Review of "Northern Cyclone Trek Tour (Tour 7)" by Extreme Tornado Tours

• Review by: Matt H
• Tour Operator: Extreme Tornado Tours
• Tour: Northern Cyclone Trek Tour (Tour 7)
• Year: 2022
• Validated: This review has been validated.

General review

This was an awesome tour with an awesome tour group and awesome guides. The week's outlook wasn't looking that great, but they still managed to find us some great storms to chase, and even a tornado as luck would have it. On the days where there was nothing to chase, they did great with finding us cool things to do and places to visit, ranging from national attractions like Mt Rushmore and Badlands National Park to more local places like Carhenge and Chimney Rock. Hotels were overall pretty good, taking into account the lack of availability around and prices these days (thanks to Trey for being the self-described hotel snob and helping keep us in nice places). The arguably worst place we were in was a Motel 6 because nothing else was available, but it was actually a pretty nice Motel 6. Just would recommend to avoid hotels right across the street from train tracks next time (like that one in Thedford). Restaurant choice was overall great too - some very very nice restaurant choices and a minimum of fast-food stops except when we needed to be quick. Even if we sometimes didn't get in til late, usually the tour days started fairly late at 10 or 11am (even noon, once), so there was no need to stress out about getting up early. Overall, it was a great tour and I got to meet some great people, take a lot of great pictures, and make a lot of great memories. Definitely thinking to come back, maybe in 2024 (2023 tours are already fully booked, that's how in-demand these guys are). Even if we had gotten no storms at all, I think it would have been a pretty fun week-long getaway through the northern plains.

Vehicle review:

The vehicles were great, except for that one super-random mechanical failure. There was more than enough room to spread out and keep some luggage, and the windows were nice and big, and, most importantly, kept clean. I would warn that the view from the middle row, especially on the passenger side (because of the door), seems a bit worse than the other seats but it's still not bad. The seatbelts got in the way on occasion too. The only minor thing from my end: I'm a big guy and had trouble getting the seatbelts to latch in some of the seats, and I wasn't the only one in my van. I sort of wish I had thought to bring an extender of some sort.

Tour guide review:

Alec, Kevin, Trey, and Max were great guides They were very good at knowing when they could joke around and when to be professional and serious. On the 2nd day of the tour (thankfully, not a chase day) one of the vans (the newer one, ironically) had a bit of engine trouble crop up and they were able to pretty much seamlessly adjust the tour plans to accommodate. After a long day of driving around they were also still willing to hang out with the tour guests and have fun. At the end of the tour, we got back at a reasonable time and they took us all out to one nice, final dinner. Then a lot of us hung out until pretty late as one last hurrah.

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