutlery.


Meal times are no different. Make sure you pack your appetite, as you won't be bored when it comes to food. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners are an extravagant, sumptuous and endless buffet.

The volume and variety of dishes on offer was staggering, ranging from Italian, Chinese, Malaysian and Korean to Japanese and Indian. Equally tempting was the idea of leaving our room to enjoy the fresh fruit, desserts and pastries.

Each week, chefs prepare about 320 different dishes (and up to 2300 meals a day), many cooked on the spot.

There are a number of day and half-day tours that are not included in the package.



If you've ever tried to budget for a holiday with children, only to see the bills balloon with extras, you'll love knowing what you'll get – and for how much – with Club Med.

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Pigeons Get the Best Architecture... Who Knew?

Before somebody decides that these look like disguised missile installations, let us assure you that people of Iran built them for one purposes only: to keep a bunch of pigeons happy.

Even stranger than Strange Towers of the Third Reich, these terracotta-colored (favorite pigeon color) structures dot Iranian landscape, some more than 20 meters high.

Luxury Accommodations for Harmonious Pigeon Living :

The beautiful architecture of Ancient Persia was built around eight traditional forms which were combined in endless variations. Like the eight notes of the octave, these were arranged into a myriad of forms and structures woven into a seamless whole.

Little wonder then that the designs for even the most ignoble of buildings - a pigeon house - strike viewer as wonderful and intricate. The greatest number of these are found in and around the city of Isfahan (some are round, and some are square)

There were thousands of these buildings during the Safavid dynasty, about the 16th century CE. They were built to collect the droppings as fertilizer for melon and cucumber fields... However, in modern times chemically produced fertilizers have drastically reduced the viability of the bird guano industry and as a result not many of these structures have survived to the present day. The droppings were also used in the process of tanning leather.

Pigeons in Cubicles :

The buildings were constructed in such a way that the birds were quite comfortable and clean on their roosts as the droppings fell straight onto the floor.

Each pigeon sat in a neat cubicle (or a "capsule hotel" room, single occupancy) - hundreds of them swirling up in a dazzling geometric pattern.

The buildings were honeycombed with hundreds or even thousands of roosts.

The elaborate corridors and stairways, many floors and even more levels can make you easily feel lost.

One wonders whether the modern concept of the cubicle office was inspired when an architect was watching all the pigeons flying back to the dovecote. Just the connection a manager would make. lure fat birdies to the top of a tower with tasty-looking seed, then pigeonhole them and collect the mountains of... um, stuff, they produce. Let them fly wherever they want so they feel free, then back they come, day after day...

Snake Traps are Included :

The arched patterns and zig-zagged stone near the top of the tower is specially made to prevent snakes from climbing into the holes. The pigeons should feel sheltered and safe.

World-Class Pigeon Architecture, Elsewhere :

While the Persian pigeon towers may be the most beautiful, Iran is by no means the only country to have such towers. A passion for pigeons is a worldwide phenomenon with a long history: since time immemorial people have been building pigeon lofts from the simple to the sublime.
First pigeon towers were built in ancient Egypt, and today pigeon houses can be found all over Europe and even in North America, although in these cases the birds are kept as a hobby or for racing.

Some Ancient Egyptian Towers: This is Not a Tomb! -

King Herod kept carrier pigeons at Masada.

In England they are known as dovecotes or columbaria, from the Latin name of the pigeon family. English dovecotes were connected with a large estate or manor and were a symbol of status - the greater the land of the estate, the bigger the structure could be. This pegion tower is near Bruges, Belgium (15th century).

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