great last min deals to lapland

Doozergirl

Come back Fifi!! Tell us the best places to go and things to do!

Forget having a nice time with your family, talk to us! :rotfl:

fluffybunny_2

we just got back!

We were in Levi Log Cabins from the 2nd to the 9th of December. They were amazing. They had everything we needed.

cooker, microwave, dishwasher, iron, kettle, coffee maker, ironing board, washing machine, drier, sauna, two televisions, one upstairs and one down. absolutely brilliant!

It is an absolutely magical place!

when we arrived it was all white. Everywhere you looked there was snow. Even the trees were white.

Fluffyfifi was right, the temperature did "warm up" to about 0 and the snow did come off the trees but not for long! they were white again today when we left as there was heavy snow yesterday!

We went on :-

Husky super safari
Reindeer super safari
Santa Safari (aurora safaris)
Snowmobile safari (Inghams)

also hired ski-s and snowboards (total beginners!)

The husky and reindeer safaris were brilliant! over a frozen lake and then through woods. both were very similar as we were being pulled in sledges but the reindeers were much more relaxed then the huskies! we would highly recommend both. (we spoke to a family who did the husky mini safari and they said it was so short it wasnt worth doing. ours was 10k)

Our first snowmobile safari was with aurora safaris. it was excellent. they only allow about 7 families per safari so its not lots of kids all jostling for santas attention!
we snowmobiled through woodland and reached Santa who was in his hut. he came out and met everyone and then introduced us to Rudolph. afterwards, we all went into the hut where Santa sat by the fire and spoke to the children. Some of the children had their letters with them (i hadnt thought of that!) . the only thing was that Santa didnt give the children a present. the children didnt notice but i thought he would have given them something small. we put small prezzies under their pillows so that when we got back they had a lovely surprise.
After meeting Santa we went and had hot drinks and pastries.
Absolutely brilliant!

We were so glad we did this Santa Safari and not the Santapark. The Inghams reps have nothing but good things to say about Santapark but, if you read the comments on here and Tripadviser they are all bad! Last Friday, the 7th of December, 300 people went from Levi to Santapark! Thats not including all the other visitors in other parts of lapland also visiting there. There were so many disappointed people I really felt for them. Its a 2.5 hour drive there (and back) so 5 hours just travelling.... then, i spoke to a few who went and they queued 2 hours to see Santa! They had a photo taken which cost 30 euros! then, they had chicken nuggets and chips for 4 people and, with drinks, it cost 100 euros!!!!!
everyone who went last friday wished they hadnt gone. I, through advice I read on here and Tripadvisor, cancelled Santapark prior to departure. you CAN cancel it predeparture but, it says in the booklet that you get with your tickets that you can't cancel it in resort , or ask for a refund when you get home.

Our second snowmobile safari was with Inghams. It was very similar to our santa snowmobile safari but without Santa. we actually ended up in the same place having the same hot drinks and pastries so it depends on whether you want to see Santa or not. We enjoyed so much the first time that we wanted to do it again!

sorry if I go off on tangents but i'm just typing things as i think of them!

Sledges!
you can buy plastic sledges 8 euros from most places but, be warned. we heard of lots of people buying them, leaving them outside hotels, restaurants , shops etc and , when they came out, they'd gone! i heard one gentleman today in the airport saying that he'd left boots in his and, when he came back, the boots were still there but the sledges had gone! they were pinched 3 times from him alone

some hotels provide them free so i thought that perhaps people were taking them because they thought that they were free. we borrowed a permanent black marker from the rep and wrote our kids names on ours and ours didnt disappear so take a black marker with you!

we hadnt tried ski-ing or snowboarding before and didnt know if we'd like it so we didnt want to commit to lessons. I was then told that you can hire the equipment for as little as 3 hours.
The main ski-shop by the slopes provide skis/snowboards and boots (and helmets if needed) but, you have to pay up front. if you book them for a day and return them after 2 hours, you dont get a refund. Intersport, also supply the same equipment for the same minimum (3hours) but
instead of paying up front, you pay when you return them which we found very good.

There is also a section called Kidsland. its not just for kids as there were more adults there than children . there are two different long-ish slopes there that are perfect if you're learning. Its also got a lift that drags you up to the top which you either hold onto or put under your bum. the best thing is that its free!
There's also a separate section where they provide sledges, small snowboards and the kids love it!
Plus, there's a creche. i mentioned it to my other half and then my DS (6) asked to go there. she did some colouring, played with some toys and then watched some of sharktale. they charged 7.5 euros for 1.5 hours

Eating and drinking out is VERY expensive. we had self catering log cabins so we had breakfast every morning in our cabin, most lunches (come back from safari in morning, grab a bite to eat, then out again) and then ate out 4 or 5 times . a medium glass of red wine was about 6 euros!
We went to Cantina and cheeseburger and chips as 15 euros. very nice but pricey.
Koti pizza does lovely pizzas!
There's a kebab/pizza place thats nice too!

one more thing...there is a world cup G2 slope there with a Gondola (thats what they call it...its like a cable car). you can get a free bus to it from the ski-shop (closest bus stop to main ski shop). if you dont ski you can ask for a return to go up to the top and back. on a nice day the view is amazing but, if its cloudy or snowing, you wont see an awful lot but, when we got the top we were amazed by the different in the weather! the only thing we can compare it to is the antartic! it was so cold and the snow was belting down. i'm glad we went just to see that!
there is a free bus back but, beware, the bus drivers have a sort of siesta between 2pm and 4pm so you wont get a bus back between these times. there is an excellent all you can eat buffet there between 11am and 4pm though (12 euros adults, 7 euros children) which had pasta,chicken,fajitas,fish,potatoes,salads,etc

one last thing, the Inghams Christmas party... it really was excellent. there was a buffet laid on which was lovely, then Santa arrived and met each child and gave a pressie (apparently its the same one thats in santapark and looked very much like the one we saw in the woods). afterwards there was a disco for the kids and some games. all very relaxed and enjoyable

right, thats all i can think of at the moment..

FluffyFiFi

lynn44 wrote: »

Silly question to some...but do rooms have kettles in,Just packing and dont know if to take our travel kettle ?

ps...how much was the husky sleigh ? where did you book ?

Just got back last night. There wasn't a kettle in our room but there was a coffee maker. We heated water up on the hob with a saucepan.

The Crazy Reindeer has free internet access in reception, 15 minute limit but they ignore this if there is no-one waiting.

I booked the mini Husky Sleigh Ride at the Inghams welcome meeting. I would thoroughly recommend it, we had a great time. By booking it with them you get picked up from your hotel - the same for the Reindeer ride. The reindeer's are totally mad, they take you around a track which is over a frozen lake. They only allow two to a sleigh and you take it round on your own - they give you a rope which is tied to the Reindeer but it makes no difference the reindeer go round at what speed they want. Mine wanted to over take everyone else. My daughter and I laughed so much. We also did the Snowmobile ride, which I found a bit scary as I wasn't sure I could drive/steer one. It took a bit of getting used to but once I got the hang of it I loved it too. We booked all three trips through Inghams and it seemed cheaper than when we looked here. We hired ski stuff from Inter Sport and it was about half the cost of the ski centre. We didn't get ski passes as we weren't up to that standard. We did go up on the Gondola which you can buy tickets for once you arrive - 5.50 euro's for a sight-seeing trip. Although when we got to the top it was completely different from below, a lot colder, a blizzard and hardly any visability. Think we must have gone up on the same day as FluffyBunny. Amazing to see but we came down very quickly.

Sorry I can't remember the exact cost of each trip, the total cost for all three for the four of us was just over 400 euros which worked out at about £311.

The restaurant that Inghams use for their guests is a bit of a let down. Very limited choice and no coffee afterwards. You can use the 10 euro credit to go to the other restaurants. The Feast of the Reindeer which is in the Karoke Restaurant is very good but costs an extra 10 euros each. We didn't realise until two days later that we shouldn't be in there and no-one asked us for the extra money - a bit cheeky I know but we felt very lucky.

If you feel like having a special meal we went to the restaurant at K5, they have reindeers outside and the food was fantastic - although quite pricey they do have a set meal starting at 35 euro's and the children's meals were 6 euro's.

The meal with Father Christmas was quite good, the food was excellent and the children enjoyed it. I did speak to one family and they had done the Santa Park that day. They said it took over two hours to get there and then you only got about half an hour there, the rest of the time you are queuing, then another two hours to get back. They were also over an hour late in returning and missed the beginning of the Santa Dinner.

We practiced our ski-ing at the Kids World. They have ski lifts (the button variety which pull you up) and these are free. They give you a chance to see if you would enjoy it or not. We booked one ski lesson for the four of us at the Ski School. We had Amelia who was very patient and showed us the basics, like how to stop! It was for 90 minutes and cost 116 euros. We thought it was worth it as it helped us all improve and we hired our ski's for two days but by the end of the second day we really had had enough.

Inghams had pre-booked seats on the plane so there was no worry about not sitting together. They also include a meal on the plane which I have to admit was very good, no choice but we all thought it was good and edible. Earlier this year we flew with Virgin and I would say the food was better with Monach.

It does get a bit tiring having to wrap up everytime you go outside, especially when you have children who seem to forget their gloves, forget their hats and then forget to do their coats up.

Drinking was very expensive, luckily we had brought a wine box with us from Gatwick and we could have a glass of wine in the evening in our room. The room we had in the Crazy Reindeer also had a dishwasher which was handy as we tended to have breakfast there rather than get up so early and go down to the restaurant. The darkness in the morning is not nice, it doesn't start to lighten up until 10 ish and even then it is still murky and not very inviting.

curtlyb

Hi FluffyFifi, which room were you in ???

We used the microwave for drinks :rotfl:

Was it you who complained about the tea/coffee at the restaurant because by Tuesday they were giving it free !!!!!

Good advice, take a marker pen for the sledges, deterred most light-fingered brits :rotfl::rotfl:

There again there was a sledge mountain outside the crazy Reindeer yesterday, i believe the whole pond at the bottom of the Front slope is covered in sledges by christmas

FluffyFiFi

curtlyb wrote: »

Hi FluffyFifi, which room were you in ???

We used the microwave for drinks :rotfl:

Was it you who complained about the tea/coffee at the restaurant because by Tuesday they were giving it free !!!!!

Take a marker pen for the sledges, deterred most light-fingered brits :rotfl::rotfl:

Hi Curtlyb, yes we did complain - only because we were eating in the wrong restaurant and were so disappointed that the First Choice people were getting a better meal. We were in room 339 - we paid 95 euros to upgrade from the standard twin room we were allocated. Worth it as we had a huge apartment on two levels. Also had two bathrooms which is handy with the children. Were were you? Should have met up and talked about how great this site is.

We loved Lapland and now want to go back, especially as we didn't get to see the Northern Lights.

curtlyb

FluffyFiFi wrote: »

Hi Curtlyb, yes we did complain - only because we were eating in the wrong restaurant and were so disappointed that the First Choice people were getting a better meal. We were in room 339 - we paid 95 euros to upgrade from the standard twin room we were allocated. Worth it as we had a huge apartment on two levels. Also had two bathrooms which is handy with the children. Were were you? Should have met up and talked about how great this site is.

We loved Lapland and now want to go back, especially as we didn't get to see the Northern Lights.

We were in 291 which was in the far annexe behind the Wanhu Hullo Poro, got a free upgrade to a 4 person split level apartment which was fab for sticking together and a base to go from, it was in the older bit of the hotel though and had a one bathroom.... it did the job well, you got one of the 6/8 bed apartments i think.
Pity we couldn't have met for a chin-wag as a bit of info sharing in resort would have been good, learnt alot about the resort though for next time . Just copying my quick overview from the tripadvisor site.
We had most of our meals in the Vannu whateveritwascalled..... not much choice but it was quieter in there, unlike the breakfast scrum for the toaster with the first choicer's

Highlight was the Aurora Snowmobile/Santa/Reindeer trip, truly amazing....... glad we missed the Santapark trip

curtlyb

Hi all, just thought I’d post our information and views from last weeks trip to Levi and more specifically the Crazy Reindeer hotel with Inghams, hopefully it doesn't repeat too much info from both the Fluffys reviews above.



We arrived on Sunday 2nd December which later found out was the first main day of business for Inghams, and found loads of snow, Kittila airport is the smallest airport I’ve ever been to, it was 20yds from plane to terminal, 20yds through the terminal and 20yds from the terminal to the coach !!!!!!
It was -15 when we arrived and after a very short transfer of 15mins we got to the Crazy Reindeer at about 7.30pm local time. We had an apartment in the older Crazy Reindeer annex, as opposed to the newer White Reindeer, but it was perfectly adequate for our Lapland stay and was large enough to spend time as a family inside it without it being cramped, it had a fridge, microwave, small two ring cooker + oven (we never used it), a porch area with drying cabinet, a wet-room bathroom and a sauna. If I was really being picky then we could have done with a kettle and some of the d!cor was a bit tired but within 24hrs it was like home from home.
We were informed we could book our Ski-school from 8-10pm so walked down the hill 300m to the New ‘Ski Centre’ which is at the bottom of the large Front slope (half way between Lenventuri & Crazy Reindeer), the opposite corner to the small ski school building, it only opened two weeks ago and is very nice, it’s the main area for ski rental & booking and contains a caf!.
Sunday evening was really quiet to book stuff and it meant we saved a lot of time on Monday morning, pre-ski school as all we had to do was collect our gear. You can book a large array of packages not detailed on the Inghams website and the prices are the same, no higher, no lower, Inghams are using a conversion rate of 1.33euros/pound so work it out for yourself. We booked a beginners 3-day skischool + 3-day ski/pole/boot hire which includes lift pass during ski-school. Any gear booked with Inghams entitles you to free kids ski-gear for the whole week. We were given the option of absolute beginner school or Adventurous beginners school !!!!
Note: only 4 of the 14 lifts were open on Sunday 9th as we left (one being the G2 Gondola 1km away), I was told the main skiing season is late Jan to mid March. Ski-school was spent pottering around the bottom of the front slope then two days on the Kidsland slopes and half a lesson the bottom half of the intermediate front slope. Our 6yr old had ski-school and was flying in no time, Our 4yr old went into the Crèche in Kidsland and thankfully really enjoyed himself. Kidsland is fab for adult beginners skiing, kids skiing and sledging. There is also a fenced off area right in the centre of the front slope at the bottom for sledging and this sends you down onto the frozen pond !!!!!!!!!!!!
We booked a Super Snowmobile/Santa/Reindeer Safari through Aurora and it was brilliant, not commercialised, not rushed and the perfect setting, thoroughly recommended. We also booked the excellent Super Husky through Inghams @ £164 for four of us pre-holiday, it was a brilliant trip but we were glad of waterproof boots and balaclavas/goggles as it we a bit wet on the lake section and it was snowing also, Inghams don’t run this trip on a Friday because the Levi tourist board have it booked-up, they are cheaper as well at 53euro/adult & 25euro/child so if you look in resort you can get the exact trip quite a bit cheaper although the pick-up point is central rather than you hotel lobby !!!
Luckily the temperatures during the week were very mild sun:-15 mon:-8 tue:-5 wed:-3 thu:-2 fri:0 sat:-2 sun:-3, got a bit of sleet and slush on the Friday but it soon snowed again so all was ok.
We took the free ski-bus from bottom of the Front slope to the G2 world cup run (2km away) and then the Gondola up to the top of the mountain (1 ride = 3.5euros, sightseers lift pass = 5.5euros for up & down but there’s no machine at the top so a 1 ride is enough!!!!) cracking views, great sunset, bl**dy cold, no caf! up there but worth it.
Inghams had breakfast and evening meal at the ValkeaVaadin restaurant attached to the white reindeer hotel (First choice had breakfast there also but had their evening meals in the separate Wanho Hullo Poro), all lunches were in the Wanho Hullo Poro.
You probably won’t need to buy a sledge in resort as the Crazy Reindeer had what can only be described as a sledge mountain outside the reception yesterday, tip: take a marker pen and write your name on them as they go walkabout at the wrong time which is inconvenient if you’ve got upset/tired kids.

I’ll not carry on too much as it is probably really boring but if anyone wants a bit more detail then ask away.

3-Day Ski School with boots/ski's/poles and lift pass £102 (£238 for 2 adults + 1 child with child having 7 days skis)
Aurora 28kmSnowmobile+Santa+Reindeer, £192 for four of us.... worth absolutely every penny.
10Km Super Husky £164 for four of us from Inghams (£120 if book through Levi Tourist, friday only and central pickup only.... but same trip)

fluffybunny_2

We took our sledges home with us! I noticed a few other families taking them home also.

They just checked them in with our cases. I had put them in a black bag though.

curtlyb

fluffybunny wrote: »

We took our sledges home with us! I noticed a few other families taking them home also.

They just checked them in with our cases. I had put them in a black bag though.

So did we, roll of parcel tape for 1 euro from the k market and two bin liners :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

fluffybunny_2

curtlyb wrote: »

So did we, roll of parcel tape for 1 euro from the k market and two bin liners :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

thats why we're on here..... we're moneysavingexperts!!!