Saariselka Lapland - Santa's Magic Trip

Lapland 2021 On the 30th of November 2021, I had the privilege of taking a work trip to Saariselka in Finland/Lapland a part of a trip with Santa’s Lapland for two nights, three days.

I had previously taken the same trip in 2015 with my husband and girls, who were then 4 and 8 years old After an early start and a flight of around 3.5hrs from Manchester to Ivalo airport, we arrived in Finnish Lapland.

We were met at the airport by the naughty elves, that were grabbing our baggage off the luggage belt, taking a ride on the luggage trolley’s and snatching bobble hats off the children who were eagerly awaiting their luggage arrival, outside there was a reindeer and handler in a traditional Finnish Dress, which was a great arrival photo opportunity. The temperature on arrival was minus 20!!

After around a 30 minute snowy transfer, we arrived in the resort centre of Saariselka, we were taken still on the coach to collect our thermal suits and boots and then dropped at our hotel. As a party of 10 we were staying in one of the larger apartments at the Tunturi hotel complex.

After a wander around the resort and a few hours play in the snow, we were super fortunate to take a Northern Lights Snowmobile trip. At minus 21 degrees and counting it was super cold, think frozen strands of hair from under my hat! The trip lasts around 1.5hrs, travelling on Snowmobiles for one or two and we travelled to a forest area and mid-way had hot drinks around the fire and snacks which was a welcome break and warming. We didn’t see Aurora Borealis – the Northern Lights sadly because of cloud cover, despite other conditions being good, but this didn’t detract from our enjoyment of this evening trip.

The following day was our Arctic Circle day, as part of the Santa’s Magic trip with Santa’s Lapland, we were collected around 10am (still dark) from our Tunturi hotel main building and taken to our Arctic Circle Centre, around a 20 minute drive away in the Forest, here we were able to enjoy a host of fabulous activities such as:- a private meeting with Santa (with the naughty elves throwing snowballs at us and stealing our hats!) husky sled rides, reindeer sleigh rides, ice-fishing, kick-sledding, snow hockey, skidoo rides, tobogganing, crazy reindeer golf, an elf show, an ice bar, the reindeer bar, plus a fabulous warm lunch included too.

During our trip we were fortunate enough to also visit the smaller Arctic Circle Centre that Santa’s Lapland feature as part of their Santa’s Aurora trip, where we had the fastest ever husky sled ride mainly because my travel friend Jo and I, seem to have been allocated the Finnish racing champions for our sleigh which no one told us until after the hairiest Husky ride ever! We also got to cuddle a husky puppy and enjoy a fabulous private Wilderness Dinner in their log cabin at the Aurora Wilderness Arctic Circle Centre too.

On our last morning of our 3-day trip, we had a familiarisation around the resort and took in a few hotels and room viewings, having been to this resort 6 years previously it was great to see how it compared and a I am pleased to say that Saariselka is still not overly commercialised and hasn’t lost any of its traditional Finnish charm.

I have been booking my clients and their families to this resort for some 15 years now and every year families return from their three or four day trips to recommend it to others who book with me, the Santa’s Lapland product speaks for itself, I would have no hesitation in taking this trip every year if I could afford to do so.