Baltic cruise announced

We are pleased to announce our long anticipated Baltic cruise. Because of the considerable interest in the Baltic we considered offering two cruises there. However we have finally decided on one only – a 14 night cruise out of Southampton on Celebrity Eclipse from Saturday 11 July to Saturday 25 July 2015.

Some of you may be disappointed that expected dates in June and August are not offered, but we were always in the hands of the cruise lines and schedules they choose to offer. The decision to do just one Baltic cruise in 2015 was made for the following reasons:

  • We had anticipated Royal Caribbean offering two Baltic cruises around June as they have in 2013 and 2014. We were somewhat surprised to find they are not doing any Baltic cruises on conference suitable ships in 2015.
  • The recent survey we did, which included two possible Baltic dates and itineraries, overwhelmingly favoured the better priced 11 July cruise. There simply wasn’t enough support for the alternative Baltic cruise date to commit to this in addition.

Visit the 8th Unlock the Past – Baltic cruise page for details. Full details of the Baltic cruise have yet to be put online.

We are issuing this newsletter a little before full details go online because of a special early booking incentive offered by Celebrity Cruises – on-board credit valued between US$100 and US$125 for all bookings for specific cabins received by 31 May 2014. As an additional benefit on top of this we (Unlock that Past) are offering AU$50 discount to all who book by 31 May 2014 as well. Previous Unlock the Past cruisers are entitled to further loyalty discount.

Registrations of interest and bookings will open on Monday 12 May 2014.

5 reasons to book early

  • Conference group numbers will be limited to about 250 due to conference room capacity. Our cruise surveys suggested possibly 300 to 400 or more may be interested. Only the first 250 to book can be accommodated within our conference group
  • Early booking discount of AU$50 is offered until 31 May 2014
  • A special Celebrity Eclipse bonus of US$100-US$125 on-board credit is offered for bookings by 31 May 2014
  • We have only been given 10 inside cabins for our group, i.e. those at the entry-level pricing. These are expected to sell out very quickly
  • Those booking early get the best choice of cabins

Speakers

We hope to announce the major speakers in the coming weeks. But you can count on our team having some of the best presenters from the British Isles, North America and Australasia. We won’t issue newsletters each time a new speaker confirms, but we will add them to the presenters page as they do and give notice on the Unlock the Past cruises Facebook page. Liking us on Facebook is the very best way to keep up with the latest news as well as discussion, comments and advice from others.

Other major cruises

You may wish to take account of other major cruises planned in deciding whether to do the Baltic cruise. In addition to the 5th (British Isles), 6th (short cruise out of Sydney) and 7th (Western Australia) cruises we have provisionally settled on dates for the following:

  • 9th cruise (transatlantic) – 15 nights from 1 November 2015 on Celebrity Eclipse (same ship as the 8th cruise). This cruise will depart from Southampton and finish at Miami Florida, with days in Boston, New York (2 days), Bermuda and Port Canaveral. This cruise is not yet confirmed by Celebrity, but we are fairly confident it will be. We have applied for a conference group on this cruise and should know soon whether this has been successful.
  • 10th cruise (New Zealand – Australia) – 18 nights from 14 February 2016 on Celebrity Solstice (sister ship to Eclipse). This cruise will depart from Auckland and finish at Fremantle (Perth), visiting Bay of Islands, Tauranga, Wellington, Akaroa, Dunedin, Dusky, Doubtful & Milford Sounds, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Esperance along the way. This cruise is not yet finally confirmed by Celebrity, but we are fairly confident it will be. We have been approved for a group cabin allocation and just waiting on approval for conference rooms and times.
  • 12th cruise (European river cruise) – 7 nights  along the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel in June/July 2016. If we get 100 to 120 people we will charter an entire river ship. Register your interest now, to give you priority option on this cruise should demand exceed capacity.

Based on interest from our general cruises survey we will also consider further cruises in 2016/2017 – an Australia top end cruise (Perth to Sydney), Alaska and Barrier Reef.

More/most up to date – cruise information

Alan Phillips and the Unlock the Past team
alan@unlockthepast.com.au