Snow Resort Kirkenes — Hotel in South Varanki

Irresponsible and racist guide, totally a disaster. I took both King crab safari and Northern light chasing bus tour at Snow hotel kirkenes, the King crab safari is just as expected, and this review only applies to the northern light chasing bus tour. This northern light tour cost 1000 NOK, comparable to other ones in Tromso, the northern light KP forecast that day was 4, a very high value good for chasing. I explain below in detail about this disaster and racism tour: Time: This tour started at 9.30 pm from snow hotel (in Tromso, normally it starts at or before 7), and we arrived back in Kirkenes earlier than 11.30 pm (in Tromso, those ones I took never come back to city before 1:30 am). The total time was less than 1/3 of those in Tromso. Considering the guide needs to drive a bit, apparently we did not get enough time for watching northern lights. Equipments: The guide literally had nothing except a minibus. No cameras, no tripods, no introduction of northern lights, no instructions of taking pictures, even no thermal suits (but they have good suits for King crab tour, and all of these previously mentioned are provided by any of the northern light tour in Tromso). He just let us standing under the freezing Norwegian evening and look at the cloudy sky, pointing out, oh here, oh there. Responsibility: As I said, the northern light forecast was really high that day, so you can see the northern light from your iphone even when it was cloudy. The tour guide put us just by the road to watch the northern lights. The sky was really cloudy, there were traffic passing by (car lights), and you can see the light from the airport & the city. It was definitely not a good place to watch northern lights! My friend and I tried to complain that this place was not good, the guide replied: Everywhere is the same (??? So you should cancel this tour please?). Later he took us to another place, which was even worse for a photographer: still cloudy, car lights, city lights, and there are trees in your view, which you even cannot take a proper picture! Just after a few moments the guide asked, oh you have seen the northern lights, are you tired? Shall we go back? There were other people on the bus saying 'no' but we drove back, at around 11.00 pm and arrived Kirkenes before 11.30 pm. RACISM: Kirkenes is located at the Norway-Russia border. The guide talked quite some improper jokes about Russia and Ukraine, which were really unnecessary for a tour chasing a natural phenomenon. I briefly wrote these jokes down here, and I hope the audience could judge by themselves if this kind of words is proper to come out from a nothern light tour guide: 'A russian girl meet a Norwegian guy and get married in a month. After 3 years, the girl refused to stay with that guy and worked in a shop now. So people could kind of pick up Russian language in the shops in Kirkenes. There are quite some females working in shops in kirkenes like this way, and then there are Russian men spent a lot of money in Kirkenes as well. There are also Norwegian guys singing songs to attract Russian beautiful girls as well, then the guide sang one for us, repeating 'Vodka' and sounds like a drunk freak. The guide implied that the Russians are hopeless, and spoke out that he does not know if there are hopeless Ukerians in Kirkenes now. ' In conclusion, a totally disaster, not enough northern lights, racist-like and not-funny jokes. please DO...

Went there with my parents and husband for the king crab tour and northern lights chase on husky. We stayed at Thon and got picked up/dropped off for both excursions.

King crab tour: We were given overalls, gloves and helmet and was driven on a giant sleigh on a snow mobile to the frozen fjord where they have cut a hole in the ice and laid traps for the crabs. The guide pulled out the cage, got the king crabs out and swiftly killed them. We were then allowed to take photos with the crabs. The guide was very knowledgeable and explained how the traps worked, how the king crabs are technically in the lobster family with their 10 legs, where they originated, how they arrived here and also explained the conservation of how they are only allowed 10% of the catch to be female. The guides were very respectful to the crabs, at one point one of the guests nudge the crab with their foot and the guide rightfully told the guest off for not being respectful even if the crab is dead.

There they then cut up the crabs and “gut” them, separating the edible parts into a container and the waste into a bag. We then get back on the giant sleigh and head back. Back at the hotel site, we return the gear and head to the restaurant where we wait for the crabs to be cooked (16 mins). They were served buffet style and we were given bread, butter and mayonnaise. They also had rice for those who wanted it. I had the crabs both styles and they were delicious!!!! At my time slot there were a total of 21 guests and everyone was super full at the end with a few legs left so don’t worry there is more than enough food! I had 6 king crab legs and my dad had 8 legs! An amazing experience and would highly recommend.

We returned at 9pm for the northern lights hunt by husky sleigh. It was our first time and it was a wonderful experience. The dogs loved working. They have over 160 dogs there and they get so excited when they’re about to go off on a sleigh run. Our guide was excellent, he does this as a hobby where he completes long distances and is super knowledgeable and passionate about the sport. My only downside of this was that it’s not really a northern lights hunt. The sleigh is an hour long where we go up to the mountain and around the fjord (same fjord as the king crab) it is a set route where we stop halfway at a wooden hut for hot drinks. To me, a hunt is when you don’t have a set route, say if you were going on a northern light car hunt, what they do is they look at the clouds and take you to a clear area, this location would change. This husky sleigh is a set route that they do and hope that the northern lights appear (in our case it was super cloudy and we didn’t see it) therefore is not a “hunt”. I would rename it to be “evening dog sleigh up the mountains and frozen fjord with chance of northern lights” or something along those lines. Great experience despite the naming.

You are able to walk around the site and visit the ice hotel and ice bar as well as...

Only stayed here one night but it was fantastic. Right from check-in I was welcomed warmly by the staff and given a full proper introduction and walkthrough of the property via a map so I knew where everything was and I was told the times of certain openings of activities and things which made me feel appreciated. The snow hotel was very fun if not a little gimmicky and maybe a little bit underdressed. Not sure if it was because it was later in the season or what, but I felt like there could have been a few more ice sculptures or something in there. Seemed a little bit bland but still pretty impressive and fun to walk through.

I stayed in a gamma cabin not the snow hotel and I was happy about that after walking through the snow hotel and seeing the bedrooms. The cabin, although nicely designed, the bathroom smelled very strongly of urine. Not sure if this was because it was a composting toilet or because the toilet was surrounded by wood furnishings, fixtures etc but it reeked of public bathroom. I didn't bother complaining as I was only there one night and I just kept the bathroom door shut but if I was to stay any longer I would definitely have said something and requested to be moved. Appreciated the free use of snowshoes although I didn't get an opportunity to use them.

Breakfast was a little lacklustre. Very few selections, bacon, eggs and cold meats and cheeses and that was it. The cheese selection was delicious though.

I also had dinner included. It was a set menu. You didn't get a choice or alternate drop. It was what was on the menu with exclusions of allergies etc. it was very filling and was great but not spectacular.

I liked the fish entree.

I did do the king crab excursion. That was absolutely fantastic. You ended up getting an entire half a king crab per person and it was beautifully cooked and hot and juicy and perfect. They basically take you out onto the ice just to pull up the crab pot. Take the crabs out. Listen to a speil about the crabs and then you just drive back and you eat them in the restaurant with little fanfare. But the fresh crabs made it worth it. Very filling.

Transfer to the cruise terminal was included. The driver and the guide deviated a bit and drove to a lookout point, which made me a little nervous about being late to the boat as we turned up to the Hurtigruten 5 minutes after my onboarding time, but it turned out that the ship didn't depart until later anyway, so it was fine.

I enjoyed saying hello to the Huskies and reindeer that were on site. I was very lucky and the Northern Lights graced the sky and I walked out of the hotel and down the road, and up the hill a bit and got a fantastic unobstructed...