Hurtigruten Sailings Get Cultural
Norwegian cruise company Hurtigruten has tours that are polar opposites.
The company has smaller cruise ship itineraries in different parts of the world, including the Arctic and Antarctica, with Arctic sailings found in different regions, among them Norway and Greenland.
Hurtigruten began operation 125 years ago carrying people and cargo along coastal Norway and its vessels now carry a combination of tourists, commuters and supplies along that coast, frequently stopping, enabling tourists to disembark and reboard seeing the different communities en route.
“We don’t have casinos. There are no Broadway revues,” Hurtigruten sales manager Eric Bacon told a Friday Toronto gathering.
Hurtigruten instead likes to provide a cultural experience, with those sailing coastal Norway able to mingle on the ship with commuting Norwegians, he said.
Those sailing to and from Bergen during the October-March “Northern Lights Season” are virtually certain see dazzling celestial displays provided by the Aurora Borealis.
Excursions from Kirkenes to Russia that don’t require a visa are available and travellers wanting to extend their time in Norway are invited to stay in a 12-room snow hotel that Bacon said shouldn’t be confused with the type of famed lodging available in northern Sweden. “It’s not an ice hotel. It’s a snow hotel.”
Snow hotel guests can arrive at the hotel by dogsled, with the sleds being wheeled during summer.
Feb. 1 saw Hurtigruten revamp its shipboard menu, including the likes of vegan options at every sitting.
Hurtigruten now has two ships providing Antarctica cruises and a third is in the works. Visitors to that part of the world can see such diverse wildlife as “penguins, seals, birds and whales,” Bacon said.
Bacon said Hurtigruten ships provide comfortable staterooms, lounges and dining rooms
Bacon said it is taking Canadian money at par with US money.
Alan Law, director of sales and marketing for Ontario-based GLP Worldwide, told the same gathering that his company is the Canadian GSA for Hurtigruten, a role it’s been doing for 15 years.
GLP Worldwide can put together packages that include a Hurtigruten sailing, air travel and hotels, Law said.
Pictured are Bacon; Andrea Chan of GLP Worldwide; Law; Ethel Hansen Davey of Uniglobe Enterprise Travel; and Oyvind Haga of Innovation Norway’s Toronto office.
