Mothership.sg previously wrote about Facebook user Wei Lun's experience trying to catch the Northern Lights.

He had signed up to a tour by SA Tours which worked in conjunction with Let's Go Europe (LGE Travel), to travel to Finland to see the Northern Lights. To recap, Wei Lun had the following issues with the tour which Mothership.sg wrote about:

1) Itinerary change that was supposedly not communicated to him;

2) Tour manager who supposedly went off to hunt for the Northern Lights without bringing the tour group;

3) The tour group not being briefed about whether passports were needed/not needed for a cruise to Estonia; this led to several members to give the cruise a miss as they did not have passports with them at the time.

SA Tours and LGE Travel have since contacted Mothership.sg to provide more background to their side of the story. LGE Travel also shared that Wei Lun was asking for a full refund, despite completing the entire trip.

On the various issues raised by Wei Lun, this is the account from the tour agencies:

Itinerary change was communicated twice

LGE Travel shared that the change in itinerary was included in the final itinerary given out during a tour briefing on Oct 23. There was a subsequent 'make-up' briefing on Nov 6.

It shared that tour participants who "attended will have been given a briefing and what to expect in Finland Norway."

When asked whether Wei Lun was present at the briefings, LGE Travel said that "all attended after 6th Nov."

The tour manager

On Wei Lun's claims that the tour manager "went out on his own to capture the best shot of the northern lights and left the entire group at the hotel, scrambling to look for a suitable spot to view the lights," LGE Travel shared with Mothership screen shots of a WhatsApp chat group for the tour, where the tour manager Peter Oh had informed the tour group of the possibility to catch the Northern Lights. He went to scout for a suitable spot to view the Northern Lights subsequently.

When Oh had found a suitable spot, LGE Travel showed that he had provided directions to his location to the tour group via WhatsApp but nobody from the group turned up. He then shared a photograph of the view of the Northern lights from the spot at around 5 a.m. This was actually the second time the Northern Lights were visible that night, the first being Wei Lun's prior account, at around 4 a.m, that he had spotted the Northern Lights and alerted a small group of tour participants to view it.

Passports needed to Estonia?

Wei Lun shared his account that Oh did not tell the tour group that passports were not needed for the cruise to Estonia.

SA Tours said that it is true that travelling from "Helsinki to Estonia did not require any passports at all"

Estonia and Finland are part of Schengen Area, an area comprising 26 European states that have officially abolished passport and any other type of border controls at their mutual borders.

While passports are not required during border passes in the Schengen Area, the European Union's official website, Europa, advises travellers who are non-EU nationals to carry with them a passport that is valid for "at least 3 months after the date you intend to leave the EU country you are visiting." Europa also advises travellers that "border officials in EU countries may ask for other supporting documents such as an invitation letter, proof of lodging, return or round-trip ticket."

SA Tours said that the tour manager was reminded by the officials at the border that carrying passports will be useful, and hence he provided the option not travelling to Estonia, to members of the tour group who were not comfortable with travelling without passports, and refunding them the cost of the cruise. According to Wei Lun, the tour leader "did apologise for failing to remind us of the passport and did refund us the EURO 169 per pax upon arrival in Singapore."

Top image by Roderick Eime

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