Svalbard Adventures — Attraction in Spitsbergen

An Epic Snowmobile Adventure… tearing along a frozen fjord deep into the bear infested polar night. The freezing desolation is eerie, visceral and haunting. Anyway enough hyperbole. Driving the snowmobiles is fun and easy once you get the hang of it and the terrain is mostly flat. We stopped along the way for the northern lights (which were turned up to 11 at the time) before arriving at the tent for a space meal around the fire and a look around. A big thanks to our locked’n loaded commando guides Kira and Andrea for your great company, professionalism, and making sure everyone was safe and comfortable on the snowmobiles. In all a truly unique and unforgettable experience. While we were lucky enough to see the northern lights, if we hadn’t it would be just as good. Consider them a bonus. I do wish the snowmobiles went heaps faster and we were chased by at least one polar bear but you can’t have everything. Better luck next time. I’ll try again in spring.

Cheers Mark & Sharon

PS this is an all day 90km round trip. Definitely bring some inner gloves. The mittens are fine on the snow mobile but once you get off it’s cold. Especially if you want to take photos. I’d also bring a head lamp torch if you have one. Trying to keep track of black objects like gloves, phones, cameras, balaclavas etc is challenging without one. It’s really dark. My photos were 10 sec exposures so they look lighter. Sharon took the video sideways but you...

Booked the experience with the ATVs.

Not informative and too limited in where you actually go in my opinion. Where the path starts becoming fun (but still perfectly ok with ATVs), you have to go back. If you're not fond of dogs, with whom you'll spend most of the time, just pick another excursion.

But what really took most stars from this experience in my opinion was the attitude of the guide, not her fault and she must have been told so but treated us like 2-year old children and scared us off with a long list of penalties/consequences: if you do this I will kick you out (we're talking about passing another participant...) if you do that I will leave you there, if you do this other you go to prison, if you do this other thing you'll pay 10000 NOK etc etc.

Guys relax, we are on vacation, have us signed what you need for legal purposes but do NOT patronise us, and no terrorism on vacation please. Very unpleasant.

Also, please WASH those suits you give us, just every once in a while, they're so dusty and filthy and totally unnecessary, we were not going to dig a new mine.

In the end, the guide even tried not to take us back to the hotel.

Not very informative either. Sorry but this was by far my worst...

I would like to say my review is based on one guide and not both on April 4th, if I recall her name was Joanie and was super chilled and very engaging, however the other lady who spent part of her time in iceland, was a complete bully who couldn't be less interested in job, she made everyone stay in line and if you veered 6 inches off the line she stopped to make sure you followed her like a duck even though it's much easier to be a drop to the side so you can see instead of snow flying in your face from the other snowmobile and is safer but she didn't care and none of the other operators i whent with made a big deal about it, the best part about her worrying about safety when the trail got very narrow so she asked people to get off the snowmobile and moved them and told people to drive them again, she left in reverse without telling anyone so when I whent it flew flying backwards, had another snowmobile been there or someone else of course I would of been responsible, of course she laughed when it happened, her bullying and lack of interest of going to the east coast won't be tolerated!! And my cc company will be dealing with the...