Since we have been home from our Northern Lights trip this past January-February, we have been spending a lot of time looking over our pictures and discussing the highlights and disappointments of that trip.
In general, we thought it was a successful adventure, but after having had time to contemplate all of the things we were able to accomplish and the items we had not because of the changes to the cruise itinerary, we did not feel completely satisfied.
In the end, the cruise was somewhat of a disappointment. This feeling was reinforced after we returned as we read about the subsequent cruises that left after us on the Viking Vela, and their even more disrupted itineraries. In the end, we can’t disregard that there must be some issues with the ship because of the unwillingness of Viking to take the ship to the most northern ports in Norway. It has been a major disappointment for many of the cruises who are doing this same trip after ours was completed. In fact, our cruise has been deemed the most successful of all of the five cruises to date, we have been the only cruise to visit Tromso this season, and of course, none have made it to Alta, Norway this season at all.
It is a strange perspective most have in looking back at the cruises completed to date because, for most, the success of their cruises has been measured by their success in visiting the three ports on the itinerary which are located above the Arctic Circle. These are Alta, Tromso, and Narvik. Since the main purpose of the cruise was to see the Northern Lights, it is called “In Search of the Northern Lights” by Viking.
Based on our cruise, that goal was two-thirds met, but with our own set of complications. While we visited more of those ports than any of the other Viking cruises this season, it was on a completely different schedule, which had a drastic and negative impact on excursions in those cities. Even Viking was unable to offer the same excursions in the two ports of Tromso and Narvik that we visited, we were there on different dates than originally scheduled, and the availability of excursions was limited. For Tromso, we were there with another ship that was on its original schedule, so they had obviously booked many of the available excursions for that port. We were also impacted by having to dock quite a distance from the city center of Tromso, our original docking location on the original schedule was downtown, but that was already taken by another ship that was on its original schedule.
There has been a lot of negative chatter on Facebook, each of the cruises after our has its own Facebook Group page, so we have been able to monitor the changes to those cruises and all of the disappointment expressed by many of the passengers.
So, what does this have to do with our plans to go and see the Northern Lights again? The missed opportunities from our cruise have just left us with a feeling that we did not accomplish everything we had planned to do. Had it not been for the time we planned and spent in Finland before the cruise, along with our ability to reschedule our excursion in Tromso to see the Northern Lights, we would have thought a lot differently about the success of that trip.
It was such a blessing that we were able to see the Northern Lights so well in Finland and that we did both the Reindeer Sleigh Ride and Husky Dog Sled ride while we were there instead of trying to do them during the cruise. There were so many disappointed passengers on our cruise that were unable to do those same two types of excursions since we missed Alta completely and had our schedule disrupted for our visit to Tromso, the two main ports where those excursions were offered.
In addition, we confirmed that the 11-year solar cycle will reach the solar maximum in July 2025, so there is still an opportunity to see the Northern Lights again during an active period of the solar cycle. It is about the same timeframe between our original trip and July 2025 as it is between July 2025 and February 2026, our planned timeframe for this second visit.
We also were able to find some information on the moon cycles for February 2026 and picked out tentative dates around the period between the Last Quarter and First Quarter moon cycles, which spans across the new moon period. This gives us the best opportunity to have dark skies.
We have been putting together a tentative plan for this trip, trying to determine a strategy, spend more time at fewer places, or less time at more places. Right now, we are opting to spend most of the time at just three locations, one in Finland and two in Norway, with those locations being Tromso and Alta.
We are looking at a location in Finland that is even farther north than Rovaniemi which we visited on the first trip. There are some nice properties near the city if Inari, Finland and there is an airport not far from that city that has decent flight connections, especially from Helsinki. That airport is Ivalo (IVL). There is also another airport even farther north in the city of Kirkenes (KKN), Finland, so that also may be an option from Helsinki.
From there, we would go to either Tromso or Alta, and that is a little tricky. There are limited flights connecting Ivalo Airport and Kirkenes Airport with Alta without having to connect all the way south in Helsinki. There are better connections to Tromso from those two airports, so that may dictate the order of the cities we visit. However, going to Alta second causes complications in getting home without making some flight connections in between, so it is not an easy decision.
One other possibility is taking the Coastal Express Ferry, which is a very active ferry system along the coast of Norway, usually having Bergen, Norway on the southern end of the route and Kirkenes, Norway on the northern end of the route. It looks possible to use the ferry to connect from Kirkenes to Alta, albeit not directly, we would have to depart the ferry in the city of Øksfjord, Norway, and either take a bus or another Ferry from there to Alta, about two hours away by either form of transit.
The Coastal Ferry is interesting, they have operated since the 1890’s and there are basically three main companies running the routes with around 16 ships total. Havila Ferry Co and Hurtigruten are the two largest, with Hurtigruten being the largest with ten ships, and Havila with four. The Havila ships are much newer.
They have cabins and we would spend one night on the ferry to get to Øksfjord. It is sort of like a night train adventure, but on water.
There are a lot of details to work out, and one other consideration we have is the possibility of adding some time in Iceland on the way home, but that adds some complications itself, and would most likely result in adding time to the overall duration.
The Northern Lights are visible in Iceland, but it is not as far north as any of the places we plan to visit in Finland and Norway, so we can’t determine if that helps or hurts our chances of seeing the Northern Lights. For comparison, none of Iceland is above the Arctic Circle, the north coast is a few kilometers south.
If we went, we would rent another camper, this time we would rent a camper that is slightly larger than the one we rented on our previous trip there in 2024. With it being wintertime, we would opt for a camper with a bathroom inside. We found one online at one of the major camper van rental companies, but not Camp Easy who we rented from before. Of course, we would rent another 4 x 4 camper because of the snow in the wintertime.
This is just a thought, we would also enjoy visiting some of the Golden Circle sights in the wintertime, and would not venture that far north of Reykjavik on this trip. The biggest consideration is finding campgrounds that are open in the winter, the list is quite small.
However, the remoteness of Iceland would make for great views of the Northern Lights.
We will put together a Preliminary Itinerary of what our thought is right now and change it as we firm up our plans. Based on the information we have right now, we would fly into Helsinki like we did on this past trip, and most likely leave out of Tromso for the return flight, having to connect through either Oslo or Bergen.
If we add in Iceland, that would change the flights coming home, but I believe it was possible to get to Iceland from Tromso without a lot of difficulty.
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