Myself, my husband and two children aged 8 & 5 enjoyed a 3 night stay here at the 'Snowy Wilderness Lodge' as it's described in the First Choice brochure, from the 4th of December.
On Arrival you are greeted by elves at the airport, which was a great touch. You are given a large sack by the elf for your coach and directed to a large shed in order to collect your clothes. You are provided with thermal suits, boots, hats, gloves & socks if you want them. We decided to take our own hats, gloves & socks and a top tip is to get your children a bright hat as once your in your suits, everybody looks the same! The suits are really toastie, just make sure you take a base layer such as thermals and another layer over that such as tracksuit pants & a fleece top. Once on the coach we we're given a pack with our ininerary & room key in. The organisation was fabulous and everything is designed to help you get the most out of the short amount of time you have here.
The hotel itself is lovely, it's small and friendly and very cosy. The santaclusive is also very good. You are provided with beer, wine, certain soft drinks, hot berry juice, tea, coffee plus 3 meals a day and snacks inbetween! The food, although not a lot of choice, was of a very good standard. With a childrens choice every night as well. Although secleuded, it is very picturesque. You are surrounded by snow covered trees and this is about as authentic an experience you will get, which was exactly what we wanted.
Included in your stay are taster sessions of a husky ride, raindeer ride & snowmobiles. You can also book these as an optional excursion. However they are very expensive & we found the taster sessions more than ample for what we wanted.
There are sledges outside the hotel which are available for you to use at your leisure. The sledging run, in the words of my boys is "awesome" and we spent a lot of time on it. You can also go snow shoe walking with the elves and take part in the elf academy. The details of all of this is on your itinerary. There is an ice bar outside which is open for an hour each evening. You can sit by a roaring fire whilst sipping a hot berry juice or a crisp cold beer, all whilst the children play in the snow. Believe me, it doesn't get much better than this!
I think it's worth mentioning that we have never been anywhere in the world where the staff work as hard as they do here. That goes for the First Choice staff as well as the elves who are absolutely amazing with each and every one of the children. We we're honestly made to feel like we we're the only family there & nothing was too much trouble. After dinner each evening there is a kids disco usually followed by a quiz and a raffle of some sort.
The absolute icing on the cake was the last evening where you will have a gala dinner. Your table is pre allocated and each family get to meet Mr C privately in his library. I won't say too much about this other than it was wonderful & the photograph if you want it is quite expensive at 40 euros, but well worth it!
Overall, a trip to Lapland is something I think everybody should experience at least once in their lifetime whether you have children or not. It is an expensive trip to take but what you are paying for is an experience to one of the most magical places on earth. This was my 8 year old's crucial year and by taking this trip I believe we may have extended his belief by a few more years yet. If you didn't believe before, you certainly will after going here...it was the most amazing holiday ever.
- Lapland Hotel Muonio
