Ivalo, Finland (Hotel Kakslauttanen)
HOTEL Kakslauttanen at Ivalo Finland
- October 27, 2017
- No daily cleaning but you can request and pay
- You have to take your luggage via sled, a bit far from reception sometimes
- They have Kelo-Igloo Glass near Santa Village
- Only West Village is open and snow chapel and hotel are still closed
- There is a Santa Village too
It was weird that you don't pay by the room but by person!
Hotel comes with Breakfast and dinner.
Breakfast was decent with eggs, sausage, bacon, cheese, cold cuts, bread, and various types of herring. Had some fruit salad and yogurt that you can mixed with muesli and nuts. You can help yourselves with Orang Juice, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate drink.
Dinner is a 3-course meal which is actually quite good for a hotel type of food. You can also ask them for vegetarian or other options if you have food restrictions but they normally have just one set. you have to pre-book if you want 6 or 8pm and it seems like 6pm gets booked fast due to people going for Northern lights tour etc.
Kelo
Shower is not separate nor do they have curtains so you may end up getting the entire shower room wet.
Seems to fit fit to 6 -there are two double beds with one under the igloos glass. A couch and a small bed on top of it though this may be sleep-able, they might be too small and umcomfy
Not really great for viewing the northern lights especially if your hut is not the last one since you can easily see the lights from the front of the cabins which obstructs the view. Ours also had a tree right in the middle and like a large part of the sky is covered by trees.
Tip: If there are more than 4, try to do a bit of permutations so you can rent both at a cheaper price. We got to rent a Kelo for 4 and a small igloo for 2 cheaper than a Kelo for 6. Note Kelo are all the same sizes but you pay per person. Also it is a bit of a walk to between those those.
Kelo-Igloos Glass vs Igloos Glass
Glass igloos in the west village are a lot closer to the Kelo-Igloos going to the reception/ Aurora restaurant where you have your breakfast and dinner so it can be a pain to walk to Kelo especially at super cold evenings.
There is more space though in Kelo! I feel like in the glass igloos, there really is no room for luggages, you basicaly have to just try to have less things when you travel there.
Large Igloo has a shower and toilet while small only had a toilet. But honestly, we ended up just showering at the nearby shower and sauna snce the shower was very small and not much space. It was better to just do sauna and then showet.
Driving - possible low visibility and very slippery - very hard to see. See this video (it is worst than it looks especially in the evening).
We didn't get to book any of the tours this round since we instead just drove around and we can't really do dog or reindeer sledding since the snow is not that thick yet. But I checked the prices and the Hotel prices for the tour is such a rip off. See Husky & Co vs Hotel Prices!
Rovaniemi
Santa Claus Village
Santa Claus Village
96930 Rovaniemi, Finland
+358 16 3562096
Definitely take a picture crossing the arctic circle line
Arctic Circle Line 66* 32' 35"
There is a holiday village which seems to be a lodge and it was cute with each lodge having a christmas tree. Seems like there were two places where you can get to meet Santa. The other one has nicer experience as you go to some like 'earth rotational gadget' and looks more modern (but no pictures) while another was just some exhibits which didn't look exciting)
There is a Santa's main post office where you can send picture
A reindeer farm and etc
We went to check out the husky park
beside it for 10 Euros. They had around 80 Huskies and even puppies. Worth a visit especially if you love dogs. They also do husky hiking and husky dog-sledding but a short one for 500m/1 Km which is around prolly a minute. They didn't had it ready since it only snowed recently and was only available the next day so check first if you wanna do sledding.
Reindeer Farm
Inari Reindeerfarm
Kittiläntie 1445, 99870 Inari, Finland
+358 50 0666444
Apparently, you have too pre-book before you can go since normally the Inari Reindeer Herders go out for hunting their own reindeers. We were lucky that when we called, he was around!
We paid 250 Euros for 10 people but it was a shorter and "lesser" version of the usual things he does since that day, it was not yet "winter" and farms are usually closed. They usually bring people to the forest and see some reindeers. Instead, fortunately, he had a lot of reindeers in his farm so he showed us, educated us about them and the sami/Inari Reindeer Herders. Even though us how to catch reindeers. One thing though is we didn't get to feed the reindeers :(
Sami Cultural Institute/ Sami Sajos
The Sámi Sajos
Menesjärventie 2A, 99870 Inari, Finland
+358 10 8393168
There was nothing much except for a library and a small crafts shop, but they said they may have events every now and then. Building was interesting though. They actually suggested going to the Sami museum but was closed on Mondays!
Inari Lake
We did a couple of stop overs and it is really beautiful. Even in the evening when the moon casts its shadows over the water, it felt very surreal!
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