Arctic Guide Service AS — Local services in Tromsø

Reserving with this company was a complete waste of money. It was raining in Tromso, we have booked a tour(directly at Arctic Guide Service office) on November 13th 2024 to see the Northern lights less than 2 hours before the tour departure hoping to see any aurora and being told that we will go to Finland if the conditions are not good around Tromso. We were driven to Finland but we have stayed less than 1 hour at the parking spot in Finland as the tour was lasting for 6h and we were told we can't wait more since it takes time to go back to Tromso. The weather conditions were awful, we haven't seen anything at all. We were with the guides Manuel and Gabriela. We would have preferred to be told there is no chance or very minimum chances and have the tour canceled instead of wasting the time and money. Very unprofessional.

We have paid a tour hoping the guides would research in advance for the conditions, but we have ended up staying 5h in the bus with no results. It's clear that weather/aurora is not 100% predictable, but if the weather forecast shows rain and snow and a very low KPI, it's clear there is no chance to see anything, do your own research, don't trust the lack of research of this company.

After the tour, we were told by other companies that they have canceled their tours given the very bad weather but this company chose to do the tour even if all the weather forecasts weren't showing any chances to see the Northern lights.

We didn't find any value in booking the tour and chose to do our own research for the next evenings instead of wasting more time and money with such company keeping tours even if the weather conditions aren't good enough (on our way to Finland it was continuously/heavily snowing, so it should have been clear for the guides there's no chance to see any...

Fabulous experience, fabulous people, best value tour, must do. We agonised over which tour company we would go with, some are really expensive for a family of four, or should we just drive out and see what we could find ourselves. In the end we went with Arctic Guide Services based on reviews and cost and so glad we did. Elisabeth our guide was lovely and worked with the driver, an old local, to find the best site that night based on weather and within minutes of arrival the lights were on. The overall experience was great, we only booked on the day and when we dropped into the office in town to confirm everything they were really easy to deal with. At the pick up point that evening we got on a very comfy full size coach and drove for about an hour. Upon arrival we had the best hot chocolate we have had in Norway and then just enjoyed the show. Elisabeth was very generous with the photos she took of us and time she spent with our kids. We couldn't ask for a better experience for a family, great value (Artic has student and child prices, many others didn't) and got several great photos from the night, would highly recommend. It was that good we went again two nights later. Elisabeth and the driver again found a secret spot that not only meant we got another fantastic evening of lights but was out of the wind. It was a very windy cold night in Tromso and we were worried it would be a bad night to be outside but where we stopped the spot was protected and calm....

THEY DON’T DESERVE EVEN A STAR!!!!!! AVOID THIS COMPANY! We booked a trip to see the Northern Lights, then we drive towards Finland to see the Lights but they were not so visible, anyway..we didn’t took pictures with our devices because we been told from the beginning that they will do “professional photos” for us. I had to send them emails every single day for a week to get ONE PHOTO because they keep saying “technical issues about pictures” and were not able to upload them on the site. After I told them that I will report the payment as scam because they were not able to perform full services which we discuss at the beginning when we paid for it, the pictures has appears from nowhere 😂😂 Is WASTE OF MONEY! Don t recommend this company. They should improve their customer service as the blond “lady” from the main office opposite Burger King in Tromso was so unprofessional. She must find another job, cleaning the public toilets, that will be much appreciated for her😂😂 By the way, we went to their main office where the countryside lady was😂 and they locked the door during opening hours mentioned on the paper from the window. We also told them that if they can t provide the photos we want full refund, but they said that they can give us a 50% discount on second attempt 😂 funny. Ridiculous...