Have You Ever Visited The Northern Lights ?

If you have you’ll know that there are never any guarantees that you’ll get to see them.

It really is down to mother nature.

It’s one of the most spectacular and breath-taking places in the world though and a cruise is definitely the best way to see this beautiful natural phenomenon (on a ship out at sea there’s no light pollution to interfere with your view!).

Most cruise liners offer sailings to see the Northern Lights between the March –October.

First off, if you have never heard of the Northern Lights let me tell you a bit about it.

What are the Northern Lights you ask ?

Well the bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere. The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as ‘Aurora Borealis’ in the north and ‘Aurora Australis’ in the south.

Auroral displays appear in many colours although pale green and pink are the most common.

Shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have been reported.

The lights appear in many forms from patches or scattered clouds of light to streamers, arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays that light up the sky with an eerie glow.

Now for the good news : Hurtigruten’s Promise……….

One of the main cruise liners that offer sailings to see the Northern Lights are Hurtigruten and would you believe for the first time ever they have just announced that they are promising passengers that if you cruise with them and fail to see the Northern Lights they will offer you a 2nd cruise for free!

Yes I did say free!

Obviously they are conditions to this which are:

Book an Eleven night classic round voyage before the 30th November, 2014 which departs anytime between 01st October 2014 and the 31st March 2015.

What will happen is at night the crew will scan the skies – if the Aurora Borealis does appear an announcement will be made and the sighting will be verified by the captain but if the lights fail to show Hurtigruten will offer all passengers a seven-day cruise-only Classic Voyage North or six-day Classic Voyage South, departing between October 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016.

My goodness, well this is a first that I have ever heard of a cruise liner that will offer you a free cruise if you don’t get to see the Northern Lights. This is a massive chance for Hurtigruten- no one can control mother nature.