Santa's Lapland - Part 2

We wandered into the ‘village’ with a visit to Santa’s Post Office, visiting some shops that were honestly like walking into Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post from frozen (Yoo Hoo, big summer blow out!) and pulling kids around various little hills to sled down. After a pit stop at the local pub for a pint and some hot chocolates, with its log fire and authentic Finnish feel, we crashed and had to have an afternoon powernap before tea and a marathon session on the toboggan hill that’s about a 3 minute walk from the hotel. It’s a great spot, the kids LOVED it and it’s free. Watch out for the bumps towards the bottom of the hill as there was a few bruised coccyxes the next day. Great fun! Towards the end of our adventure day, we started to get new snow and because of the temperature, it was lying straightaway. I’m not sure how many times I bored everyone by telling them how much I loved the crunch sound of fresh snow but it was least 15 times. The night finished in the pub again.

Day three was the main event and the reason we were all here. A day at Santa’s Lapland! I could write another hundred paragraphs about how magical and brilliant it was but I’d still not do it justice. It’s located about 25 minutes away on the coach (your departure time is on the hotel noticeboard so make sure you check the night before) and is in the middle of nowhere. From the moment you walk in, the staff are amazing and make sure they’re on hand to be able to help you navigate your map, as you make your way around at your own pace, with the kids filling in activity passports along the way whenever they’d completed an activity. I don’t want to go into too much detail and spoil it for you, but you do all kinds; igloos, elf interactions, snow hockey, magical sleigh rides, reindeer sleigh rides, husky rides, tobogganing and more. There are warming stations where you can escape the cold and sit round a fire whilst enjoying a hot berry juice or tea (for free) and there is also free hot berry juice and pancakes in a couple of kotas (teepee things). The restaurant serves complimentary spaghetti bolognaise and bread that helps tide you over until the festive feast on the night of your search for Santa day. The only thing that you’re given a specific time for is your Husky ride and because of availability, you need to be on time or you’re likely to miss out.

Time goes so quickly but you don’t feel rushed. Numbers are very well managed and the queues are a couple of minutes long, if that. However, the Magical Sleigh Ride can have a bit more of a wait and they’ve positioned a few things near to the queue so one adult can hold the place in line and the others can keep themselves busy.

When you’ve been on this experience and consider what Santa’s Lapland provide, the attention to detail and how much it costs to run everything it makes the price of the holiday, which is by no means cheap, justified and very good value. Almost a bargain. The outlay to run all of this and then having such a short window to profit on Santa related demand makes the initial ‘HOW MUCH!?’ thoughts disappear very quickly. I’d pay it again tomorrow to experience it all again.

I mentioned the festive feast earlier and it’s a nice way to bring things to a close. Stick your fanciest Christmas clothes on and go to the upstairs function room for a more fancy, Christmas-related buffet, and some entertainment for the littler ones. You can leave whenever you like and it looked like the ankle-biters in other families had an absolute blast.

We left after dessert for some late night tobogganing on the slopes but all of the fresh snow, now almost waist deep in places, made it a bit slower than the previous night, but so much more beautiful. So we ended up back in Giitu until closing again. You can take the family out of Boldon….

The next day we had the morning to ourselves, so after breakfast the kids grabbed their sledges and we had ourselves some last minute snowball fights and snowman building, before the coach picked us up to go back to the airport at around dinnertime. There’s not too much to keep yourself entertained once there. Ivalo is small, with a handful of gates, and it was the Saturday before Christmas so check in, security and passport control took a while. That’s just part of travel and not something you have any say over, but it might be a good idea to have things that’ll keep youngsters entertained. We all ate and got some snacks for the plane.

On the flight home there are no games and singsongs as people are tired and not exactly jolly that their once in a lifetime holiday is over. It’s only 3 hours from Newcastle so a relatively short flight.

A couple of final tips that we found useful are to put your mobile phone in a sock before putting it in your pocket, or put it in a pocket along with a hand warmer. On our really cold days we found the lag and phone/camera performance wasn’t great as they were like blocks of ice. After learning the sock trick things picked up! I’d also suggest gloves that have the finger section that works with your phone as your fingers can get really cold when you take your gloves off even for a minute or two. And on that note, be prepared for your photos and videos to not do the trip justice. It’s mind-blowingly beautiful and hard to capture.

We bought far too much gear thinking we’d be freezing but there’s not much standing around and the cold it’s much more manageable and enjoyable than you think. Layer up and you’ll be fine. I think I was sweating and hot more than I was cold! Whenever you go inside though, try and remove as many layers as you can.

The kids (and some adults) will dive around in the snow and get it in their hats, down their gloves, in their shoes you name it and once you’re wet, you stay wet. Or the wet freezes. Take a few spares with you and remember once you get back to the room lay everything out to dry, use the drying cupboard or hairdryer to get things ready for your next adventure.

Embrace everything, and just got for it. You’ll have the time of your life.