Northern Lights

[jmw81]

We're thinking about going on Queen Victoria to northern Norway in November next year in the hope of seeing the Northern Lights. Does anyone have any advice about a cruise like this in terms of activities during the day (I gather daylight hours are short), likelihood of seeing the lights etc? 

Edited November 26, 2022 by jmw81

[hallasm]

Very good chances for Northern lights. Next year will have very high intensity Solar Storms.
The cruise has overnight stays in Tromsø and Narvik. 

Out of season in Norway so very likely only ship excursions available - short days are as such not a limiting factor.

Just be prepared for cold weather- being outside watching the lights can be very cold.

[TheOldBear]

45 minutes ago, jmw81 said:

We're thinking about going on Queen Victoria to northern Norway in November next year in the hope of seeing the Northern Lights. Does anyone have any advice about a cruise like this in terms of activities during the day (I gather daylight hours are short), likelihood of seeing the lights etc? 

Just off the QM2 Northern Lights sailing.

 

The ship was docked in Tromso for two evenings - about 40 hours. Northern lights excursions were offered both nights, on a bus with a local guide. The Monday [7 November] night excursion had four buses, but our bus went a bit further than the others to our first stop - could see the lights through the bus windows - stayed there for almost an hour until clouds rolled back in. We went to were the other three busses had stopped, for another hour of more intermittent viewing. [and some hot chocolate and cookies]

 

Back on the ship, the Kings Court buffet had more than the usual late night setup to accommodate returning tours (also on Sunday night after the Arctic Cathedral concert)

 

One problem was the timing of the cruise/tours - there was an almost full moon, so you never really got dark adapted [and the lights on the buses did not help. Apparently there were some decent sightings from the ship that evening as well. You might look at an independent 'northern lights chase' that goes further afield in search of better weather conditions - but the ship will not wait for you.

 

 There were several daytime tour options in Tromso - I did the 'Polaria and Huskies' that visited the aquarium and then to the 'Wilderness Center' to meet puppies [muddy paws and all] and some mature dogs (including a 30 dog husky chorus).

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, jmw81 said:

We're thinking about going on Queen Victoria to northern Norway in November next year in the hope of seeing the Northern Lights. Does anyone have any advice about a cruise like this in terms of activities during the day (I gather daylight hours are short), likelihood of seeing the lights etc? 

You might also want to ask this is the following forum:

 

Northern Europe & Baltic Sea - Cruise Critic Community

[GeezerCouple]

1 hour ago, jmw81 said:

We're thinking about going on Queen Victoria to northern Norway in November next year in the hope of seeing the Northern Lights. Does anyone have any advice about a cruise like this in terms of activities during the day (I gather daylight hours are short), likelihood of seeing the lights etc? 

  

I haven't looked at a calendar showing the phases of the moon, but as already mentioned briefly, the moon can really make a difference.
IF you have a choice of sailing dates, you might want to consider a sailing when the night sky is mostly dark when the ship is in the best locations (probably farthest north).

 

We took a Hurtigruten coastal cruise a few years ago, and *carefully* chose a cruise where there was less moonlight.  It was also an astronomy cruise for some, so the astronomer would have selected that date for the same reason.

Alas, LOTS of clouds!

On the return trip, southbound, we finally saw just a bit of the Lights.

 

If you've done much reading already, you probably came across information about how people's eyes do *not* capture the colors the way cameras do, unfortunately.  So be prepared in case you see more of gray-ish "lights".  But take photos, because those will probably have much more color!

 

Enjoy!  All of the landscapes there were just beautiful.

 

GC

[sleepingcat]

My brother and sis in law returned to UK today from a hurtigruten Norway trip.  They had a wonderful Northern lights experience and have got their souvenir certificates of the sighting.  re daytime activities, they preferred the hurtigruten ship because it has a port call every day so they were off the ship and out walking. It did get dark at 2.30 pm each day, they said.   Yes, it was very cold, they sent us a wonderful photo of the pair of them well north of the arctic circle and looking very cold. But they loved it. 

[babs135]

We were on the Queen Victoria's cruise in October and were extremely lucky to see the Lights clearly on 2 nights and very hazy a further night.  We were advised by the Captain to leave the tv on the bridge cam channel which has no sound and if he thought that there was a good chance of seeing the Lights he would broadcast into all the cabins.  So at 2.30am the call came!!  I honestly thought that not many would turn out, but when we opened the door the corridor was heaving with people rushing on deck 😁.

I'm posting a couple of photos which were taken from the deck of the ship. And I simply used my Samsung phone. 

[babs135]

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Edited November 30, 2022 by babs135