Northern Lights and Chena Hot Springs Tour from Fairbanks in Fairbanks booking from $195.00

Northern Lights and Chena Hot Springs Tour from Fairbanks

Overview

Discover the ethereal beauty of Alaska’s famous celestial display, impressive ice sculptures and the state’s ancient healing waters on an evening trip from Fairbanks. Throughout the night, admire the artwork inside Aurora Ice Museum and a dip into Chena Hot Spring Resort’s outdoor mineral water baths before chasing the lights. Your guide will lead your small group out to ideal northern lights viewing locations, where you’ll wait with warm beverages for a chance at glimpsing the multicolored display in the sky. Round-trip transport from Fairbanks or North Pole hotels is included.

City: Fairbanks

Sun 29 Sep

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Starting at $195.00

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Sun 29 Sep

Starting at $195.00

Make a reservation

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What's Included

Hotel pickup and drop-off

Local Guide

Access to Chena Hot Springs Resort's hot springs, hot tubs and swimming area

Additional Info

Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Operates in cold weather conditions; please dress appropriately
Please don't forget to bring bathing suits, bath towels, at least 2 quarter for each locker and a photo id for the cocktail in the ice museum. (has to be purchased separately)
The outside rock pool is only allowed for Adults 18 years and up. However, children are allowed in the inside pool.
Pregnant travelers are not allowed in the outside rock pool.
We have enough room for a foldable wheelchair. The hot springs are wheelchair accessible.
We can only pick up from inside the city limits of Fairbanks or North Pole. For other locations, you will need to go to an agreed location (eg Walmart), please contact our office to discuss if you are staying outside the city limits.
Face masks provided for travellers
Hand sanitiser available to travellers and staff
Regularly sanitised high-traffic areas
Gear/equipment sanitised between use
Transportation vehicles regularly sanitised
To be in compliance with the CDC and the State of Alaska: Guests are not required to wear face masks, but may if they wish. We also urge you to review the updated Health Advisory Number 2 at https://covid19.alaska.gov/health-advisories/ .

What To Expect

Chena Hot Springs Resort

After wandering through the cool museum, don your bathing suit and enjoy the resort’s legendary namesake. The revitalizing mineral water soothes muscles with its warm temperatures of 106 degrees F (41 degrees C) year-round. You can also soak under the stars in an outdoor hot tub, or indoors in the heated pool. In between, slip away to the Aurora Café or the historic Resort Restaurant, where you can purchase meals, snacks, or beverages. When ready, join your expert guide for a small-group outing to view the Aurora Borealis. Your guide will lead you through one of the best places on earth to witness the green and purple illuminations loop across the night sky. Wait and witness the celestial wonder with hot beverages in the late evening, when viewing opportunities are the highest. The lights are also visible inside the cafe's Aurora Room, which serves as a comfortable and warm location for viewings. Note: We can never guarantee the Northern lights sighting.

Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Traveler Photos

Reviews (460)

LNBS

Nov 2021

What an amazing tour i reccomend it for anyone who visits Fairbanks in the winter, our guide Jacob was incredible from start to end took us to places until he successfully found the Lights. Thanks was an incredible experience.

NorCal-traveler08

Nov 2021

We were really excited about this tour when we booked it but it DIDN’T meet ANY of our expectations. We wanted to do a tour that included transportation since one of the main things we wanted to see were the Northern Lights and trying to drive back at 3am not knowing the area we decided to not drive ourselves and book this tour. The tour included pick-up in Fairbanks, transportation, entrance to the Ice Museum, entrance to the Chena Hot Springs and Northern Lights all for the price of $175 per person. Transportation-We were called the morning of the tour for our hotel pick-up time which was 4:30pm. We were the second of 5 stops. The van held 14 passengers and was full. Our driver, Jake, was fine as a driver but we were really hoping for more of a tour with some information as we drove about the area and the Hot Springs. Most tours we have been on you don’t sit in silence for an hour and a half. We feel this was a missed opportunity for this tour. The drive for us (earliest pick up) took about 90 minutes. Once we arrived at Chena Hot Springs we walked to a building where we assembled for the Ice Museum Tour. We sat around for the 7pm tour(about an hour) and then followed our guide over to the museum. Ice Museum-Our tour guide explained that the couple who make the ice sculptures are world famous so we were really excited to go inside. The museum was smaller inside than it looked from the outside. There were a few large sculptures and quite a few smaller ones. There is the main room and then 4 smaller rooms off of the main(one room was closed). The centerpiece of the museum is the ice bar and you can buy a Appletini for $15(the tour guide is the bartender and he really pushes the drinks) they are served in an ice glass. Once the tour guide does his speech he turns you loose to guide yourself through the museum. You can take your time looking but it only took us about 15 minutes. The pictures make it seem cooler than it really was(see photos). Dinner(on your own)-After the ice tour you basically have 2 hours to eat dinner. The restaurant is small and had very poor reviews so we brought dinner with us. We went back to the building we started in where there were tables and had our dinner. Hot Springs-At 10pm, Jake our driver, met us so we could go back to the van to get our stuff for the Hot Springs. We were told in the email confirmation to bring a towel but they provided one for us at no charge. You need a bathing suit, flip flops, .50 for a locker. The floor in the locker room is wet so some type of sandals are needed. There are showers to rinse off after you get out. There is a walkway leading out to the hot springs. You will pass by the indoor pool and indoor jacuzzis on you way. There are hooks to put your towels on before entering. There is a ramp you can walk out on to enter the hot springs. The springs are quite large and have two different areas. There is a sandy bottom and no where to sit once you are out. Many people were sitting on the ramp. It is very dark and hard to see with the steam. They weren’t to crowded the night we were there. We sat in the outdoor jacuzzi after we left the springs. We couldn’t stay too long in the springs without getting a little light headed. The springs were great but I think they would have been better in day light so you could see where you were. The cost is $15 for someone driving up and wanting to go in. We talked to several people who live in the area and come out on their own. Then we waited until midnight for the lights portion of the tour. Northern Lights-The website said we would be driven up the mountain to a yurt to wait/watch for the lights with hot drinks and snacks. That is not what we got. We were loaded back onto the van and started driving back to Fairbanks and our driver stopped along the road and let us get out of the van a few times. It took 3 hours to get back. The van was cold and uncomfortable and we were miserable the entire drive back. How we would do it differently- We would drive out during the day to the Hot Springs on our own(for $15). Do the Ice Museum if you are interested and skip the Northern Lights portion and go to the Aurora Borealis Lodge for $30/65 which is way better(you can self drive for $30 and they will pick up for $65). You will have a better time for much less money. We felt the tour wasn’t worth $175, there was a lot of sitting around and waiting for the next part to happen.

Response from Host

Nov 2021

Hello there, we are very sorry that you did not enjoy your tour with us. However, we would like to set a few things straight and explain ourselves. First, our tour guide is not doing the cocktails in the ice museum. This is the guide from the Chena Hot Springs Resort directly and we do not have anything to do with the ice museum, other than that we purchase the tickets for our guests. Second, the restaurant and the pool are a part of the resort as well and we are the only company in town who is allowed to make reservations for our guests and we are always trying our best to cut down the waiting time as much as we can. However, due to employee issues, like so many businesses have lately, it can sometimes take longer. Same thing with the towels, we tell our customers to bring everything, because sometimes it does not work out and we won't be getting the free towels. So we think it is better to be safe than having no towel at all in the end. Third, unfortunately, there is not much of daylight during the Alaskan winter and we agree, that you would be able to see more in daylight. We are unfortunately not sure where you paid 15 Dollar, since our complete tour is more than this price, including transportation. A rental car or a taxi is a whole lot more than this. But of course, if someone would prefer to drive on their own, we do not mind at all. Fourth, the drive up to the yurt is not a part of our tour and also not stated in the description. We think that you got something mixed up, because this tour can be purchased separately at the Hot Springs Resort. The guide was also only trying to do everyone a favor with the long drive back to town to give everyone extra chances to catch the Northern Lights, but we do apologize for the cold van, which is something what broke that night and we are getting it fixed now in this moment. We always appreciate if our guests speak up during the tour, where we still can try to make it more comfortable and fix things as much as we . Our guides are all wonderful people and do not like anyone being uncomfortable. We hope you enjoyed your overall visit to Fairbanks and Happy Thanksgiving.

jasd123

Nov 2021

Chena Hot Springs tour was good. The guide drove well but the van windows were all frosted and icy. We could not see outside. The van was not in good shape. The front windshield was broken. I could hear the bad wheel shocks making noise. The guide and most of the passengers were not wearing face mask which was also a concern. The website requires face mask but even their driver was not wearing it. It was not worth the money.

Response from Host

Nov 2021

Hello there, we are sorry that you had a bad experience on your tour. However, this was definitely not a tour with us. We do not have a mask requirement note on our webpage nor on any of our partner pages, because we do not have a current health mandate in our state. This is also the reason why we cannot make our guests to wear masks. Even without the health mandates, we make sure to always consider all of our guest's wishes and require our vans to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected after every single use and we carry extra masks and hand sanitizers for everyone to use if needed. However, our guide's first question is always if our guests would like them to wear a mask, and if this is the case, they will do so, without any hesitation. We hope that you still enjoyed your visit to Fairbanks.

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Northern Lights and Chena Hot Springs Tour from Fairbanks

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