I went on one of the Princess ones, can't remember which one it was, but it was quite large.
On this trip we didn't go to Tromso, but I did to go to Finland a few years afterwards to see the northern lights. Stayed in a resort in the middle of nowhere for a week and saw the northern lights for 4 out of 6 nights I think. It still ranks as 1 of my 3 memorable trips ever.
Tromsø is advertised as the polar light destination, but that's a half-truth. Tromsø is nice for the tour operators because of the weather patterns there are almost always somewhere within two hours drive where it's no clouds on the sky. In Tromsø itself it's quite often cloudy, and the polar lights aren't always there - they can typically last for some 10-30 minutes only.
I was living in Tromsø in a quite nice spot - we had very few neighbours and hence not so much light pollution there, and we didn't have an indoor toilet - meaning that we would go out every so often, of course looking for the polar light while being outdoor. That's another thing, if staying indoors in a lit room, you can't just see the polar light out the windows, it's really needed to go out to see it.
I typically used to tell people coming for a visit (through http://www.bewelcome.org nowadays - I was doing hospitality through own webpages, hitch hikers homebase and hospitality club since 1998) that they have 50% probability of seeing it if staying at my place for a week during the right time of the year.
Also, being in the winter time in Tromsø as a tourist, typically downtown ... one would probably tend to spend quite much of the time indoors or in lit city streets, chances are that there actually was some polar light right out there, but you missed it. Hence, staying downtown in a hotel, I'd say the probability is smaller than 50% for seeing it, I'd say - unless one signs up for a polar light expedition, those operators have both solar activity forecast data and regular weather forecast data available and know quite well when to see it and where to see it.
Right, next time I'm going to see the northern lights, I'm definitely going to contact you! Last time I was so mesmerised with what I saw, that I didn't realise I stood for a whole hour in minus 30 degrees.
In -30C one needs to keep in activity and have pretty good clothes or one will be frozen to the bone in one hour.
I remember once it was delays in the train traffic and I stood waiting for an hour in -14, I got very frozen.
Another time in Russia, I was waiting for a pickup in -20C, it was pretty bad as there were some misunderstandings and I needed to text on the phone and check maps with my bare hands for quite some time.
Once in -20C I went to pick up some skates from the car, and up the stairs to the sixth floor. I grabbed the skates by the iron, didn't think much of it, but that was a terrible idea. I got blue marks that lasted for days, it was quite painful.
My wife tried hitchhiking from Murmansk to Tromsø in -50C, that was also a horrible idea. She eventually went by airplane from Kirkenes to Tromsø and was still freezing when she arrived in Tromsø.
The cold is not only about temperature, humidity and wind is important. I once went from -30C in St.Petersburg to -18 in Helsinki, it was much colder in Helsinki!
In Tromsø it's usually just below 0C in the winter time, very rarely less than -14C, though much humidity.
When we were in Tromso we joined a tour that take us outside the city and waited for a whole night for polar lights. We saw them in the end so that was cool., but I remember seeing the thermometer saying it was -25 degrees C. We did have a lot of jackets on, was moving around and had a fire. We also went on the postal cruise (can't remember the name) that took us right to the border of Norway and Russia. We saw Northern lights every night on the cruise.
Hurtigruten, goes from Bergen to Kirkenes, used to be very important part of communications in the North of Norway, now the ships are much bigger, but mostly optimised towards tourists.
While I wrote that Tromsø is not so cold in the winter time, one doesn't have to go far to find very low temperatures. We're living in Oslo now, ten degrees further south. Winters are comparable, but much shorter, and summers are warmer and longer.
Yes, Hurtigruten, that's the one. And yes, I think Tromso is suppose to be one of the warmest place you can see the northern lights, because the warm Atlantic current is keeping it warmer than most cities of the same latitude. But as soon as you go inland you start to get cold real quickly.
Quite correct.
I'd say that Trondheim/Trodhjem is the northernmost city in Norway, anything further north is a town or village.
The very best places to watch a polar light - it's in the mountains and hills. I'dlights is toat the polar claim the third best place to look
When did you go? They say there's a peak in activity avery 11 years, and I went in 2014, hopefully can go back again in 2025
I went in 2010 so quite a while back. Would love to go again. Would love to see Norway in summer too!
The resort we stayed at made sure we were well wrapped up so luckily we didn't feel the cold at all. In fact it took me more than 5 minutes to put on all my gear each time, and after that I couldn't wait to rush outside because I was sweating already.