5th Unlock the Past Cruise – Comes to an End With a Cocktail Party
Our visit to Honfleur in France on day 10 was our last stop before heading back to Tilbury in London the following morning. And while everyone was getting the “oh-no-the-cruise-is-nearly-over” blues, Unlock The Past weren’t quite done yet.
In my last post I did report on the day in Honfleur, and the talks we had in the afternoon. But what I didn’t include in that post was the wrap-up cocktail party.
Starting at 6.30pm, there was one very last talk of the whole conference program. It was one titled “Mrs Fancy Tart” and was given by Eileen Ó Dúill. It was a great wrapup talk that everyone loved and appreciated. After that it the prizes were drawn – all 20 or so of them, and the thankyou’s started. It takes a lot of people to make this whole thing happen – including many of the ship’s crew.
the speakers on the 5th Unlock the Past Cruise
L-R: Mike Murray, Lesley Silvester, Lisa Louise Cooke, Rosemary Kopittke (behind), Helen Smith, Marie Dougan, Sean Ó Dúill, Eileen Ó Dúill, Paul Blake.
Missing from the photo is Jackie Depelle
Marco Polo crew who helped with the 5th Unlock the Past Cruise
L-R: Tony, Julie, Katie, Marco and I’m sorry I’ve forgotten the gentleman’s name on the end.
Missing from this photo is Alex
Following this we out on to the deck and had a group photo which looks simply wonderful. Fortunately the fine weather we have had all cruise continued so we could have the photo there, as inside would’ve been rather squeezy or bad lighting( well, that’s my opinion anyway).
the 5th Unlock the Past Cruise group
this is what it looked like from down on deck, while they took the group photo
After the photos, it was back into Scotts Bar for a cocktail party which Cruise & Maritime Voyages (CMV) put on for the Unlock the Past group, which was a really, really lovely of them to do so. And it gave everyone a chance to mingle and chat before heading off to their rooms to start packing.
Mike Murray, Lesley Silvester and Rosemary Kopittke
Alan Phillips with Alex the stage manager on the Marco Polo
Helen Smith with a cheers – Paul Bake to the left
Jackie Depelle. She missed the photos as she arrived late, but she was in time for the party
So that’s it. It’s all over. After the party, everyone went and packed up their suitcases, and everyone disembarked the next morning and went their various ways. Some stayed on holidays, others headed straight home. As with each cruise that I’ve been on to date, new friendships were made, and people found connections either through their research interests.
As Unlock the Past seem to be doing about 3 genealogy cruises a year, I can’t do them all. So my next one will be the 8th one which is the one to the Baltic. Though I think I’ll need the year in between to sort out all of the photos from this trip, as well as get cracking on putting my genealogy notes into practice.
So a BIG thankyou to the speakers, as they helped make it what it was. A BIG thank you to all the geneacruisers who came, otherwise it would have been just me, and that doesn’t make for a very good genie conference. And a HUGE thankyou to the CMV crew, who did absolutely everything to cater for our group, they are to be highly commended. Julie, Alex and Marco in particaular helped make the entire conference run smoothly.
One Response to “5th Unlock the Past Cruise – Comes to an End With a Cocktail Party”
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Sounds perfect.