We're very sorry to hear that you didn't feel you got the best experience with us artsymrdarcy,

As you can see from every other review, we strive to make sure our guests have the best experience possible and we're disappointed that despite our best efforts, you don't feel you got that experience. We take it personal if we don't deliver what is expected of us.

I'd like to address a few of your concerns. First, the "lodge" you speak of was not a lodge nor was it ever marketed or presented as such. It is a rustic Alaskan Musher's Cabin that we lease out for the weekends and while we're sorry you didn't enjoy it, most of our guests love it. The appeal versus many of the Lodge Tours in town are several fold.

First, we don't crowd 25 to 150 people in our tours. That's OK if that's your style but we keep the Cabin tour to 10 folks so we can have 1 on 1 time with every single guest. This helps us to ensure everyone is well versed in how to capture Aurora with their camera and that they can ask questions and get portraits under the Aurora should the Northern Lights present themselves. It's a prime viewing location as can be seen from the daily images in our webcam gallery. The Aurora Webcam is located at the cabin we take our guests to. It is indeed rustic, and quite by design. But it certainly wasn't the "shack" you described and we can't help but to take offense to such a description. Most folks enjoy the authentic experience of sharing an evening in a cabin lived in and owned by an Alaskan Dog Musher. The cabin is a cozy log cabin, built nearly entirely of reclaimed materials and is representative of how many musher's in Alaska truly live, work and enjoy Alaska life. You're the first guest that has expressed not having enjoyed that experience.

The second thing I'd like to address is that despite our best efforts, it looked very difficult if not impossible to catch the Aurora at the cabin that night. The snow was dumping on us and it didn't look like it was going to break. It's never a guarantee and that is also clearly spelled out on our website. Despite having made a significant investment to lease the cabin, and despite the fact that the tour there was meant to be stationary and we almost never leave the cabin, we evaluated the situation and with the agreement of all guests on the tour, offered you and all guests the opportunity to "chase" the lights. We gave it our best efforts and essentially gave you the Musher's Cabin and Aurora Chasers tour in one tour. We went out of our way (over 100 miles out of our way) to try and get you a view of the Northern Lights and unfortunately came up short. Perhaps we shouldn't have done that as this seems to be where much of your disappointment lies and we feel you may have enjoyed the cabin better had we settled in.

It's true that Marketa did think she saw a small glimpse of Aurora through the clouds (she's not certain as it was a very small glimpse) that night as we were driving. What you likely don't realize is that in the small moment she thinks she saw them, we were on a two lane highway and not in a safe place to stop and have 10 people hop out of the van. We were very close to the air force base that has massive lights, and thus light pollution, that would have interfered with our viewing and certainly with our photography had we found a safe place to stop. It was only a small opening and was likely to cloud right back over in a matter of minutes if not seconds. If we had thought it was the best opportunity for you to see the Aurora, we'd have stopped so you at least got a glimpse of them out the window (please read other reviews here). Our goal is always to give you a good view of the Aurora. However, in our best judgement, and we've been at this a long time, this was not the best shot. We did indeed continue to drive and try to get you to a safer location with nice foreground for photographing and clearer skies should we get to see the Aurora. We accomplished both but the lights had settled down in that short time and we didn't see much in the way of Aurora activity despite having a safe place and much better skies with stars and the moon visible. It's unfortunate that the Northern Lights didn't make another appearance in this safe and suitable location. We still tried to work with everyone and help them get good images of the moon and landscape and make sure they were comfortable with their camera, focus and the settings for future outings and most of the other guests were happy that we had taken the trek and given them an opportunity they sure wouldn't have gotten otherwise. We're sorry that going the extra miles, literally, didn't make your experience a better one. Perhaps we made the wrong call. It happens sometimes. It's nature and we don't control it, but we always do the best we reasonably can to get our guests a view of the Northern Lights. We came up short this night but still feel good about our efforts. You won't find that with any other tour in Fairbanks. We're only sorry it wasn't enough to help you have a good experience.

We'd love to hear what you feel we could have done better to make your experience more fulfilling? Would you have preferred to stay at the cabin as you did at the lodge the following night? Would you have preferred to have stopped in the van and looked out the window during that tiny opening in the sky overhead as it was unsafe to get out of the van on the highway? We don't like to disappoint and of course take it a bit personal that we weren't able to make you happy despite what we felt were our best efforts. We also would have loved to have heard your feelings or thought in person while we could have addressed them. Please feel free to contact us directly or respond here with suggestions for what you feel could have made this a more enjoyable experience for you.

Cheers,
Ronn