(MONEY Magazine) – Yes, New Year's Eve 1999. It's not too early to make plans for the big one -- the turn of the century, the move into the third millennium. Lots of people are already committing thousands of dollars to assure themselves places at the most imaginative celebrations. Forget about the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, for example; it's already booked up. We know. Officially, the third millennium doesn't begin until midnight, Dec. 31, 2000. But most revelers refuse to wait. They're going to celebrate early. -- In 1989, Claudia Bushee, a 35-year-old homemaker in Reno, Nev., and six friends created 2K Associates and signed a contract with the Hotel del Coronado, reserving 50 rooms in advance at the 102-year-old beachside resort outside San Diego. The hotel agreed to hold the rooms without a deposit until 1998, when the fee for one night's accommodations will be due at prices in ( effect at that time. Bushee mailed 120 invitations to more friends and, with an accountant's help, set up a fund to finance what they estimate to be a $140,000 three-day millennial blowout. Bushee figures they'll need about 100 couples paying $99 annually for 10 years to foot the bill. (The money is being invested in tax-free municipal bonds.) So far, 39 couples have signed up. ''I keep warning my friends,'' says Bushee, ''that if they don't come, they'll end up at home eating Doritos, watching Dick Clark and listening for the sound of their children's tires in the driveway.'' -- At Antoine's, the famous French Creole restaurant in New Orleans, two special dining rooms seating a total of 256 have been booked for private parties on New Year's Eve 1999 at a dinner price to be set that year. -- London's Ritz Hotel and New York's Waldorf-Astoria have each received more than a dozen inquiries about their 1999 New Year's Eve balls. The hotels are holding the letters on file. -- The Venice Simplon Orient Express has received queries from eight different private groups seeking to charter the historic 176-passenger-capacity luxury train to ride it into the next millennium. The Orient Express has not yet set a price. -- One company that is planning ahead, the 165-year-old Aberlour Distillery, will deliver 360 bottles of ''perfectly aged'' -- 10-year-old -- premium single-malt scotch whisky to you in the fall of 1999 if you hand over $2,700 now ($7.50 a bottle). The bottles will come with your name on the label. -- Perhaps the grandest, most ambitious party is being planned by the Millennium Society, a 6,000-member charity started in 1979 by about 20 Yale seniors to raise money for international educational exchange. The society is seeking corporate and public sponsors to finance free public festivals at the stroke of midnight in each of the world's 24 time zones, including celebrations at China's Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, Mount Fuji, the Eiffel Tower and, of course, Times Square. But the most lavish of the planned parties will be a private affair. The society has signed an agreement with the Egyptian government for the right to celebrate New Year's 1999 at the Great Pyramid of Cheops. And it has chartered the Queen Elizabeth 2 to transport 1,800 people from New York Harbor to Alexandria, where on Dec. 30 they will board a train for the four-hour ride to the pyramid. Passage will not be for sale to the general public -- only to people who belong to the Millennium % Society (P.O. Box 10-1099, Anchorage, Alaska 99510; current membership fee, $19.99 a year). Prices for the cruise will vary -- but qualify as charitable contributions, at least under current tax laws. Chairman Edward McNally, a 34- year-old White House speechwriter, says that 70 complimentary invitations have already been sent out to famous ''optimists.'' Immediately, 93-year-old George Burns accepted. But only if he can bring a date. By the way, the Giza sphinx that's pictured on page 28 is still up for grabs.