Since our last newsletter there have been two developments that give urgency to booking soon on two of our cruises – Baltic (Jul 2015) and New Zealand to Australia cruise (Feb-Mar 2016)

  • Celebrity have a special offer on until 10 November with hundreds of dollars in bonuses for those booking on the Baltic cruise and/or the New Zealand to Australia cruise – click here for further information on Celebrity’s 123go! offer.
  • Baltic cruise alert – 3 of the 6 cabin categories allocated to us have sold out – and prices on cabins outside our allocation have risen steeply. Although it is possible to book outside our allocation, this will be at the rate of the day, which will be around $800 higher for an inside cabin than our original price and over $2000 higher than our balcony price. To all appearances this cruise is booking heavily even though it is still 10 months away. Regular outside cabins are sold out completely (our allocation and the ship). Our inside allocation sold out, as has one of our two balcony categories. Click here for our Cruise alert – book before it is too late! blog, but there has been a further increase of over $1000 per person on balcony cabins since this post was done. Note that price of cabins within our allocation are held at their original price, at least for now, which makes them extremely attractive compared to the cost of booking outside our group.

In 3 days we begin our 6th cruise and immediately after that hit Norfolk Island for our conference there. Watch out for reports on the cruise and conference on our cruises Facebook page. This cruise is on the Celebrity Solstice, the very ship we will be on for our NZ-Oz cruise in early 2016 – and near identical twin to Celebrity Eclipse, our ship for the Baltic and transatlantic cruises (actually it is quin, not twin, as there are 5 Solstice class ships). We will be making lots of notes on how to make the most of the ship on the coming cruises.

Two more cruises to consider soon

7th cruise – 5 nights out of Fremantle, WA 19-24 January 2015
We expect our group allocation to remain open until late November, but beyond that bookings will be at the rate of the day, which will inevitably be higher than our current group rates. Most cabin categories are either sold out or down to the last few available. This cruise coincides with Albany’s Anzac Centenary. Albany was the gathering point for the convoys carrying the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and New Zealand Expeditionary Force (later to be known collectively as the ANZACs), that departed from Albany in November and December 1914. The cruise program will have some tie in with this occasion—as part of a wider general interest program.

13th cruise – 7 nights river cruise Amsterdam to Basle July-August 2016
Although this cruise is still over a year and a half away there are good reasons to consider it early if you are interested in attending. The 2 main ones are that river cruises can book out completely up to a year ahead and the fact that we expect to have a short window to book exclusively into our group later this year – before bookings on our chosen cruise are open to the public. But check out other reasons at our blog post 7 reasons to register your interest in our 2016 river cruise NOW. We are meeting with Avalon in Sydney later this week and hope to announce the cruise date and pricing soon after – with bookings exclusively into our group expected to commence late this year.

If you are in or near Perth

You may wish to attend the  WA Genealogical Society’s Mix and Mingle – Genealogy Cruises session tomorrow night (Tue 21 Oct). Jenni Ibrahim will talk about her experiences and adventures on the 5th Unlock the Past genealogical cruise around the UK, and genealogical cruises in general. Also learn about the 7th cruise in January 2015. Click here for details

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