Windstar Cruises Celebrates the Return of Cruising with Massive '180 Degrees from Ordinary' Treasure Hunt

As the fourth quarter holiday season approaches, travel and hospitality brands are gearing up. Despite the Variant, there is still a pent up demand for people to get out and about.

Windstar Cruises, with its fleet of six upscale boutique yachts, is looking to capitalise on this demand.  And it is doing so in a unique way.

Beginning September 10, Windstar will be running a massive treasure hunt, offering an extraordinary Grand Prize, including a free exotic cruise to a fabled port of call. It’s Windsor’s way to commemorate the return of cruising with fully vaccinated crews and guests.

Called 'The 180 Degrees From Ordinary Treasure Hunt', the sweepstakes leverages Windstar’s point of difference versus other, larger and more traditional cruise lines, and invites players to go online and watch 11 short videos that will be hosted on Windstar’s social channels and the sweepstakes landing page.  

“This is a fun and entertaining way to learn a lot about the Windstar small ship cruise experience as people think about booking travel,” said Betsy O’Rourke, Chief Marketing Officer at Xanterra Travel Collection, of which Windstar Cruises is a part.  

The videos, created by Windstar’s creative agency partner Episode Four, contain a number, letter or symbol that, when strung together, form a Google Plus code revealing the destination of the treasure.  Once players crack the code, they are entered to win a cruise to retrieve the treasure - ultimately discovering the extraordinary Grand Prize that awaits the winner.

“This promotion may appear to be a conventional treasure hunt, but it is actually a product demo in disguise, designed to deliver on Windstar's brand positioning of ‘180 Degrees from Ordinary,’” said Mark Himmelsbach, Founding Partner, Episode Four, adding, “treasure hunts are a nautical tradition and our proprietary data reveals that people who cruise massively over index versus the general public on their interest in maps.”

There are 180 mini-films in all, each one reflecting tiny details about the cruising experience and each one representing "1 degree from ordinary."

The sweepstakes ends October 1stt. Go to https://www.windstarcruises.com/treasurehunt for details.