24 years ago we started our exclusive Santa Holidays to Lapland and offer you the benefits of our Christmas holiday experience. Many other Christmas holiday operators tried operating Santa holidays but they have never measured up to the unique Canterbury Christmas holiday Travel Experience.
Reviews (8)
Thomas Lindeyer
Feb 08, 2022
We paid for a 3 day break with Canterbury Travels to Lapland (the Majestic Lapland package), if you're planning on booking a Lapland trip with Canterbury travels I'd strongly recommend you read the below, as the marketing material we had read prior to the trip did not prepare us for it! Keep in mind that this is a 3 day package coach holiday and the whole "holiday" is based around a tightly run schedule with a group of approx. 50 people/20 families, who you'll be with for the whole 2-3 days.
I say this because it was a surprise to us and a lot of families on the tour, who were understandably expecting something a little more bespoke, considering the huge amount of money they had forked out. There were many frustrating situations over the three days, but below are the main ones. I set this out to help manage your expectations, so hopefully your experience will not be as disappointing or maybe you're able to find a travel company that offers an experience which doesn't feel like you're on a production line. 1) Accommodation The accommodation we were allocated was really poor.
The bathroom was akin to something you'd see in cheap student accommodation. There were random bits of furniture/objects that had not been tidied away. Some of the draws had books/magazines in and there was hardly any wardrobe space to hang clothes. To sum up, it was the sort of accommodation you would expect if you were backpacking and paying $50 a night.
We were assigned better accommodation on the second night, which was more in line with what I would expect, however it was obviously irritating and stressful that we had to unpack and pack twice. Speaking to other parents on the tour there seemed to be a huge difference in the quality of accommodation, despite paying the same price. When you're paying this sort of money it's not reasonable to have "luck of the draw" in terms of the accommodation quality. 2) Food The food was very basic and no different to school dinners.
I was assured that the restaurant we had been assigned was very good and they had never received negative feedback, which I find hard to believe. Again not what you expect when your paying this sort of money. As a result of the bad food, we paid to eat at a different restaurant for the remaining nights and had breakfast in our cabin! 3) The pace of the tour and the activities Our guide, was amazing and did a great job at managing an incredibly challenging schedule.
The Huskies, reindeer, meeting santa and story time at the Elf house were great and the kids enjoyed these activities. I have two complaints around the activities: 1) There was far too much packed into day 1. We started at 8:50am on day 1 (6:50 am GMT) and finished at 5:30. We didn't have lunch until 2pm so we had cold, hungry kids, who were absolutely exhausted by the end of it.
The second day still had a really early start (08:30/06:30 GMT) but finished at 2:30. 2) A number of the activities felt like we were just playing for time - in a holding pattern - snowball fight and tag in a car park? The skidooing was also really disappointing, literally got to do one figure of 8, which lasted 1 minute, then back on the coach. The last two activities of Day 2 were also disappointing/pointless - another game of tag and pathetic catapults and then tobogganing down a tiny slope (the paths in the resort were better), with a ditch either side (making it slightly dangerous), queuing for 15 mins and managed by a really grumpy "elf". Overall, given the money we had spent, the activities did not feel up to standard.
In addition it felt like Canterbury Travels had overbooked/had far too many coach groups to manage and as a result everyone suffered by having the activities unevenly spread over the two days and not in a logical order. This was typified when we were given the final clue to find santa, after we had met santa!
I say this because it was a surprise to us and a lot of families on the tour, who were understandably expecting something a little more bespoke, considering the huge amount of money they had forked out. There were many frustrating situations over the three days, but below are the main ones. I set this out to help manage your expectations, so hopefully your experience will not be as disappointing or maybe you're able to find a travel company that offers an experience which doesn't feel like you're on a production line. 1) Accommodation The accommodation we were allocated was really poor.
The bathroom was akin to something you'd see in cheap student accommodation. There were random bits of furniture/objects that had not been tidied away. Some of the draws had books/magazines in and there was hardly any wardrobe space to hang clothes. To sum up, it was the sort of accommodation you would expect if you were backpacking and paying $50 a night.
We were assigned better accommodation on the second night, which was more in line with what I would expect, however it was obviously irritating and stressful that we had to unpack and pack twice. Speaking to other parents on the tour there seemed to be a huge difference in the quality of accommodation, despite paying the same price. When you're paying this sort of money it's not reasonable to have "luck of the draw" in terms of the accommodation quality. 2) Food The food was very basic and no different to school dinners.
I was assured that the restaurant we had been assigned was very good and they had never received negative feedback, which I find hard to believe. Again not what you expect when your paying this sort of money. As a result of the bad food, we paid to eat at a different restaurant for the remaining nights and had breakfast in our cabin! 3) The pace of the tour and the activities Our guide, was amazing and did a great job at managing an incredibly challenging schedule.
The Huskies, reindeer, meeting santa and story time at the Elf house were great and the kids enjoyed these activities. I have two complaints around the activities: 1) There was far too much packed into day 1. We started at 8:50am on day 1 (6:50 am GMT) and finished at 5:30. We didn't have lunch until 2pm so we had cold, hungry kids, who were absolutely exhausted by the end of it.
The second day still had a really early start (08:30/06:30 GMT) but finished at 2:30. 2) A number of the activities felt like we were just playing for time - in a holding pattern - snowball fight and tag in a car park? The skidooing was also really disappointing, literally got to do one figure of 8, which lasted 1 minute, then back on the coach. The last two activities of Day 2 were also disappointing/pointless - another game of tag and pathetic catapults and then tobogganing down a tiny slope (the paths in the resort were better), with a ditch either side (making it slightly dangerous), queuing for 15 mins and managed by a really grumpy "elf". Overall, given the money we had spent, the activities did not feel up to standard.
In addition it felt like Canterbury Travels had overbooked/had far too many coach groups to manage and as a result everyone suffered by having the activities unevenly spread over the two days and not in a logical order. This was typified when we were given the final clue to find santa, after we had met santa!
Helen Gower
Jan 19, 2022
Iain Walker
Jan 09, 2022
Sandra Jeavons
Jan 06, 2022
Clint Bone
Dec 16, 2021
Where to start, good first. overall beautiful country and picturesque, take warm head gear and snacks for the day, guy on the coach Graham was great, best for kids aged between 5 and 9 who still believe in father xmas, bad bits, called and emailed Canterbury twice for advice with no contact back 2 days before we left, waited at airport for for half an hour for people not turning up, got to other end Finland, people lost there luggage, then had to go pick up suites and boots and got to hotel at 7pm grrrr, booked restaurant opposite hotel for 3 nights which was beautiful food but very limited, only 5 minutes on snow mobiles, had to do a rush covid test day before leaving, worst part they recommend Chronomics for test, they take your money 200 with not one piece of contact after not the right number, email bounces back telephone diverts to Tui lol, shocking, no test results since sunday morning and now just been pinged re we have to isolate for ten days unbelievable. I could go on and on.
Tomasz Mankiewicz
Dec 08, 2021
Kerry Hewitt-Snyders
Apr 26, 2020
Absolutely amazing time with Canterbury Travel. Every person and Elf were just perfect! We did the 4 day at Luosto and everything was done to such a high level of perfection. It wasn't crowded, the food was delish, the activities were amazing, the elves and special elves went above and beyond. I would highly recommend this company to help find Santa, thank you to everyone who made our holiday a lifelong memory.
Katherine B.
Mar 10, 2017
Brilliant service from first phone call, reservation, pre-trip information, actual holiday to getting back in GB. Cannot rate these guys highly enough. We did the Magical Interlude at Luosto and stayed in a log cabin, all the staff were brilliant and super friendly, the trip was really well organised and magical for my daughter and us as parents. If you are planning to go to Lapland for a Christmas break I recommend using this company as they were great. Thank you Canterbury Travel for the amazing memories.
