Talk to me about Finland

[Rainbowsparkles29]

Really want to take my LG to Finland either Christmas 2023/2024. Is there a large difference in price and quality of experience if you go just after Christmas rather than just before. School hols mean after Christmas would be more doable. However I do wonder if the santa experience would be more meaningful after? What activities would people say is a must whilst we're there? Thanks

LG will be 5/6 btw

Sorry to clarify... we want about 7 nights there I think so have 3 options

1. leave on/around the 21st December and spend Christmas there. Not sure how I feel about being there Christmas day tbh but not completely against it
2. Have the last couple of days of Christmas term off and take the fine and disapproving tuts from school admin and return on 23rd/Christmas eve
3. go boxing day/27th and be back in plenty of time for school starting

Which have people done? Which would you opt for?

No advice on when to go except to say it's us extremely cold and dark in winter, my dd is there currently (adult) and I'm not sure it's a place you would want to spend a week in winter unless you are properly skiing maybe. Her clothing alone cost £££ as it's minus 14

Agree with pp. this week it's forecast with highs of -18 and lows of -23.

Most if the trips I've seen are 2 or 3 nights.

We stayed here and it was amazing harriniva.fi/en/

Loads of winter sport activities for the kids to do around the hotel. There is almost no village as such. It’s on the Swedish border, so we walked across the frozen river into another country. We flew to Kittila (not sure that spelling is correct) with a change in Helsinki on Finn Air. We went before Christmas. The weather was relatively benign at -8C during the day, which was cold (obvs) but fine for kids to play in the snow with the proper clothes - all in one outerwear snowsuits, gloves and boots are lent to you, but you’ll have to buy merino wool thermals £££ and inner gloves for everyone. The temperature can drop to -40C, which is brutal and you can’t do anything outdoors, so you’ll be inside looking out or in the sauna.

Nordic Experience was the company we used. The Santa bit was lovely, but my DCs enjoyed riding on the kid sized snow mobiles, the husky dog sled rides and the winter sports as much as seeing Santa.

We went to Finland a few years ago. I did a DIY trip to Lapland and it was wonderful.

We flew to Helsinki, had a night there and then took the overnight train up to Rovaniemi. Stayed one night in Rovaniemi and then came back to Helsinki on the overnight train. It’s a much cheaper way of doing it and it’s fun to arrive in the morning with the snow.

Helsinki itself is a nice city; easy to get around with the Metro system. There’s a superb soft play centre that I took my son to. Food is good, shopping is fine, and we visited a few churches market squares with Santa etc. We all had a great time.

Weather can be variable. Jeans and puffers in Helsinki and we had ‘mild’ weather of -5 in Lapland, but it can be much colder. Just pack accordingly.

In terms of timing, we went before Christmas, around the 8th December. Cheaper, but still Christmassy. Time for kids to write their Santa letters and post them in the Santa post office, and for parents to get the extra gifts.

Thanks for your input all. I like the idea of seeing a bit of Helsinki and have looked into the night train. I love the idea of turning up to rovaniemi in the morning. Can anyone tell me if there's anywhere good for sledging and maybe my 5YO having a bit of a go at skiing in the Rovaniemi area. Also any recommendations for the best santa experience? And how likely are we to see the northern lights? I'm thinking of a glass igloo for a couple of nights but prices range from eyebrow raising to insane and it looks like they sell out fast. Are they worth it? Thanks

Search for previous posts on Ruka too

For Santa, just get the bus from Rovaniemi to the actual Santa Village. It’s amazing, and free! We dumped our bags at our room and went straight there before crowds arrived, so we walked straight through. The official Lapland post office is cute, and we did a reindeer ride through the forest there, too. Snowworld was a payable extra, but worth it. The restaurants onsite are good; get a booking at Santa’s salmon place for the best salmon ever.

Lota of Northern Lights tours depart from Rovaniemi; my friends were super lucky last December to see plenty. You can ski nearby, too.

Oh and you can sledge at Snowworld by Santa Village. The price includes access to the coolest igloo area with ice bar, a great ice slide that we all loved, and then an outdoors area where you went whizzing down slopes in a tyre.

If you aren't bothered about Santa February half term is a good time to go. You get 8 hours of daylight so you can see the place properly.

We went one February and it was absolutely brilliant.

We’ve Finnish relatives. It’s a really boring place

We stayed for 4 nights in a cabin in Luosto with Canterbury Travel and it was the most magical experience every imaginable.
We had a spare day and tried skiing for the first time.

I forgot the link

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g1393474-d228683-Reviews-Hotel_Luosto-Luosto_Lapland.html

Sorry - you need to click on Hotel Luosto for reviews .

What's an LG?

This. February is a much better time to go, so long as you don't time it for when the Finnish children have their half terms (so early Feb is best), it'll be cheaper and the snow better and its so much more light. Not sure how much cheaper it'll be if you go just after Christmas like you're thinking but probably is a bit cheaper, but is still during the holidays so will still have that peak pricing.

OP the Christmas experience is there all year round at Santa Claus village, I took the children there the summer before last (we live in Finland) and we visited Santa and it was still lovely even though it was the middle of summer.

For northern lights you can download an app that tells you how likely the lights are to appear in your area, I would download that and then just pop out to see rather than cough up loads for a glass igloo with no guarantee of lights. The app I use is called 'my aurora forecast and alerts'

"maybe my 5YO having a bit of a go at skiing in the Rovaniemi area."

Can 5 year olds, or anyone, just "have a bit of a go at skiing"? Surely you'd need proper lessons.

Why do you want to go for a week?

We're just back from a 4 night Lapland trip with Tui and it was the best holiday I've ever had. We did a reindeer sled ride across a frozen lake, two husky sled trips, one with me as a passenger and one I actually 'drove' the sled. We had a visit with Father Christmas. And the time in between was spent sledging and playing in the snow. Daylight was around 4 hours a day, so most of this was done in darkness. It was absolutely magical. Little oil lamps everywhere, campfires to sit around before and after the trips. Felt like another world. My son said it was like living in a snow globe.

We stayed in a hotel in the middle of a national park, very remote. So a very different experience to Rovaniemi I think.

I hear of lots of people doing it cheaper by either DIY-ing or booking a ski trip and adding the Santa/husky/etc. experiences as extras. Ski trips are generally 7 days too, whereas the Santa packages tend to be a max of 4 nights from my experience. So if you want 7 days, I think ski trip or DIY is your best bet.

Where we went was stunningly beautiful and we're planning to do the same trip again in a few years time. Then we'll do a ski trip when my son's a bit older still.

There are plenty of Facebook groups specifically about Lapland trips, which are great for getting ideas.

Enjoy the planning.

Could "have a bit of a go" at cross country skiing, no lessons needed for that. Going down a tiny little slope on a cross country track will probably be plenty exciting for a 5 year old.