LAPLAND - any ideas/suggestions??

grumpybum

Hello fellow mse-ers!
Just a quick one to see if any of you know of somewhere that we can get a really good deal to take our son to Lapland, either in 2011 or 2012? Not bothered how long for, or when in December this would be - quite flexible...we also wouldn't qualify for the family of 4 as there would only be 3 of us (2 adults, one child 3-4)
Any ideas/suggestions would be VERY gratefully received, both by me and a little boy who deserves it! :Axx

katiecoodle

Afraid I can't help but just wanted to say there's a travel thread too - you might get some more useful & experienced replies on there.

debtdalek

Hi there,
First of all personally I would not go on a day trip. They're very expensive and a long flight for such a short time.
Take a look at the ski brochures (you don't have to ski!) and think about going for a week. If you avoid the peak dates, it's cheaper than a day trip|!!
Bear in mind too that the activities add up and will need a big budget.
Also bear in mind that it can be VERY COLD. My husband and I went to Levi a few years ago for New Year with Crystal and it was exceptionally cold and we are used to skiing in Norh America and have all the thermals etc. However, it was a nice short transfer from the airport.
The daylight hours are very short at that time of year too.
If you don't ski, there's still lots of cheaper ways of having fun, from building snowmen and sledging to snowshoe walks. In fact, the latter was probably the nicest thing we did.
If I was taking my grandchildren I'd probably opt for later in the season when it should be a bit warmer but then you'd need to check as they may only do the santa visits pre Christmas/New Year.
Wherever you choose I hope you have a fabulous time and unlike us, are lucky enough to see the northern lights.

Tracey2609

We went to Lapland about 6 years ago - I can honestly say it was one of the best holidays that we'd ever had. Like Debtdalek says the day trip is really expensive I also think that it would cram too much into one day so you couldn't slow down and enjoy each bit. I think that we spent about £2-3,000 for the three of us for 4 nights/5 days. But we had all the excursions included, as were all the food and drink, it was magical, but for the same price we could've gone to Florida for 2 weeks! We booked through a travel agent (I think that it was Thomson) I would suggest going to several travel agents and getting them to price it up for you. I know that you could book the hotel and flights separately, but I'm not sure if that would include the excursions... we went on a snowmobile safari, a sleigh ride, and a trip to Santa's village and met Santa all inclusive. Also if you book for next year (or even the year after) you would have longer to save up for it !

Rikki

I went some years ago with my boys and other family. We went with Canterbury Travel. It was expensive but worth it. Father Christmas trips Click Here

rosatoso_2

Hiya, I've just done quite a lot of research on this over the last two weeks and booked our trip yesterday.

I agree with the post above that from looking at all of the information you'd be better off going for a longer period than a day trip. Bear in mind that some tour operators include different activities within their package. Inghams for example seem to include more Santa/husky/reindeer activities than First Choice.

The best I have found is santatrips.com who are part of Hays Travel - they sell Inghams, Esprit & First Choice trips and undercut the operators web rates. They have some good deals on at the moment for Lapland.

http://www.santatrips.com/short-stays/staybreaks.asp


These two are pretty comprehensive in terms of acitivities - the first one is Inghams (from £1374 family of 3, for 3 nights/4 days - Half Board) & the second is Esprit (from £1100 for family of 3, for 2 nights/3 days - Half Board):

http://www.santatrips.com/short-stays/inghams/christmasfairytale.htm

http://www.santatrips.com/short-stays/esprit/santasmagic/santasmagic.htm

Have just given these as examples from Gatwick,as I'm not sure which airport you would fly from.


Hope this helps and you manage to book something magical for your little boy

debtdalek

Me again, apologies I just realised that we stayed in Yllas not Levi!!
I agree completely, it's great to spread the trips out - we did something different every day.
Snowmobile trip to the Ice hotel, Reindeer sleigh rides and Husky sledding, snowshoe walk. Also did a bit of skiing and found a wonderful cake shop and kept popping in there to warm up with a hot chocolate and homemade cake a couple of times each day!!
I would def' go there again, it was brilliant.

carolwat

Definitely agree with the dont do the day trip comment. We did 3 nights/4 days and that was crammed. If you look on travelzoo they have a great offer on right now of £499 inc all meals and excursions. Its a fab deal and similar to one we did. Its with Transun or something like that. We went with Inghams or Iglu, cant remember which but they are all very similar agendas anyway.

Yes its cold but its not the wet cold like here and with the thermals its only the bits exposed that feel the cole so good gloves and balaclavas/hats and youll be fine.

debtdalek

Me again!!
Although we have our own ski gear, when we went on any of the excursions, we were provided with extra cold weather all in one suits to wear on top of our own stuff. I'm sure most of the companies provide suits.
If you saw 71 Degrees North last week, they were wearing the exact same suits on the rope ladder over the cliff section!!

Rikki

debtdalek wrote: »

Me again!!
Although we have our own ski gear, when we went on any of the excursions, we were provided with extra cold weather all in one suits to wear on top of our own stuff. I'm sure most of the companies provide suits.
If you saw 71 Degrees North last week, they were wearing the exact same suits on the rope ladder over the cliff section!!

Not one of the activities on offer. :rotfl:

grumpybum

Thank you all so much....really helpful - I will start looking through some of these recommendations

Thanks again guys....xx