If your goal this holiday season is to wow someone on your list, book a berth aboard the Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship in the world, when she makes her maiden Caribbean voyage.
The ship sleeps 2,600 guests, towers 23 stories above the waterline and measures nearly the length of four football fields. It boasts a planetarium, five swimming pools and the largest ballroom at sea — alas, there's no actual football field. The QM2 departs Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Jan. 31 for a 12-day cruise, with staterooms starting at $2,000 per person (www.cunard.com).
Or check out our other gift ideas:
The HP Scanjet 4670 See-Thru Vertical Scanner ($186) is one piece of equipment that's easy on the eyes: It acts as a picture frame when not in use. The scanner mechanism is hidden in the frame, and because the lid of the scanner is transparent, you can perfectly position items you're scanning, eliminating incomplete scans. It also comes with an attachment that allows you to digitize 35mm slides and negatives with no fiddling (www.hp.com).
The Melitta One: One coffeemaker lets you make fresh-brewed coffee one cup at a time. For each cup, insert a fresh "java pod" — a filter-paper sachet filled with ground beans — add water, press the button and wait for a mild, 8-ounce cup of coffee or a more concentrated 5-ounce cup. Packs of 18 pods ($5) come in six varieties, including decaf. The coffeemaker, $50, and pods are available at retailers such as Target and Bed Bath & Beyond.
You'll wonder how the new Casio Exilim EX-Z4U ($400) crams so many features into a body no bigger than a deck of cards. Other digicams may be as small or smaller, but with the Exilim, you won't sacrifice clarity or ease of use. This 4-megapixel camera has a 3X optical zoom and a surprisingly large, 2-inch color display (exilim.casio.com).
The HBM-30 music player from Sony Ericsson ($300) is a marvel for its 2-by-2-inch size and three-hour memory. But it also contains Bluetooth technology, which means it connects wirelessly to other Bluetooth-enabled devices. So if you have Bluetooth on your cell phone, the music pauses when you get a call, and the HBM-30's display brings up the caller's identification. You can answer the phone by speaking into the player's microphone and listen to the caller on the headphones. All the while, your phone remains in your pocket (www.sonyericsson.com).