lapland UK

chellshoc

hi just been to lapland uk on the 1st dec, must say my 5yr old loved it even though she guessed straight away the snow was not real!! my view is, it is certainly very expensive i thought for what you got, especially as you had to pay for the photos of your child with santa, you were not allowed to use your own camera in there!! £10 for 1 picture:eek: £18 for 2 and so on, the food and drink inside is also very expensive, but just to see your childs happy smiley face was worth it.

vixarooni

Im not so keen on this.

I just get this feeling, why oh why cant we produce something a bit different instead of copying lapland, which was only created in fakeness anyway!

Its just one big rip off from people trying to make alot of money, another of the souths tourist attractions which dont quite tick all of the boxes.

bestpud

chellshoc wrote: »

hi just been to lapland uk on the 1st dec, must say my 5yr old loved it even though she guessed straight away the snow was not real!! my view is, it is certainly very expensive i thought for what you got, especially as you had to pay for the photos of your child with santa, you were not allowed to use your own camera in there!! £10 for 1 picture:eek: £18 for 2 and so on, the food and drink inside is also very expensive, but just to see your childs happy smiley face was worth it.

Glad your littlie enjoyed it!

We are going on the 22nd and I'd assumed it would be expensive in there (although the photos do sound a lot!) How big are they?

Re the food: what sort of things are there and what sort of prices?

Hope you don't mind me asking!

Bestpud

bestpud

vixarooni wrote: »

Im not so keen on this.

I just get this feeling, why oh why cant we produce something a bit different instead of copying lapland, which was only created in fakeness anyway!

Its just one big rip off from people trying to make alot of money, another of the souths tourist attractions which dont quite tick all of the boxes.

I suppose it depends on what boxes you want ticking - it's all very subjective isn't it?

Can see what you're saying though. I guess christmas is like that anyway?

moogyboobles

We went last week and were so disappointed. The children enjoyed it (if a little bored, there are big gaps between activities and nothing to do) but no more than had they just gone to a normal grotto.
So knowing how much we paid for it we were really peed off!
You expect something special for that kind of money, to have little things taken care of. Their lack of attention to details (like leaving sainsburies bags in the huskies shed) and having nothing for toddlers (who pay as much as older chidlren) to do put a downer on things. You can't hear stories being told (they need mikes) and it was rather disorganised.
I wish I'd save our money and gone legoland instead!
The food was about £1.60 for tea, £3.50 a child hot dog. You also need money if you want to write a postcard.
There is little shelter if it were to rain. I do hope as time goes on they improve things. May just be teething troubles!

babyangel10

OMG! Have any of you read the reviews on Tripadvisor?

It's not sounding too promising TBH Lets just hope that the negative reviews are from the sort of people who like to moan about everything!

Ah well, all bought and paid for so no going back now.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g503905-d678468-Reviews-Lapland_UK-Goudhurst_Kent_England.html

babyangel10

HI - JUST TO NICELY PRE-WARN YOU THAT BELOW IS MY REVIEW OF LAPLAND UK - IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO, THEN DON'T READ IT!!! (Bloomin caps lock! Sorry! )



Right, well, we've been and gone and done it and IMO it was lovely(and I'm one of the worlds most picky scrutinisers!).

Fair points from posters on the netmums and tripadvisor sites (see my link in the post above) that there is much room for improvement from an adults point of view, but like many have said - this place is for the children, not the adults.

My daughter who is 6 loved it and said on the way home that 'if we look at her sleeping that night and she is smiling it's because she is having happy dreams about the day'! HOW sweet is that?!!!

I must admit that by reading the opinions on the other site I was prepared for things not to be perhaps as fabulous as first expected and may have moaned as much as others if I hadn't read them first. It definitely isn't fair that the adults have to pay the same price as the child but don't get to do any activities (I love decorating gingerbread! ) and there should be some sort of play area for the smaller ones - but then again, this is supposed to replicate Lapland as much as feasibly possible and I would imagine that there isn't much soft play going on over there either! But there could have been some tables with pens/paper/jigsaws etc I agree.

I thought the effect after walking through the (ahem...) flight area (:rolleyes: ) was magical and the look on all the children's faces would have melted the hardest of hearts. But the lack of seating in the (double ahem..) flight deck was ridiculous to say the least - 10 inflatable seats which were taken even though we got there 40 mins before the booked time, and because it had been raining that day the floor was wet so we couldn't even sit on that instead! So we had about an hour of standing in an inflatable tent! There actually wasn't any need for the inflatable chairs - good old plastic ones would have sufficed, and about 50 of them, not 10! But again, I had read about this beforehand so knew what to expect.

The description of the gingerbread activity was way off the mark - even the sticker afterwards said ' I BAKED gingerbread at Lapland UK' when you just get to decorate a standard g/b man with icing and sweets, but again, my child didn't complain so that was good enough for me.

We hardly had any waiting time between activities - the longest wait being to see the big fella himself - approx an hour but the staff did their best to entertain you in the meantime with the (very) limited resources available. We actually ran out of time TBH - never had time to write a letter to Santa at the P.O (but then again Martin has advised us all of the cheapest way on here so no worries!)

Their was sporadic Christmas music playing, ranging from Wham and Abba, to the standard Christmas stuff, but it all fitted in well, and the person in the reindeer outfit was well cute and was dancing with the children and hugging them. It was much loved by my daughter - who normally is terrified of these dressed up creatures to say the least!

We decided in the end to go by train (long story, and long journey!), but it was better for us this way. If anyone wants any info about nearest stations or taxi's please ask me, likewise for any more info on what to expect of Lapland UK itself.

There definitely needed to be more 'snow' on the ground as well as the trees - the trees and log cabins looked fab, but the ground was mainly bark chippings with a few smatterings of snow probably from a few days ago, which was a shame really, but I suppose with all the walking on the ground and the rain they perhaps couldn't do any more than that. The snow machines came on at roughly 15 minute intervals - like the snow was stopping and starting and it was great to hear the children shouting 'look it's snowing' when it did fall. My daughter knew it wasn't real - but loved it anyway.

They say on the website that your own food isn't allowed, but as we came by train we had got food for the journey home too, so they couldn't say anything really - and they didn't either. There isn't too many places to munch your own food without being seen, but it is possible. Just watch for the CCTV hidden in the trees!

I am overall a very negative and critical person, but I for one would go back - provided they took the reviews (good and bad) on board and tweaked things. From what I have read they have been doing some things differently from when it first opened, so those of you going nearer to the 25th should have an even better time and provided they get planning permission again (which is a whole new thing for you to google and read up on with regards to this years permission!) then I think next year will be a real good time had by all.

Well, most.....!

All I can say is that remember, these are children with fabulous imaginations who don't have as long to believe in Santa as we used to do so let's leave their imaginations to it and save your negativity for when they are asleep - if they know you are unhappy about the place then they'll be unhappy too.

I hope you have fun!

joey_2

Found this video of it, it looks quite good on here...
http://www.kenttv.com/programmes.php?PID=560&Title=Lapland+UK we are going tomorrow so shall let you all know how it was!

love2save

Booking to go to LaplandUK has been the worst thing I have ever done! They cancelled our 'trip' on the 2nd December due to bad weather (also subsequently on the 6th Dec apparantley too). They said they would offer another date but had none available after waiting 2 days to come back to me and still have not refunded our money!

My daughter was devastated after all the excitement and anticipation....she is 7 so the chance of her still 'believing' next year is slim. I have made several phone calls to no avail and have emailed, only receiving a one line reply saying they have many refunds to make and that they will get to me!! Soooo angry... :mad:

vikingaero

love2save wrote: »

Booking to go to LaplandUK has been the worst thing I have ever done! They cancelled our 'trip' on the 2nd December due to bad weather (also subsequently on the 6th Dec apparantley too). They said they would offer another date but had none available after waiting 2 days to come back to me and still have not refunded our money!

My daughter was devastated after all the excitement and anticipation....she is 7 so the chance of her still 'believing' next year is slim. I have made several phone calls to no avail and have emailed, only receiving a one line reply saying they have many refunds to make and that they will get to me!! Soooo angry... :mad:

Take her to Bluewater in the evening. They have a nice outdoor Christmas Market, some geese and turkeys, real reindeers, Victorian carol singers, a bandstand with a local school singing. Plus it's free! (If you don't buy anything). The visit to Santa is also free and you can opt to buy a present and/or photo. Of course it's not as good as a real Christmas Market in Belgium or Germany but they do have the same snow machine that Crapland UK has!