Is a Tromso fjord cruise worth it? The honest answer

It is the accessible Arctic. Ice-free water at 69 degrees north means you can be on an Arctic fjord four hours after breakfast without an expedition, a permit or a specialist ship.

The landscape is at its best from the water. Roads here run behind mountains and through tunnels. The fjord is the front row, and in winter, with snow to the waterline and black water, it is one of the great European views.

Nobody is cold unless they choose to be. Heated cabins, thermal suits and hot drinks on every sailing. The Arctic in this town is a comfortable place to be a tourist, which is not true of most of it.

The wildlife is genuine. Sea eagles are resident and frequently close. That is not a promise, and it is a far better base rate than most wildlife trips can honestly claim.

And the extras are real. A landing under drying racks, a fishing line, a hot tub, a floating suit or a kayak — these are not upsells bolted onto the same cruise, they are genuinely different days on the same water.

When you have booked six hours in December. Most of that sailing happens in the dark. The long trips are summer bookings; in deep winter take four hours around midday instead.

When what you actually want is the aurora. A fjord cruise can show it and never promises it. If the lights are the reason you came to Tromsø, book a dedicated aurora trip and treat any lights from the boat as a bonus.

When you have not brought a hat and gloves. This sounds trivial and it is the commonest cause of a disappointing sailing. The suit does the wind; your extremities are your own problem, and forty minutes in you will be inside.

When you wanted whales. Orca and humpbacks follow the herring along this coast in winter, and seeing them is the job of a dedicated whale safari, not a fjord cruise. No sailing on this page is sold as one.

We do not write reviews and we do not average other people’s into a score of our own. But the counts are public, and the shape of them is worth reading before you book.

The evidence is concentrated. Two sailings — the fishing cruise and the four-hour cruise with the landing — hold more than half the ratings on this page between them. Both sit at 4.5 to 4.7, which is a solid, unspectacular, believable score for a boat trip in a cold place.

The highest scores are on the smallest trips. Floating, kayaking and the historic vessel are all at 4.9, and all of them carry people in small groups with a guide who talks to everyone. That is not a coincidence; it is what small-group ratings look like everywhere.

The complaints are consistent. Where sailings are marked down, it is almost always cold hands, a shorter trip than expected in bad weather, or wildlife that did not appear. All three are predictable, and two of them are solved by a hat and gloves.