Bedgebury is holding a Christmas 'Lapland UK' Experience

[TheDuchessOfNorksBride]

... covering a part of the forest with fake snow, Christmas village, Raymond Briggs 'The Snowman' ride, Father Christmas visit, mulled wine to fortify parents, reindeer, husky dogs, trumpeters and all sorts. I'm soooo excited. Er, for my children, obviously...

It's quite expensive though (I just paid £167 for a family of 5). Here is the link. And here is the itinery.

And it's selling out quite quickly.

timesonline

this was in Sunday's times. Not so bad!

I was looking for a post on this and now wish I hadn't found it . We are going this Saturday and I have been looking forward to it for ages but now am a bit worried I must admit. I know the children will love it so I will just have to try and remain positive!

Just a suggestion but if you weren't/aren't happy with the experience please do write and complain. This is the only way it will get better!

Foxy - if you email them could you come back and let us know the response please? I am so disappointed with the tent as I agree that is not what I thought I was buying. I am going on 8th same as Duchess btw.....

Really about these reviews and cross....

After having read all the reviews I must say that I find this hardly surprising...

Is it just me or do most things that are a cheaper version usually just generally worse anymore.... its like buying a car seat thats the cheapest you can find without properly investigating it....

You just dont do it.... I must also say that i live in Cranbrook and one of my closest friends works there....

I do feel extremely sorry for her as she is working over 60 hours a week there... and they are still severely understaffed.. this is all problems to do with management.. And the only way to get it sorted is to complain like we all have the right to do. My dear friend says that alot of these things are just teething problems and should be sorted out... but the more fuss thats made then the more serious they will take it.

My best lunch friend went there this opening weekend and found it was an awful let down for herself.. the only redeeming feature was the meeting with santa and the some of the excellent staff/elves which made the whole experience for her children... those in the toy factory and storytelling rooms were excellent..
so maybe it depends which staff are on at which time.

write back everyone xo

Here is the email address and telephone number.http://www.laplanduk.co.uk/contact-lapland-uk.html here
I have emailed them with some of the concerns maybe if we all do then it will make a difference to others experience ?

Message withdrawn

sorry here

glad i only paid £50 for family of 4 on 27th,
dh work has a massive xmas kids party which they spend thousands on and have father christmas there so thats why we went after, but still wanted it to be good hopefully it will get better or else by 27th they will be so pissed off it will be worse!!!

I will post back if i get any feedback from your comments!

I emailed them on Sunday expressing my concerns and asking if it was just teething problems, but they haven't come back to me yet.

I admit I had a bit of a panic, I do like to over-react

Message withdrawn

even if they don't get back they may read them
Oh well am determined to make the most of it and suppose we a little more prepared now. The press report was much better!

I've seen friends photo's (sorry, she doesn't want to share!) - it looks beautiful.

Yes, lets be positive. I might pack a few extra jam sarnies, undercut them at £2.50 each! Get some money back that way.

Oh, sod it. Its Christmas. Its meant to be expensive, over-commercialised rip-off, isn't it? That's what its all about.

Ho Ho HO.

I am grateful to be forewarned but like you foxy I am going to make the best of this
Glad your friend has had a good experience of it duchess, that has cheered me up considerably

Bear in mind (from someone who has large scale event management experience like this) that the press reports wil be good because the journalists from papers like the Telegraph, Times etc will have had the full VIP visit, I know the Times journalist was personally escorted round by the owner (it even says so in the article). Very different from the 'joe public' experience, particularly those unfortunate to get the late in the day slots when the backlogs have been worst. A friend of mine actually spoke to the owner of the event when she was there on Sunday (he was in the small food tent area tyring to rig up a heater himself!!! Says it all), and complained about all the waiting and queues. Apparently his response was that the two Father Christmases are that you see at the end are professional actors and are enjoying their roles far too much in a typical thespian manner and taking too long per visit. He did promise he would be speaking to them to ensure times were shortened to prevent this from continuing to happen.

A friend had a good idea of a story to tell your children when their get their invitation from Father Christmas.

"Every year Father Christmas sets up a workshop in a different country so he can meet the children there. This year it is in England and you have been really lucky to get an invitation to see him"

This will explain away the non-moving transporter!

Another tip, the snow is magic snow so that is why it is not cold. Ours believed this anyway!

Also have an explanation up your sleeve as to why there is no time or date on the invite. We printed out a map of Bedgebury from the web, singed the sides with a candle and made brown with coffee, drew on a red cross, wrote a note from FC with time/date, and left in the fireplace for the children to find. This also worked well! They were concerned when they found the invitation that we wouldn't know where to go. Shame LaplandUK left us to do this work!

Sorry for my previous negativity, I'm sure everyone will have a good time, I'm just a misery sometimes! And Father Xmas was great and we got a great photo of the whole family which was definately worth the £10.

good idea muzzy as ds still at a loss of how we will know where and when to go will print map off now thanks

ooh just seen a photo in Sundays express paper looks lovely.
Ds said 'ahh i didn't want to see that i wanted it to be a surprise' Haven't really told him anything about it he only knows what he has seen on the invite so he was quite surprised to see the pic with the snow on the trees.

I've still not heard from them, but I didn't have time to call them today.

I not heard either

hi,
has anyone been on the evening "flight" I am taking my grandaughters the day b4 christmas eve. although they are 10 and 11, and not to fussed about seeing santa - has the place got a nice christmas feel to it?

I'm just checking in so it doesn't fall off my 'threads I'm on' list.

I think the 'stupid outfits' are probably Air Lapland.

If it's a success, Mike Battle could probably find somewhere else to do it - no reason why it couldn't move to the North etc. I wouldn't be surprised if several other companies had a go at doing it next year anyway. I'd love to organise a proper Christmas market in my neck of the woods.