Has anyone been on a Lapland Christmas trip? Was it worth the money?

jacqhale

We went to Levi in December so not long back. 2 adults and 2 children for 4 nights with Thomson cost £3,600 and it absolutely was worth every penny! (Although when I first priced it up it was much less, under £3,000, wish I hadn't waited to book it!!)We truly had a magical holiday that the kids will remember forever. Meeting santa is only 5 minutes it's so much more than that. We went skiing and visited the snow village. The hotel was fabulous and Thomson organised an amazing trip. I would really recommend it to anyone that can go with kids of any age (maybe not too young it's quite a mission to get in and out of the snow suits!)
We had such an amazing time tobogganing, skiing and just walking around a magical snowy landscape we are now thinking of booking a skiing holiday :-)

minimad1970

We've been twice but it was a long time ago, 2002 and 2004. We used Canterbury Travel and stayed in a log cabin.

http://www.santa-holidays.com/resorts/the-resort-of-luosto/luosto-log-cabins/

It's the most beautiful place I've ever been and I'm a sun lover. The temperature dropped to -25 one day but the suits and boots they provide are brilliant. We stayed for 3 nights.

ripplyuk

Having thought about it, we'd be happy to go outside of the Christmas period if it is a lot less expensive. I haven't had much luck looking up tours though. It all seems to be based around next Christmas.

Does anyone know if they still have the reindeer sleigh rides outside of the Christmas season? Or even just visiting some reindeer. And the huskies. Both are essential for us. My partner also wants to try a snowmobile but I imagine they'll have those all winter.

Did anyone get to see the northern lights?

jacqhale

We looked every night for the lights but never saw them, that would have been the icing on the cake though!
A lady I sat with on the plane saw them the last night, went for a walk about 11.30 and said they were amazing but she stayed slightly out of town so had less artificial light around.

Not sure about the season for husky/reindeer etc but assume if there is snow they must run or they wouldn't make any money ! Try laplandsafaris.com for an idea and then maybe book wherever is cheaper or diy?

EconomicsGirl

We went as a family of 4 in 2012 (2 children between 5 and 10) and loved it.

Went on 3 day trip at Santa Sport hotel for roughly £2200 for all of us via Thomson and was magical. This included flights, coach to hotel and all excursions, excursions included meal with Santa and his reindeer and fireworks at night, use of hotel pool and spa, big kids playcentre was a bit extra but worth it, husky and reindeer sledge riding, snowmobiling, gingerbread making, meeting elves etc, snow suits.

Totally amazing and would strongly recommend but would only do once due to cost. I waited to end November and got best price.

I would wait until children are 5 and upper age of 10 works to as still believe in Santa. Some toddlers really suffering with cold and long days and apparently worse on day trip. Snow suits are good but its still minus 25 ish.

We were glad to be in a hotel not a cabin, cabins are beautiful but can be isolated. Hotel with facilities was perfect for us and cheaper. Hotel was heated to about 27C! We took a few bottles of squash and a few snacks over which is useful as food isn't great and expensive. Luggage allowance was 80kg. Didn't need to buy much food as got breakfast and 2 other meals included.

I wouldn't bother with day trip, you need 3 days at least. We also went back for 2 weeks this summer as we missed it so much and had a brilliant time seeing brown bears in the wild, white water rafting, waterparks, reindeer on road, mountain sledging, canoeing etc and amazing food this time. That was about 6k for 2 weeks for 4 including flights, all food and all excursions and all accommodation in very good hotels or in a lovely chalet with sauna by the bears.

EconomicsGirl

Reindeer and huskies are there all year but snow rides with them and snowmobiles I believe are until around April but check.

Brown bears are not in winter as they hibernate, they are roughly May until mid August and only in certain areas. We saw brown bears and plenty of reindeer in July. Only flights we could get in summer were via Helsinki and then connecting flight on, direct flights from Luton were silly money like 3k each. Flights were via Finnair.

If you want the Christmas experience with kids I would go via a package, very difficult to do it yourself first time as roads are covered in snow etc. In summer we did it independently which is fine but you need to research well as things can be far apart.

EconomicsGirl

In summer its light until almost midnight but no northern lights they are seasonal but amazing pink skies and almost always light. Almost always dark in winter.

springdreams

I'm currently researching and booking a trip for my 16 year old son and myself for 16 to 21 December 2017. I've chosen to stay in the town of Levi.

I've already booked the flights via Finnair. There is a 10 hour lay over in Helsinki, so I've also reserved sleep pods at the airport through GoSleep as we fly over night, so will appreciate having somewhere to catch a few zzzzz.

https://www.facebook.com/GoSleepHelsinkiAirport/

I've reserved a few rooms through Booking.com, but think we are most likely to keep the superior room with spa access at the Levi Spa Hotel.

http://www.booking.com/hotel/fi/spa-levitunturi.en-gb.html?aid=318615;label=English_United_Kingdom_EN_GB_29561929585-HtIqHP%2Ak0sD8cviNNLnSPAS113415567025%3Apl%3Ata%3Ap1%3Ap2%3Aac%3Aap1t1%3Aneg%3Afi%3Atiaud-146342137750%3Adsa-206308680745%3Alp9045006%3Ali%3Adec%3Adm;sid=d98ca3ef7b35c1951619643de38c4dcd;dest_id=900040664;dest_type=city;dist=0;hpos=1;room1=A%2CA;sb_price_type=total;srfid=4dd6aad92bc12af581bc5e5cdb6946c5e3da941bX1;type=total;ucfs=1&


Then after having read numerous pages on the Lapland forum on Tripadvisor, I will be booking my excursions through the Levi Tourist office : http://www.levi.fi/en/enjoy-levi.htm

I understand that the tourist office may charge a bit more for the excursions than the package holiday companies, but according to contributors on the Tripadvisor forum, the holiday companies take large coach loads of people at any one time per excursion, whereas the tourist office only has a handful of people, so the overall experience is nicer.

All this will work out at roughly half the price of booking the holiday through a holiday company.

barbarawright

ripplyuk wrote: »

Having thought about it, we'd be happy to go outside of the Christmas period if it is a lot less expensive. I haven't had much luck looking up tours though. It all seems to be based around next Christmas.

Does anyone know if they still have the reindeer sleigh rides outside of the Christmas season? Or even just visiting some reindeer. And the huskies. Both are essential for us. My partner also wants to try a snowmobile but I imagine they'll have those all winter.

Did anyone get to see the northern lights?

Rovaniemi you can go on a husky ride in March - think they were about £50 for an hour or so. And there were reindeer around - didn't investigate rides. And we snowmobiled across the Arctic circle and saw the Northern Lights but you can't guarentee them. We also went out showshoe walking with some guides who cooked us food at a open fire in the middle of nowhere. There's downhill and cross country skiing too. You don't need to book an organised tour - activities can be booked through the local tourist office and the Santa village is a £10 taxi ride from town. I would recommend two or three days there - maybe a morning at the museum (it;s brilliant) and afternoon at Santa village and then a husky ride and evening snowmobile ride the next day

I'd stay in Roveniemi rather than the Santa village though

http://visitrovaniemi.fi/

MK55

I went as a family at the age of 17 with my parents and auntie and Uncle. We went for 4 days as my auntie got married there. There was 14 of us in total including 5 kids under 7 years old.

At 17 it was an absolutely brilliant trip, the kids loved it, I loved it and I think the adults even more. We spent probably 70% of our time in the grounds outside the hotel having snowball fights, on sleighs going up and down hills.

All of the guys on the holiday did a midnight snow mobile tour, that was amazing and we got to see a little bit of the northern lights, it's one of my fondest memories even though I was older.