Magical Lapland

Vicky Dyer on 09 January 2019
There is no other way to describe Lapland other than magical. It felt a bit like I imagine Narnia to feel! It's a trip I've always wanted to do, even before I had kids, so to have been and done it is amazing! We had a cabin for eight of us over Christmas with our own host (you have to register around two years in advance for this so if it's on your list for the future get in touch now!)

As a sun-lover and someone who feels the cold very easily, I wasn't really sure how I'd get on in Lapland, so I went well prepared! Thin layers (I wore 7 at one point!), thin gloves, and a couple of pairs of socks under the thermal all-in-one, mittens and boots that they provided helped keep me warm so actually the cold didn't worry us too much - even the kids coped ok with it.

On the first day we had a free afternoon, so we went to check out the toboggan run and had some fun walking up and whizzing down that, before heading back to our cabin for our evening meal. The next day was Christmas Day and the day we had our activity day - everything we did was included in our package as we opted for one that included it rather than having to pay locally. There were lots of 'little' activities around the site. We did snow hockey (we all had a go at this, great for warming you up if you were starting to feel the cold). We also went on skidoos which are small snowmobiles for the kids. There were tents where we could warm up around a fire with some hot berry juice and biscuits, a couple of small toboggan runs, an ice bar, fixed skis (I have no idea of their real name, but they were good fun!) and elves were around the site singing and dancing! These things were available all day.

We had a husky ride included - for us this was the highlight of the day (sorry Santa!) The adults were given the opportunity to 'drive' and so my husband took on that role, although we could have swapped half way round, me and the kids settled down and enjoyed whizzing through the forest.

Search for Santa, although not my highlight, was still brilliant fun. We were taken off in a sleigh (pulled by a snowmobile) and went through the forest to try and find Santa's cabin - of course we managed to find him, and the real Santa really is pretty awesome. The kids were given a pressie too and they loved the elves who entertained us while we were there (they sneakily took some selfies on my camera too! Another inclusion was our reindeer sleigh ride - this was a gentle walk around in the forest, which was nice to do but I'd recommend doing this earlier in the day before the other activities. We also got to go in a snow igloo (a first for me!) and learnt how reindeers fly with a short 20-minute show.

There was a real variety of things to do throughout the day. We arrived around 10am and there were rolling buses back to the village from 2-5pm. We were pretty fortunate with the weather as it hovered around -10 C so we actually managed to stay out all day and took the 4.30pm bus back.

The next day was our free day and we started early with a snowmobile drive through the forest. Having never done this before, I was a little nervous but as we'd opted to have our own snowmobile each (the kids were pulled behind a tour-leader in a sleigh), I had to give it a go and I'm so pleased I did - it was brilliant fun. The scenery was beautiful and there were no hiccups! After this we went back to the cabin where our lovely host Sonya had fresh pancakes ready and waiting for us. After this, we decided to climb to the top of the toboggan run which takes around an hour. We got lost but we made it eventually and by the time we'd got to the top we were sweating! It was good fun climbing and the trees and views up there were worth it! But we were up there to try a 2km toboggan run and so that's what we did! We had no idea how to get back down again (there appeared to be a few routes!) or where we'd end up! The run itself was fantastic (note to self: next time, as well as bringing the kids goggles, bring mine too!) It’s quite steep in places and very fast. It was from using our feet to slow down that our faces got sprayed with snow and at times I couldn't even see where I was going! The kids loved it too and at the end, by pure chance, we'd ended up at the bottom of the chair lift! I didn't fancy the climb again (not with an 8 and 5-year-old anyway) so we enquired about getting a lift pass. At 62 Euros for 2 hours for the 4 of us we decided to go for it and so did the run another three times. It was cold sat on the chair lift so after a couple of the runs we went into the conveniently placed café at the bottom for a quick hot chocolate to warm up!

Our last morning was a quick one before our lunchtime flight home so we made the most of our last couple of hours tobogganing just outside our cabin! We took a few last-minute photos too and decided that we might have just fallen a teensy bit in love with Lapland!