Marianne’s Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours

Posted By : sus_2011
Marianne arranged a great guide to take my husband and I around Tromso and the surrounding area, driving even an hour away. Ase was great, knowing where some fabulous photographic spots would be. We were there in mid/late May, knowing we weren't going for the Northern Lights. We wanted landscape that showed the beauty of Norway. Ase provided those photo opportunities for us, driving us around in her own car. She was patient and very knowledgeable about the area since she had grown up there. We came home with many treasured photos of our tour around Tromso. It was one of the highlights of our 10 days in Norway.
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Posted On : 2024-06-02 17:27:25

Posted By : N1492MOpatriciaj
What a fun trip!! Marianne and her team did everything they could to spot the Northern Lights!! Well cared for and friendly. Highly recommended to combine with a wildlife tour. Thank you for this experience.
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Posted On : 2024-03-30 14:45:38

Posted By : petereQ6118ST
Once again marinne came good with difficult cloudy conditions and a nearly full moon we got fantastic views and northern lights. Marianne is really helpful in giving advice on camera set up and she carries spare tripods warm clothing well worth a go. Also check out the day tours.
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Posted On : 2024-03-24 07:19:20

Posted By : jille711
We have been on trips with Marianne many times over a number of years.
Both her night time Aurora chasing and her day time trips.

She is knowledgeable, friendly and funny, and goes the extra mile to get her guests seeing what they hoped for, whether that be seeing reindeer or hunting for the Northern lights.

She is passionate about the Aurora, and for those clients not sure how to set up their Iphones or cameras, she will do what she can to assist.

Gives ideas on taking different photos, looking at things from a different angle.

Food and drink always good and plentiful.

The trip is small, so if just one minibus it's 7 people. Whenbusy, she will run 2 minibuses.

Ok for couples, groups or single travellers.

This time on the aurora hunt we visited Sommoroy one night, then Tromvik the 2nd night.

She will always go where you are most likely to see the lights.

Highly recommend.
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Posted On : 2024-03-24 07:02:27

Posted By : bryantM9054RH
Marianne is wonderful. We had used her back in 2019 on our first trip to Tromso for the Northern Lights and been very pleased, so when we returned in March of 2024, we reserved 2 more nights with her. Again, we were very pleased. Many tour operators say that they’ll find you clear skies for the aurora and you get a sort of half-hearted attempt. Yes, you may see some color, but you end up surrounded by large tour buses full of people, you get bad foregrounds, or a peek-a-boo view at the aurora through clouds that spoil your photographs. Marianne delivers on her promises. Our first night she took us to 3 different spots on Kvaloya, and island near Tromso. We had good results on the first two stops and after about 5 hours of work, as we were headed back toward Tromso She saw the aurora above us on the road, found a safe spot for us. and we got to photograph the aurora directly above us, moving faster than my wife and I had ever seen. A couple of nights later we went our with her again. The weather forecast around Tromso was terrible, heavy cloud cover with light snow all night long. Marianne loaded us all up and drove us about 60 kilometers in to Finland, found us a spot to ourselves with good sightlines in all directions, and when the aurora appeared int really put on a show. One of my attached photographs shows her other clients on the tour under a beautiful aroura. She gave us 9 hours of her time that night to make sure we got what we wanted. She works with her clients to make sure they get good photos, whether they have good cameras or are trying to capture the aurora on their cell phones. She provides food, hot soup, hot chocolate, has thermal suits for those who need them, and tripods for those that don’t have their own. My wife and I have photographed the aurora in Alaska, in Lofoten, and in Tromso and have used a variety of tour operators. When in Tromso we will never use anyone but Marianne.
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Posted On : 2024-03-19 11:45:50

Posted By : pappyv2024
Marianne and George are an amazong aurora hunting team. My wife and I went on 7 excursions (5 aurora hunting and 2 others), and don't regret a single one. 3 out of 5 aurora nights were the most amazing displays of aurora activity that most people ever get to see in their lives. One night had decent early activity with a lot of waiting for almost nothing to show the rest of the night, but still was able to get a lot of amazing Milky Way Galaxy photos taken with Marianne's instruction. The last trip was the fated trip with the van breakdown that the below group of reviewers spammed negative reviews about in order to drop Marianne's rating (shame on you). But that's how aurora hunting goes. You never know what is going to happen and every one of them is an adventure.

AURORA HUNTING IS HIT OR MISS! You are never guaranteed to see an aurora. What Marianne has though is over 40 years of experience in knowing the 200 miles surrounding Tromso as well as an extremely scientific suite of tools that tracks every aspect of aurora potential in real-time with weather, kP index, magnetic field resonance/strength, location and many more. She is also connected with a huge network of other operators who all help each other find the best places where activity is happening. One group of people we were on a trip with said that they were on their 8th trip to Tromso for aurora hunting and had only seen the aurora 3 times (each time was with Marianne).

Marianne is a very kind and compassionate person who is willing to go out of her way to make your trip to Tromso the best possible. After our first night trip she offered to take us on a daytime photography instruction tour. It was absolutely wonderful! She was also able to help connect me with a local fisherman to charter a fishing trip. Marianne goes the extra mile (or 100 miles if needed) every time! One night as she was picking the group up there was a very elderly couple who were lost walking the streets with their luggage who only spoke Dutch and German. Marianne's big ole heart couldn't let them wander alone, so she found someone who could translate and helped get them to their hotel before our trip. She really cares and is very passionate about helping everyone around her.

As is with all tours, there is often someone who is a buzzkill. On the first night a group of 4 people who were up on top of the gondola lift and luckily saw a truly amazing aurora display. On Marianne's trip the next night they were snarky and belligerent, wanting little to do with the amazing experience that Marianne guided them to since they already did it the night before on their own and were just doing Marianne a "favor" by not canceling. They just wanted to get drunk and were upset when Marianne wouldn't take them to a liquor store to get alcohol (against the rules of her trip). Luckily we had a second vehicle and Marianne was able to have her helper take them home early per their request. Look for those negative reviews soon...

As for the breakdown night. Yes it was a harder than normal night, but please read between the lines of the negative reviews. One person complained about not getting taken all the way to Finland and we instead went south. Well guess what... the entire way to Finland, in the opposite direction of where we went, was completely cloud locked. NONE of the other tour operators were succesful going in that direction and to suggest later in their reviews that they were successful that night is straight up dishonest. We went in the ONLY direction that there was a chance for the clouds to break. Guess what... THEY DID! After the van broke down we were standing in a turnout on the roadside and the clouds opened and guess what... the aurora came out! Would you believe that these obnoxious reviewers WOULDN'T EVEN LOOK UP! We were telling them... LOOK RIGHT THERE! THERE IS THE AURORA!!! and they wouldn't even look at it or even attempt to take a picture. Instead they pouted and huffed and went off on their own.

Then they have the nerve to complain about tour size when the problem was their own inability to understand plain English. Nowhere does it say that the tour maximum is 7 people. It only says that there is a maximum of 7 PER GROUP. Marianne has two different vans that each hold 7 people. One van for this night needed to stay behind, so Marianne hired two private cars to drive the second group around. Yes the vans are tight quarters for people who are over 6ft tall, but imagine how rigid and ornery of a person you have to be to complain about being "stuck" in a private car instead of packed up into a bus with 6 other people in tight quarters because that is what you were expecting. Having 2 vans to shuttle up to 14 people is a blessing just in case something bad happens or you have a group of rigid negative Nancies that want to peel off early while others want to stay late. Two vans for 14 people is FAR better than one fourteen passenger van.

Lastly, the reviewers use of false impressions to manipulate readers (such as "we sat for many hours with our knees up around our ears") is just straight up deceitful. There were many stops, multiple restroom breaks, delicious soup and cheese sandwiches, home made hot chocolate and Norweigan cookies... the list goes on. Imagine the reviewer who was upset that "his spot" in the car was lost because Marianne asked him to stay back so someone else could go and he doesn't have the decency to explain that he was asked to stay back because two of the people that were in the van had to be at the airport for a flight out in the wee hours of the morning! He is actually mad that these people didn't miss their flight home and he had to stay behind for an extra hour to wait for another car and NOT watch the aurora that formed over his head. Just silly. Childishly self-centeredly silly.

One thing in common with all of the negative reviews is that they exude an obnoxious entitlement and a narcissistic need to be catered to as the center of attention. Then to have your whole group spam individual 1-star reviews just to hurt the tour operator who scrambled her heart out the entire time to try and save such a doomed tour is just such a horrible and mean-hearted thing to do.

Marianne is a true professional at what she does. She made our whole trip to Norway 10x better; far better than I originally expected. We will definitely be booking with her for our next trip!
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Posted On : 2024-03-16 15:47:24

Posted By : BlakeARyan
We travelled to Tromsø to see the Northern lights. Marianne helped us achieve this goal !

She has expert knowledge on all photography equipment and plenty of tripods to go around. She was very patient with us and helped adjust our settings on our camera, as well as our phones.
We were also provided with snowsuits, high visibility vests (for safety purposes). Boots and gloves were also on hand if needed.

Marianne had prepared a warm soup, cheese sandwiches and also treated us to delicious hot chocolates and cookies. Prior to that we also made a bathroom stop to grab any snacks we would want, and for her to fill up the tank. It was a lot of driving, but we were quite happy to rest our eyes in between stops.

She stayed out longer than most of the other tour companies, to ensure we got the best opportunities to see the Northern Lights in all their glory, we ended up seeing them all the way into Finland, around 1 am! ang got back to our hotel just before 4am.

It was absolutely incredible ! If we ever come back to Tromsø, we would definitely contact her again!
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Posted On : 2024-03-16 15:34:33

Posted By : Vacation45460611529
Of the three Aurora lights tours we took Marianna's was the absolute best! She knows the best spots to view the lights, supplies tripods for cameras, and shows the proper settings to use on the camera if you do not know it. The van tour included one other couple and it made for a very personalized experience. Marianne had hot soup (very delicious), sandwiches, and cookies for us. We stopped at a small camp area where we met some lovely men from Scotland around a fire. Marianna kept watch for more lights there. Since none appeared she took use to another area with more great viewing. Along the way she stopped for us to see reindeer wandering around and I got some good pictures. Afterward we were dropped off at our hotel. I feel she went the extra mile to make our aurora lights tour memorable and I would highly recommend going with her tours if you come to Tromso, Norway.
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Posted On : 2024-03-16 10:39:20

Posted By : S1725VObenm
Unfortunately I have few positive words to say about this tour.
From the start to the end, the tour was surrounded by complete confusion. Firstly, it was overbooked with 11 people on the “maximum 7 people” tour, which required half of the guests to travel in “private cars”. I drew one of the apparent short straws and was asked to travel in said private car. My driver (who I actually owe my life too given the time on the road, distance traveled, and the conditions of the roads) was just that: a driver. Apart from small talk, there was nothing else to fill the blanks of the 9 hours of driving. Not a guide who could pass the time with stories, history or insight.

During the trip, George (who was leading) would occasionally stop and look at the sky or at an application on his tablet. Most of the time he would then continue on. Sometimes there would be a consultation / argument between George/Marianne about which way to go. After perhaps the 4th time, we all got out of the cars. George explained that the conditions were not optimal, but there was a chance. I even set up my tripod, and George offered tripods to that that didn’t have them. I was excited, was this it? Would I see the northern lights?
Sadly it was not to be, back into the car and onwards into the unknown.

We would continue this trend of stop/go until about 5 hours into the tour, when the main van broke down. It was not possible to start the engine. Now my short straw appeared to be better placed, as the other two “private cars” could continue back to Tromso - however Marianne had the nerve to request me to “wait about another hour” for a friend with yet another private car to pick me up, and my original spot to be given to someone else? I stood my ground. It was at this point 1am and we were still hours away from Tromso. This final interaction with Marianne summed up the tour for me: disorganisation.

I had booked this tour based on previous reviews and the understanding that the guides were professional photographers, I was hoping that I could profit from their experience to take my own photos of the northern lights. My impression from my experience is that they are pushing the limits on old vehicles, and whilst they do have decades of knowledge, they are not forthcoming and lack organisational skills.

George was clearly passionate about the phenomena and was informative, humourous and compassionate. Marianne however was cold and detached.

I cannot recommend this tour. I urge you to seek other alternatives.
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Posted On : 2024-03-15 10:20:57

Posted By : Globetrekker5000
We love supporting small businesses, and the advertised tour of a maximum of 7 people was appealing. We had looked forward to some guidance about photographing the aurora, after looking at her website. Our group was much larger than 7, but it didn’t matter much anyway, as Marianne was almost entirely mute during the many hours in the van. No introduction, no indication of the game plan, if there would be bathroom stops, nothing. It was as if she did not speak the same language as the passengers, though her English is good. Finally, after 6 and a half hours, the van broke down. At that point, she told us nothing until asked later by another passenger how we were going to get back 2 hours to Tromso, and she said a sentence or two. I expected more from someone who is advertised as a guide.
We understand that vans can break down. But when the van stopped and a light came on the dashboard, she said something like, “It’s that light that keeps coming on, only the van won’t restart this time.” It was very disappointing that she did not respect her passengers enough to have this checked out before taking us into the middle of nowhere. The van was too small; we sat for many hours with our knees up around our ears.
The food was not good, but I did not sign up for the food.
We did not see the aurora - disappointing, but we understood that there were no guarantees. Other groups did have success that night, which stung a little.
We felt that we received nothing from this tour - no information, no photography tips, and no common courtesy.
We have thoroughly enjoyed every other experience in Tromso.
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Posted On : 2024-03-15 10:17:07