From an eighth-floor window overlooking Times Square, Carnival’s Senior Cruise Director John Heald tosses confetti to test the air currents in preparation for this week’s New Year’s Eve celebration in New York.  

Carnival is the official confetti sponsor of New Year’s Eve and more than one ton of red, white and blue confetti will be hand-tossed by 100 “confetti dispersal engineers” on Dec. 31, raining down on more than 1 million revelers as they ring in 2011.

Visitors to the Carnival Confetti New Year’s Eve Wishing Wall at the Times Square Visitor’s Center also have a chance to get in on the confetti fun by writing down their hopes and dreams for the coming year.  The colorful slips of paper containing their wishes will be added to the confetti thrown at midnight on Dec. 31.  For those who can’t get to Times Squares, wishes can be submitted on-line via Carnival’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/carnival.