Although we didn't see the northern lights, Jeff was and awesome guide/driver. He tried from every vantage point to see the lights, but they just weren't cooperating. The only down side to the tour was the windows in the van kept icing over. There surely has to be some kind of de-icer or something to prevent this or to deal with this during the drive. Sitting in the back of a van for 12 hours and not being able to see out, is not fun.
Our tour guide, David, was impressively knowledgeable about the wildlife, geography, and history of the land and overall was a really nice guy. We stopped at a really cool Yukon roadside station to get food and interact with some of the locals who were interesting and gave me a ride on their snowmobile! before continuing up to the Circle. We stopped to take pictures of the sunset and got an official Arctic Circle certificate afterward, and yes, we saw the Aurora! It wasn't as bright as we were hoping because the moon was nearly full, so I highly recommend doing this trip when it's a new moon or close to it. Check before you book, and check the weather too as clouds will obstruct the view. The silver lining was that we saw not only the green lights but the rarer pink and red ones too. So maybe it was a red lining? Also! Keep in mind, humans can only detect so much with the naked eye and the Aurora will look similar to how we see the Milky Way: Yellow-gray, somewhat pale. The photographs of bursting skies are only visible with long camera exposures the same way all those extra stars in astrophotography are only visible with cameras. This doesn't dampen the experience at all especially because you CAN see colors with the eye alone, but it's a good heads up for those expecting a saturated tie-dye sky.
I'd totally do this again. There's no such thing as seeing the Northern Lights too many times, especially over such a breathtaking landscape.
I am sorry that it took me so long to write this review, but after looking at other excursions for future trips, I realize that customer reviews influence my choice of tour. This tour was certainly not worth the amount of money that we spent. There was nothing to be done about the overcast skies and rain that was not our tour guide's fault. But the long ride was filled with conersation between our dirver and another passenger in the front seat about politics, religion, and other topics not related to Alaska at all. He made few commentaries about the local scenery, the Alaskan pipeline, or anything about Alaska in general. We had visitors from Japan who spoke very little English but there were also their son and his wife, who were very fluent and could have translated. We did, however, hear a lot about his sled dogs, how he was doing this job touring visitors just to be able to care for his dogs, and how other Americans are not like we Alaskans and that Alaska is not part of the US. Those of us in back had our own short conversations, but couldn't really discuss Alaska, since we didn't know that much about the state. We were offered a sack meal with squished sandwiches, a bag of nuts, cookies, and 1 bottle of water. We could purchase more when we made our stops. I slept most of the way back due to lack of conversation. After reading other reviews of this tour, I had expected so much more for the money that we paid. I believe it would have been worth it despite the weather with a different tour guide. I realize that this is very long. Please edit away.