We booked the Northern Lights Guided Bus Tour, not the Northern Lights Chase. I make the distinction because there was no chase.
I booked the tour the day before and it was cheaper than other tours and the only one with any availability. I expected a tour like some of the others where reviewers talked about the guides knowing the best spots for active aurora and they then take you on a chase, sometimes even going over the Finnish border to accommodate the clients wishes. No such luck here, we were simply taken to a small beach around 45 minutes from Tromso and basically were told to stand outside from 7.30pm until the tour ended. We were told that the bus would be open for us to go and sit inside to warm up and I think most of us got on the bus at around 8pm and hardly got out as it was way too early to see the lights. I thought we left early to drive for at least two hours further north.
At around 10pm the guide, Lucia I think, came in and sounded surprised that we were all back on the bus. She said she'd been asked why we couldn't move location and she said that we had perfect conditions for viewing so there was little point, especially as the aurora are fickle and can appear for a few seconds and disappear. So we stayed put.
I had several problems with this. Firstly that bus was running for around 4 hours while we simply sat there so no points for fighting the war on climate change.
Secondly, the guide fancied herself as a photographer and planted her tripod and got herself into a ski suit to take pictures. We did not book a photography tour but I think this is what made her happy so we stayed, there was little "guiding" for her to do.
We were told that the hot chocolate provided would have to be drunk outside so the driver doesn't have to clean up. In addition, the high vis jackets (which we actually didn't need, seemed a superfluous perk) had to be left on our seats to make it easier for the driver to clean up. The driver basically sat on that bus for hours watching something on her phone and given the above issues, I'm thinking she just wanted an easy drive with very little to do. She was actually a bit abrupt with the people who brought their hot chocolate onto the bus before we were told not to.
Lucia ended the tour early, which was fair enough as there were no lights visible no the naked eye. She mentioned, several times, that we still had a beautiful night as we had seen the Milky Way. The Milky Way is indeed beautiful, but I can see it from my back garden, albeit later in the day, so I don't need a tour to see it.
I'm not sure we would have seen the Northern Lights that evening wherever we were, but it would have been good to be with a driver and a guide who actually tried harder to show it to us. I thought they took a very lazy approach with no thought for customer service.