Of course, when you go all the way to Lapland, you have to meet Santa Claus! Just north of Rovaniemi is the ‘official’ home of Santa, in a village located on the Arctic Circle.

Getting there

We were staying in Rovaniemi town centre, so we just hopped on the bus for €3.50 each person, each way (so a return for both of us for €14). The bus is mostly tourists, and a few people heading to the airport.

As we did the journey in December, we caught the bus at dawn at 9:45am, and it was still dawn after we arrived at about ten past ten.

There is no charge to enter Santa Claus Village at Rovaniemi, and the location is a mixture of around 30-40 small businesses with a Christmas/Santa theme.

Attractions

We spent an hour exploring the site, which had a variety of Finnish buildings. Each building has a different theme, and we found that they were a blend of restaurants, gift shops and attractions.

We watched the reindeer sleigh rides, where you sit in the sleigh, covered with a fur blanket, and get taken around a track by real reindeer.

The children in the park loved the free sledges and just sliding around in the ice and snow. Bianca did not like sliding in the snow, and she had an unexpected fall on some black ice! Even though they grit the paths, there was a slippery patch that found Bianca’s feet. The children’s playgrounds were popular too.

Children also had great fun on the mini snowmobiles, driving around a track at a ‘medium’ speed. There were some shelters with fires for the watching parents.

We stopped for a Glögi at Mrs Santa Claus’ house, but did not ‘meet’ her, instead just warming up in the attached restaurant.

The Snowman World attraction was an extra charge of €32 each, for slides and ice skating, a restaurant and “ice disco”(?). We also did not go to the Santamus gold panning and restaurant experience. We also did not send a Santa postcard at the Santa post office.

Meeting Santa Claus

One of the central attractions is to meet Santa Claus. For this, you have to register for a timeslot to enter the queue inside, which is about an hour long.

Once in the queue, it was slow moving but entertaining all the way with elf-themed scenes. As we approached Santa’s lair, we were given a large carrier bag to carry our thick coats and hats (so they would not be in the photos). Each group gets their time with Santa, and those with small children get more time. Bianca and I got around one minute, helping the rest of the queue move faster! We then selected our photo package from the elves, paid our €55 for the digital-only version, and ended in the gift shop.

Santa Park

After a quick all-you-can-eat buffet, we decided to walk to  Santa Park. This is an easy 30 minute walk along a lit and cleared path from Santa’s Village. A very enjoyable walk, during the hour-long sunset.

When we got to the entrance to the Santa Park cavern, we walked down a slope to the ticket office and free cloakroom to store our coats. We paid €116 to enter for two adults.

Unfortunately, we feel this was the worst choice we made and the biggest waste of money for the holiday. Whilst the  overall design and execution of the ex-air raid shelter was very well done, we did not feel it had much value for adults.

For those with small children, Santa Park would be exceptional, with beautiful decoration, and exciting features such as rides and shows. However, for anyone over 12 years old, it is just another series of shops and side-shows.

Most interesting was the evidence that it was a shelter, with the large metal doors still in place, and evidence of the structure of the underground vault.