Professional clown, Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, arrested for kidnap, rape of girl, 12, in California

Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, 41, was arrested on Friday in Fullerton, California for allegedly raping and kidnapping a 12-year-old girl in 2002.

A professional clown accused of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl while wearing his stage make-up and mask was arrested Friday in California.

Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, who goes by "El Tin Larin," was taken into custody after investigators matched his DNA from an unrelated crime last year to evidence from the horrific attack.

The 41-year-old Anaheim resident allegedly grabbed the girl at a fast-food stand just before midnight in January 2002. He then drove to a nearby school parking lot and raped her in his van.

The horror continued as Jimenez then took her to a motel and molested her again before girl managed to escape.

Fullerton Police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said the case had gone cold because the young child, whose name has not been released, was not able to identify her attacker.

"The problem was, the only description we had was 'a clown,'" said Goodrich.

Detectives are asking for the public's help to help identify more of Jimenez's possible victims. For the past nine years, he has performed as a clown at parties -- mostly in Latino communities.

"Who knows how many other possible victims there might be," said Goodrich. "We're hoping that any past victims might recognize him, both with or without his clown make-up, and come forward," he said.

Parisian-born photographer Erica Simone lays bare everyday activities in nude works of art

Parisian-born photographer Erica Simone has created a photo exhibit titled "Nue York: Self-Portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen," where she performs mudane activities in the buff.

A Parisian-born shutterbug who likes to flash her camera has turned daily routines in the Naked City into works of art.

Photographer Erica Simone, 25, has gone au naturel in a series of self-portraits taken around New York. In them, she rides the subway, checks out library books and shovels the snow on the sidewalk outside her apartment - all in the buff.

Photographer Erica Simone.

The 20 shots are part of Simone's new exhibit "Nue York: Self-Portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen," which opens next month at the Dash Gallery in Tribeca.

The inspiration for the photos came to Simone during Fashion Week two years ago.

"I was sitting around thinking about fashion and what would we be if we were naked and what if we didn't have fashion to show who we were, our status, how much money we had, all these things," she told the Daily News.

"Then I got the photographic idea of shooting people naked in the street, but just doing regular things, not especially posing, or being naked, but doing whatever."

 She drew on the work of Miru Kim, a New York-based artist known for taking self-portraits in barren industrial spaces.

Simone was also intrigued by the challenge of staging the shots - which she took using a remote sensor - and stripping down to her birthday suit.

"At first it was like, 'Can I really do this?'" Simone said. "I was into the idea, but I didn't totally have the [nerve] to do it - I'm not totally an exhibitionist."

She landed five usable images on her first day of shooting in the West Village.

"And I didn't get arrested," she said.

Simone wants to draw people to the playfulness of the shots.

"It's not about sex, it's silly," she said. "It's crazy that it's illegal to be naked."

New Yorkers shown the photos bared their admiration for Simone having the courage to take off her clothes in public.

"I don't have the guts to do it," said Megan Clausen, a 25-year-old architect from Philadelphia.

Her, co-worker, Darcy Wilkins, 29, agreed.

"I'd go see it," she said. "I always ask my cat, 'Why can't I walk around naked?'"

 

Serena Williams' Top Spin 4 game commercial deemed too sexy for TV

Serena Williams' sexy Top Spin 4 commercial was rejected - possibly for being too racy.

There's no question that Serena Williams is a good looking woman. But some even think the tennis star is a bit too hot for TV.

At least that's the case for her new ad for Top Spin 4, a tennis game made for Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

In a commercial lasting less than 60 seconds, Williams – clad in a black leotard and stockings – is deemed "the world's sexiest tennis player" before she faces off against actress Rileah Vanderbilt, who is dressed in a similarly revealing outfit and called "the world's sexiest tennis gamer."

The video is cut with clips from the actual game, as if the two women were playing each other. But combined with grunting sounds that are more commonly heard in the bedroom than on the tennis court, the hotness factor goes up several levels.

"You realize this is a fantasy right?" Williams says at the end.

According to Joystix.com, the commercial was actually rejected by the game's maker, 2K Sports, but Vanderbilt uploaded it herself onto YouTube and tweeted a link to it on Monday.

By Wednesday, she was distancing herself from it, calling an Ad Week blog post on the controversy "sooo inaccurate..."

When the site offered her the chance to explain, she replied, "It's all good. I can't get into it." 

On Monday, Williams herself told her fans to "Stay tuned for a awesomely sexy video I am tweeting later," but, interestingly enough, she hasn't mentioned it since then.

"As part of the process for creating marketing campaigns to support our titles, we pursue a variety of creative avenues," 2K Sports said in a statement. "This video is not part of the title's final marketing campaign and its distribution was unauthorized."

'Pole dancing for Jesus' class mixes faith and fitness; Church going women offered free class

'Pole Fitness for Jesus' is offered on Sunday at the Best Shape of Your Life studio, outside of Houston.
 

Women in Texas aren't pole-dancing for tips.  They're pole-dancing for Jesus.In a dance studio in the town of Spring, outside of Houston, women are taking on the now-popular fitness trend of stripper aerobics – but instead of moving to a pulsing beat, they're grinding along to Christian music. 

"Pole Fitness for Jesus" was the brainchild of Crystal Deans, the owner and class instructor at of Best Shape of Your Life.

Deans, a former "dancer," told MyFox in Houston that she quit the pole-dancing business years ago.

"It's not something I felt very rewarded with … I decided I didn't want to do any more, so I decided to take the part that I liked about that and bring it here," she said. 

She said her goal is to teach fellow female churchgoers how to get fit, work their legs and core and to make a connection with God.  The goal is not to teach women to be strippers. 

"We do the upbeat contemporary Christian music because people have to bring their church program to get into the class, so we basically are just continuing the whole worship thing here," she said. 

According to the studio's website, the first eleven women that bring in their church program every 2nd Sunday of the month receive a free class.

On other days, the studio offers regular pole-dancing classes without a religious bent.

Women seem to be singing the class' praises for its tough workout and its wholesome outlook.

"I think it's a fabulous thing. I was raised around religion. My parents were very religious, and it's a great way you get the stigma off," said Tiffany Booth.  "It's not just dancing on a pole. You have music and you have girls together working out. There's tons of different kinds of workouts; this just happens to be one."

Mixing pole dancing and religion has raised some eyebrows.  But Dean said that the Lord is the only person who can judge her choice of fitness routine.

"People who want to sit there and judge it, you know, like, 'Well, that is sacrilegious,' or you know," Dean told News KXAN in Austin. "That doesn't make you a good Christian when you judge other people."

 

Tech Gadgets - You Should Get Rid Of :

The common rap against technology is that it leads to an accumulation of devices. But the nature of technology is changing. Fewer products are doing more tasks — all accomplished by countless lines of massless software code.

And so we no longer need to accumulate products. If anything, we can cut down. The question is, Which can be replaced and which are fine, or even preferable, to keep? It is plain as day that paper maps and Rolodexes have given way to their digital counterparts. But what else can you get rid of? Here is a list of common consumer technologies and products and a somewhat opinionated judgment on whether to keep or pitch it.

DESKTOP COMPUTER Lose it. You may have one now, but are you really going to replace that deskbound PC when it becomes out of date? Assuming you are not a hardcore gamer or a video editor, laptops have all the necessary computing power the average user needs. If you want to replicate that desktop experience, you can always connect your laptop to a larger display and keyboard.

HIGH-SPEED INTERNET AT HOME Keep it. With the advent of devices like theMiFi, which converts a 3G mobile signal into a Wi-Fi cloud for multiple devices to share, you might be thinking about giving your Internet service provider the boot and using your cellphone as your Internet connection, even when at home. That would work — provided that you get a strong data signal where you live; that you never intend to stream video from Netflix, YouTube or Hulu; and that you have an unlimited data plan from your wireless provider. Given all these caveats, it probably makes more sense to stick with your I.S.P.

CABLE TV Depends. While you may and should hold on to a good broadband connection at home, it is debatable whether you need to pay for cable TV. Sports fans probably will want to keep it, as many leagues restrict online content, but casual viewers who mainly want some shows and movies to watch could get by with a good Internet connection and some low-cost subscriptions to services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video.

POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Lose it. Yes, a dedicated camera will probably take a better picture than the small lens and image sensor of a smartphone, but it will not be that much better. And a point-and-shoot has limitations of its own. It is hard to share photos until you have transferred them to your computer, and there are no apps for cameras, as there are for smartphones, that allow you to quickly apply cool filters and treatments to the shots you took. Perhaps most important, a camera may or may not be close by when a photo-worthy moment arises, but it’s very likely that your phone will.

CAMCORDER Lose it. Camcorders get squeezed at both ends of the video spectrum. On the low end, smartphones can capture video, and while it may not be Imax quality, many people do not care. At the high end, new digital S.L.R. cameras  can shoot full-HD video while taking advantage of all the interchangeable lenses that were created for still photography. That camcorder you have now is probably the last one you will own.

USB THUMB DRIVE Lose it. File sharing does not require hardware anymore. In almost any case you can think of, you can move files around digitally via the Internet. That could mean signing up for a service like Dropbox, which creates a private, shareable hard drive in the cloud, or by simply e-mailing yourself attachments and storing them in the drafts folder of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. A USB drive is just something to misplace or break.

DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER Lose it (probably). Do you have a smartphone? Then you have a music player. Why load yourself down with an extra gadget? Apple popularized the music player with its iPod, but when was the last time you saw that iconic white box with the dial on the front? Music is data, and many multifunction devices can handle it along with many other kinds of data (like video, e-mail and apps). The one exception may be if you enjoy music while exercising. In that case, a tiny player like the $49  ipod Shuffle might be a better accessory than a larger, heavier smartphone.

ALARM CLOCK Keep it. Smartphones can be terrific alarm clocks. They can ramp up the volume gradually, display weather information and awaken you to your favorite song. And when on the road, they are still light-years ahead of the incomprehensible alarm clocks in hotel rooms. But a recent daylight time glitch in iPhones that fouled up the clock could give some early risers pause. Furthermore, setting and resetting smartphone alarms may require a dive into one submenu too many; turning a little knob on the back of a clock and flipping a switch is still simplicity itself.

GPS UNIT Lose it. The least expensive GPS units cost around $80. But your smartphone can do the same thing, if not more, for half that price, or even free. Android smartphones already have Google’s turn-by-turn navigation app built in. And earlier this month,Google announced that the company would be including live and historical traffic data in route planning, so you hopefully get to where you are going faster.

If you have an iPhone, you have several options for GPS apps, including Navigon’s MobileNavigator (which starts at $30) and ALK’s CoPilot Live ($20). Renting a car? Decline the optional GPS; if you have a smartphone, you already have one with you.

BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries.

But there is one area where printed matter is going to give way to digital content: cookbooks. Martha Stewart Makes Cookies a $5 app for the iPad, is the wave of the future. Every recipe has a photo of the dish (something far too expensive for many printed cookbooks).

Complicated procedures can be explained by an embedded video. When something needs to be timed, there’s a digital timer built right into the recipe. You can e-mail yourself the ingredients list to take to the grocery store. The app does what cookbooks cannot, providing a better version of everything that came before it.

Now all Martha has to do is make a decorative splashguard for a tablet and you will be all set.

Short on Funds, but Long on Pink Slips

Helen Nenadal, who has worked for the city of Costa Mesa, Calif., for more than 30 years, was one of hundreds of city workers to receive a pink slip.

COSTA MESA, Calif. — To solve a looming pension crisis and budget gap, city officials here said, they needed to take drastic action. And everyone agrees on one thing: they did.

Nearly half of this city’s workers were told late last week that, come September, they would probably be out of a job. Nearly every city department will be eliminated. More than a dozen tasks will be outsourced, including graffiti removal, firefighting, building maintenance and street cleaning.

Unlike the drama that played out overthe last two months in Madison, Wis., the battle over public workers in this bustling suburb and upscale shopping mecca in the heart of Orange County is happening at lightning speed.

Layoff letters went out last week to more than 200 of the city’s roughly 450 workers, sending many of them into a panic as they scurried to look for new jobs. The move will, in one great swoop, reinvent municipal government here, and perhaps lead the way for other cities.

Emotions in Costa Mesa, already running high, grew more intense after one city worker, summoned to receive his pink slip, instead climbed five stories to the roof of City Hall and jumped to his death. A small side entrance to the building is now decorated with supermarket-bought bouquets and tall, white candles, a memorial to the 29-year-old man, who had worked for the city’s maintenance department for four years.

The layoffs have deeply divided this small city, just a few miles inland from Newport Beach. While Costa Mesa has long been a politically conservative enclave, much like the other wealthy suburbs that surround it, the move to privatize city services strikes many residents as a harsh political tactic that is meant to remake their community into a national model in the battle over public employee unions.

But the City Council, which moved quickly to approve the outsourcing and layoff plans, says the moves are the only way to solve a budget gap of as much as $15 million next year and to handle pension costs that grow exponentially each year, eating away at the city’s $93 million budget.

“We see the train wreck coming, and the only questions are how bad it will be and how quickly we want to try to stop it,” said City Councilman Jim Righeimer, who has led the push for outsourcing and has battled with public employee unions for years. “We have to stop blaming other people and start to solve these problems ourselves. These are hard-working people, but we know we cannot afford to keep paying what we have been.”

This is the Wisconsin labor battle in miniature — union officials and opponents of the layoffs say it is politics and not money that is driving the decision. City officials say they do not know how much money they will save through outsourcing, although Mr. Righeimer said he expected to cut labor costs by anywhere from 15 to 40 percent.

Mr. Righeimer, a real estate developer, fought a bruising battle against the unions in his bid for the City Council last fall. But few here seemed prepared for him to push such wholesale change so quickly. Several community leaders called this week for the city to rescind the layoff notices, although there were few signs that officials would back down.

“They should have been thinking from the very beginning what kind of cost saving they were going to get before doing this — not tell us now, ‘You don’t have a job, and we’ll get back to you later if we change our mind,’ ” said Helen Nenadal, who has worked in the city’s maintenance department for more than 30 years and who does not think the city will back down. “They are on their mission,” she said.

City officials say services could be outsourced to a mix of private firms and other municipal governments. The county’s Fire Department has indicated that it is willing to take over the firefighting duties in Costa Mesa, as it has in other cities. The department said it could cover the city with 15 fewer firefighters, Mr. Righeimer said.

Other city officials have not ruled out outsourcing the duties of the Police Department, one of the only departments not included in the first round of layoffs. Although other employees, like city planners and engineers, may have avoided the pink slips for now, few feel confident that they will not be laid off later as a team of consultants considers cost savings for the entire city.

Wendy Leece, the only one of the five City Council members to vote against the layoffs, said her colleagues were acting “recklessly.”

“We’re a nice, safe and clean city, and we need to make sure we stay that way,” Ms. Leece said. “I’m a lifelong Republican — nobody can out-Republican me. But I think we also need to be conservative on the front end and not rush into something that is going to alienate all our employees.”

“The sky isn’t falling,” she added, “but there is a real effort by some to exaggerate the crisis.”

The city has already been through a round of cuts. Last year, it eliminated or reduced the hours for 77 employees and cut programs. Tom Hatch, the city’s chief executive, said the city currently had the same number of staff members as it did in 1985, “with a much higher demand of services.” And employees have offered some concessions, including paying more toward their pensions.

But because so much of the budget goes to paying salaries and benefits, there has been less money to spend on services. Roads have gone unrepaired for too long, and it has been years since there has been enough money to buy fertilizer for city parks, said Stephen Mensinger, who was appointed to the City Council this year and supports the outsourcing plan.

“At some point we don’t have money for anything else except for labor,” Mr. Mensinger said. “That can’t go on. We’re not a poor town, but we’ve been spending money without regard to whether it’s for the best possible services at the lowest possible price.”

Airline Tickets: Buy Early or Wait?

BUYING an airline ticket is always something of a gamble — prices go up and down, and trying to figure out how far in advance to book to get the best fare can be tricky. Recent world events have been causing oil prices — a major factor in ticket prices — to fluctuate, making the calculation of when to buy even more challenging. Earlier this month, the price of a barrel of oil, which had skyrocketed to as high as $104 in response to events in Libya and the Middle East, dropped below $100 a barrel when disaster hit Japan.

So far this year airlines have raised rates six times, compared with just three increases last year, partly to keep pace with rising oil prices, according to Booking buddy.com, which tracks ticket prices. Overall, fares are up about 18 percent for travel in late May through early June, compared with the same period last year, according to One Travel.com, which offers predictions on whether fares will go up, down or hold steady on a given route.

On certain routes, prices are particularly volatile. The cost of travel is jumbing every month due to high fluctuation and demand in some sector. 

So what’s a traveler to do? When you put that question to some avid fare-watchers for their take on the best strategy for travelers looking to nab the best fare at the right time. Here is what they had to say:

Book now if traveling in the near future. The professional crystal-ball gazers all agree you should not wait to book your flight if traveling in April or May.  One of the chief executive of Travel agent, points out that despite recent fluctuations, rising oil prices have been on a trajectory very similar to that of 2008, when airlines raised rates five times by early March and tried to increase rates by about $10 each week in April. Four of those increases stuck.

Mr. Seaney of Farecompare, however, recommends waiting just a bit. “Right now, airlines aren’t releasing the cheapest seats and I don’t expect them to start doing that until later on this month,” he said in mid-March. An attempt to raise prices earlier this month byAmerican Airlines, which increased domestic round-trip fares by $10 on many routes, was not matched by competitors, he pointed out on his blog, RickSeaney.com, forcing the carrier to roll back the increase to remain competitive.

It’s also possible that if fares get too high, travelers will say enough is enough and pull back on travel spending as they did in late 2008, forcing airlines to cut prices as the holidays neared and many seats were unsold. “People who locked in fares during the summertime for Thanksgiving and Christmas 2008 were very unhappy,” Mr. Seaney said.

Hedge your bets. Another option is to book early and watch for price drops in an attempt to get a refund. Most airlines have long offered to refund the difference in their fares (minus a rebooking fee) in the form of a voucher to customers who ask. Using your confirmation number, Yapta.com will track the price of your ticket, taking the airline’s rebooking fees into consideration, which generally range from $75 to $150. (Two airlines that don’t charge rebooking fees are Alaska and JetBlue.) If the difference in price exceeds the fee, Yapta will send you, without charge, an e-mail or Twitter alert notifying you of the lower fare. You can then claim the credit, as long as you booked directly with the carrier rather than through a travel agent or online agency.

While refund opportunities have declined as fares have risen, the savings remain considerable when refunds do apply. In the first quarter of last year, 14.7 percent of flights tracked by Yapta qualified for a refund, compared with 13.1 percent so far this year. The average refund during that time (after factoring in fees) was $179 last year versus $125 this year.

Orbitz.com also offers a refund service called Orbitz Price Assurance for airline tickets, with refunds of $5 to $250 a traveler, if another Orbitz customer books the same ticket on the site for less.

Still not ready to commit? At least one carrier — Continental — now offers travelers the ability to lock in a fare for 72 hours for a fee of $5 or for seven days from $9, depending on the itinerary, with no obligation to buy. Travelers can purchase the ticket at any time before the so-called FareLock expires.

Look for sales at the last minute. Airlines sometimes slash rates at the 11th hour, so it pays to keep checking. Look for sales at sites like  Trip mama.com and vayama.com, which track fares, but be prepared to act fast.  

Check package deals -   When travelers obsess over the right time to pull the trigger on air fares, they can miss out on other opportunities to save. For example, when booking airfare and hotel separately, the best price available for a seven-night trip to the Excellence Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic with flights on American Airlines from New York was $4,375 for two people. The same trip, booked as a package, was available for $3,208 on Cheapoair.com , or $1,167 less

Photos from Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi's 'bunga bunga' sex parties surface online

Photos from Silvio Berlusconi's 'bunga bunga' sex bashes were found on laptops, cameras seized by authorities.

TV star Barbara Guerra is alleged among the women in the photos.

Photos from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" bashes have surfaced online.

The risqué photos feature unidentified women kissing and fondling one another, as well as Italian TV beauty Barbara Guerra dressed in a low-cut police outfit, London's Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.

The pictures were recovered from laptops and cameras seized by authorities from several dozen women who allegedly attended the 74-year-old leader's infamous sex parties at his home near Milan.

The beleaguered Italian leader faces charges he paid for sex with a Moroccan minor and used his influence to cover it up.

The girl, Karima el-Mahroug, nicknamed Ruby, turned 18 in November. But it is believed his alleged sexual relationship with her occurred before that.

A 20,000-page court document details his alleged crimes. In it, officials claim at least 33 women prostituted themselves at parties at Berlusconi's villa.

Paying for sex is not a crime in Italy.

"Even though I am a little mischievous ... 33 girls in two months seems like too much even for a 30-year-old," the prime minister said in an interview earlier this month. Berlusconi has repeatedly denied the claims of wild sex parties.

 
The pictures features dozens of women kissing and touching one another.

The prosecutor's document details how the soirees at Berlusconi's villa allegedly took place. They started with dinner then continued with "bunga bunga" parties in a room used as a disco.

There, women, sometimes masked, performed a striptease or an erotic dance "touching each other mutually, touching or being touched in their intimate areas by Silvio Berlusconi." The soirees culminated with Berlusconi's choice of a sex partner or partners.

The exact meaning of "bunga bunga" is apparently a bit of a mystery. It has been used in many different ways in the past century, but one claim is that the phrase is actually a nickname for Sabina Began, a German actress and friend of Berlusconi's who says she organized the elaborate parties.

"'Bunga bunga' is simply my nickname," the 36-year-old said, according to the BBC.

The prime minister's trial begins April 6.

New York City experiences hail, thunderstorms, lightning in harsh March spring weather

Hail and sleet come down in a torrent of unwelcome spring weather in Brooklyn Wednesday night.

Following a few days of sunshine last week, New York City's weather took a turn for the worse Wednesday with pellets of hail raining down in parts of all five boroughs.

Twitter immediately lit up with weather-beaten New Yorkers tweeting photos of and comments about the gloomy skies.

"Yooooo Spring what happened to u!? Maybe someone didn't send Hail the memo. Smh," tweeted Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks.

"Thunder and freezing rain. Nice combo. #NYC," NY1 host Pat Kiernan tweeted.

"It doesn't look like much, but this snow/hail/sleet crap coming out of the sky -it's like walking on ball bearings," one tweeter commented, posting a photo of the frozen streets.

The National Weather Service predicted one to three inches of snowfall by the end of Wednesday night, and New York residents had their own unnerving experiences with the onslaught of springtime slush.

Sunnyside resident James Checrallah was leaving a Home Depot in Queens along Northern Boulevard around 6:30 p.m. when he heard what he thought was "really loud rain" on the metal awning.

"But then I realized that it was poking at my head, and it was clearly not," he said, adding that the second bout of hail, which came about an hour later, was much worse.

"There was thunder and lightning, and the lightning struck really close," Checrallah said. "The thunder even set off two or three car alarms."

Hail pelted windshields and made driving conditions dangerous Wednesday night. (Murray/News)

Weather conditions even caused the Federal Aviation Administration to announce flight delays at LaGuardia Airport, much to the chagrin of March travelers.

New York wasn't the only place hit by hail, however. Parts of up-state New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were under a winter weather advisory from the National Weather Service, and residents of Iowa and Nebraska suffered from damaging hail Tuesday afternoon.

"There's a big dent," Iowa resident Paulette Jones told a local news station Tuesday, referring to damage to her home. "It was so loud."

Wednesday's ugly weather comes following the a harsh winter for the Northeast and a phenomenon known as "thundersnow."

"so it started with rain, then hail, then sleet, and now big fat snowflakes. Is there any other form of precipitation left? #springinnyc," one tweeter bemoaned.

Summer vacation-How To Get The Best Deal On Cruises

Summer is around the corner and you may be looking for a well deserved break. Going on a cruise could be your ideal holiday. It may be relaxing and you get to see more than one part of the world while you are at it. They can be expensive, however, and how to get the best deal on cruises could be very beneficial to you.Before going to deals,Why should you consider a cruise for your next vacation? Or why should you consider combining a cruise  with your next land vacation?

Lots of benefits are available :

You pay just once and it includes it all

No packing and unpacking every night

No taxis from stations and airports to various hotels

A wide range of cuisine options to choose from

Cruises to every destination are available and of varying lengths

Cabin types to suit every budget

Don’t come back from your holiday needing another holiday – cruises are so relaxing that you come back refreshed

Plenty of onboard activities to choose from to keep you and your children going – most included in the price

Shore excursions: It’s not like you are on board the ship all the time. You can get off at exotic ports of call and experience destinations with minimum hassle.

Family time: It’s the best option for families. You get to see new and exotic places without the hassle of taking your kids from station to airport. Cruise companies offer baby sitting facilities if you want to enjoy a shore excursion or some onboard entertainment that the children may not.

Cruising is one of the best vacation options in terms of value. Moreover there are cruise vacations to suit every budget. The cost of your cruise includes all meals, your accommodation, on-board activities and entertainment, plus transportation from port to port. This means that you know exactly what your vacation will cost you before you leave home. (Typically, your only extra expenses will be drinks, optional shore excursions, and personal services such as massage or hairstyling) When you consider all the extras that a land vacation can cost, there’s no better value than cruising. 

Timing is essential when booking a cruise. You may not want to book a cruise right in the middle of summer when you could find yourself in peak season. When booking a cruise try to book it between seasons like in the period between January and March when the weather is getting warmer but prices are still low. You will not feel cold and save money in one go.

Timing, however, does not only concern the seasons when it comes to getting the best deals. Also try and book your trip well in advance. On line booking ,definitely save lot of money and time .Travel websites like Booking buddy.com, Hotwire.com,cheapoair.com,hotels combined may help you to get best deals.  This could provide you with big savings. The closer to the departure date you book the more you may have to pay. Keep this in mind when you plan to go on a cruise.

 All kinds of factors could get you further discounts when going on a cruise. Some may think getting old is a bad thing but being of a mature age could save you money. Also, if you like to share your holiday with a group of friends inform the cruise liner that you are booking a trip as a group. This could get you a bigger saving than booking a trip for only one or two people.

Always remember that the Internet could be a wealth of not only information but also the gateway of savings. Try to search the Internet as often as possible to try and find the best deals.  

Most of us can get irritated with advertorial emails. Try to remember, however, that if you sign up to receive these emails from travel agencies and cruise line operators you could be well placed to stay in the know about well priced deals. This will spare you the time and energy of having to constantly search the Internet for the information you want.

Going on a cruise can be a very enjoyable travel experience. It does not have to leave you bankrupt and you get to see the world. These are but a few tips on how to get the best deals. You can always continue to read up and you may just find the perfect deal for in no time at all.

Find the Best Cruise Deals on hotwire.com.  All you need to do is to go online and look for any  cruises deals that are available - it's as easy as that!