If you want to see the Northern Lights, this offer takes some beating. Book a trip with Hurtigruten and, if the most famous light show in the world doesn’t make an appearance, they’ll give you another cruise FREE.
The Northern Lights is regularly top of the polls of Brits’ “bucket list” but it’s hard to know how to give yourself the best chance of seeing them.
Hurtigruten are so confident that a voyage on one of their ships is the best way, they have become the first operator to introduce a Northern lights promise. If the lights are not visible from your ship, they will give you a second voyage – for free!
What do you have to do? Book an 11-night Classic Round Voyage before November 30, 2014, for departure between October 1 this year and March 31, 2015. Crews will be scouring the night skies for an appearance of the dancing light show. If they do appear, an announcement will be made to everyone on-board, and verified by the Captain (or nominated officer).
If the lights do not make an appearance, you get a choice of a 7-day Classic Voyage North, or 6-day Classic Voyage South in an inside twin cabin (full board basis), departing between October 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016. Flights are not included.
Philip Price of Hurtigruten said: “It has been a truly spectacular couple of years for sightings of the Northern Lights in Northern Norway. If you take a Classic Round Voyage with us, you will spend 7 days out of the 12 under the key “aurora oval” area. We cannot of course guarantee that you will see the lights during their voyage (only Mother Nature can do that), but we can do the next best thing which is to promise that if the lights prove elusive, we will give you another opportunity to see them next year”.
The 12-day Classic Round Voyage hugs the Norwegian coastline from Bergen up to Kirkenes, where it turns around and starts its journey south.
Dr John Mason MBE, renowned astronomer, aurora-hunter and Principal Lecturer at the South Downs Planetarium in Chichester, said: “For the best chance of seeing the Northern Lights, you need to stay in the auroral zone or be near to it. This is a narrow ring, roughly around the Arctic Circle, that passes right over northern Norway. Hurtigruten’s voyages spend seven days within or close to the auroral zone – no one else offers that. I have been incredibly fortunate that even when the weather forecast has been rather poor, I have never failed to experience the magical Northern Lights on a Hurtigruten voyage.”
Prices for the Classic Round Voyage start from £999 per person in an inside cabin on full board basis (based on two sharing), departing on a wide choice of dates in November and December. Flight and transfer packages start from £330 per person.
Picture: Stein Bjorge
