I have photographed all over the world and taken many tours but this tour was absolutely perfect! Our guide was fun, incredibly informative and put us in the path of some of the best northern lights I have ever seen. The tour was much more than that. I’m not going to spoil it by telling you everything but book here first! I’m booked tomorrow again this tour was do good!
So we booked the all day reindeer experience after comparing several companies and seeing that Lapland Welcome also had a one hour reindeer safari, but as we wanted longer decided to book an all day reindeer safari-after all you would assume ALL DAY was longer than ONE HOUR. We even emailed in advance to check the transfer time to the reindeer farm, so we could calculate time there and as one of us gets very travel sick and we were told it was 15-20 minutes away which we found acceptable. As the advert for this tour on their website said the safari was 5-6 hours we took 40 minutes off for transfer time in total and assumed at least we would get 4 hours 20 minutes at the farm, and on the reindeer ride. Well we turned up at the required time of 9.45 ready to leave for 10 as we were promised on the website and email-we did not leave until 10.30 as the guide said the farm does not 'take us' until 11.30 and that the transfer time was 45 minutes but we could go slow for the travel sick passenger-well I wish we had said no there as like mentioned above we had been told it was max. 20 minutes so now the one of us who gets travel sick had to deal with 60 minutes feeling awful, thrice the time promised on the email, and it reduced our overall time. But we were told it would still be a LONG reindeer ride so we decided to take the extra transfer time thinking maybe that day would be the 6 hours the advert said the safari could take in total. We were wrong, we got to the farm in 45 minutes, lassoed a fake reindeer and took a 20 minutes reindeer ride to a camp fire, were offered sausages and pancakes, spent almost an hour at the fire then had a 20 minute reindeer ride back-rest of the time was taking clothes on and off and waiting to leave. We were back at the Lapland Welcome Offices at 3pm so had only had 4.5 hours in total, of which travelling was 1.5 hours, and the reindeer ride was 40 minutes in total. We did not book for a 40 minute ride we booked an ALL DAY reindeer safari (which should have been 10-15.30 so the fact we left at 10.30 and were back at 15.00 already means we lost an hour) and were so disappointed, it absolutely ruined that day of our holiday which to us is worth much more than the ridiculous 159 euros EACH we spent-if we had wanted such a short reindeer ride we could have got one much cheaper and closer to the town centre, saving the travel sickness of one of us and money! We were so angry and tried to discuss it with someone on our return to the office who said they would get back to us, well when we went in the next day she said we had 3 hours at the farm and that is what the package is, well on the advert we booked through on their website it did not specify you only get 3 hours at the farm it says 5-6 hours including transfers (and we had even checked transfer time to be able to work out the time at the farm!) and it says an all day reindeer safari, well 40 minutes out of the 3 hours is nothing, we did not pay such a high amount to sit around a campfire which we could have done back in Rovaniemi for free! Also, if we knew we would only get 40 minutes of a reindeer ride we could have booked the cheaper 1 hour safari (which would have taken up less of our day overall too as this holiday was precious to us). When we tried to argue this with her suddenly she seemed unable to speak good English, after speaking perfect English previously and just shrugged and said the manager was busy so we would have to contact them another way-obviously completely ignoring our concerns as we were in the right. We should have a full refund as wasting so much time in the day for travelling that far for so little is beyond a joke and when people are paying that much for a once in a lifetime experience to not take their concerns seriously and ruining that for them by lying in adverts is heartless and cruel. Lapland Welcome are despicable, thieving liars who should take responsibility for destroying people's dream holidays. I will never be able to return to Rovaniemi and take a proper all day reindeer safari, that was my one chance, I hope you can sleep knowing that you ruined that day and a significant part of my dream holiday just to earn a little more money fraudulently.
Thank you for your exceptional feedback. We are sorry about your feelings! We have run this tour already for over 10 years and people have been very satisfied with this tour. We do not run tours that people don't like. This safari is the longest reindeer safari day tour we know in Lapland. The duration is 5-6 hours from the hotel back to hotel and at with the reindeers people can spend 3-4 hours. The actual reindeer safari program takes usually 3 hours including harnessing the reindeer and the safari itself, and the lunch break with reindeer far away in the wilderness, by campfire. The actual time in minutes in the sleigh depends on many things like weather conditions, it is not possible to follow strict standards with animals and nature and it is not the meaning of this safari. It can be sunny and nice day or a snowstorm, everything is possible in Lapland. Snow can be hard or very soft, the conditions vary a lot troughout the winter. The idea is to spend a nice day at this authentic reindeer farm and on the safari. On the way to the farm and back it is possible to see authentic life in Lapland - in the country side - and very often also see "wild reindeer". The farm itself is home to the reindeer herders, they live there for hundreds of years in numerous generations and we are happy that they accept us visiting their home yard and we can ask questions about their life. We can confirm that this is a very authentic and real reindeer experience we recommend for all people who want to experience something exceptional and spend a nice day!
My husband and I did this excursion in February. Everything about this experience was absolutely wonderful. The staff were great and it was very well organised. Lunch was delicious and it was fun to sit around the fire & chat (and warm up!). Definitely do this excursion...you will not be disappointed!
We were very disappointed by this tour. The two ‘guides’ were amateurish, thought it was okay to swear in front of children, they did not work well together, they were not believable and seemed to make some things up. They seemed disorganised, delivery of information seemed to be by rote with very little interest and all in all, even though we knew there was a very high chance we wouldn’t see the lights (this is not why it is getting a bad review) we thought the tour itself was not professionally done for what is a lot of money.
I booked and paid three tours all at once: Aurora, 1 hour reindeer farm, canyon snowshoeing. All guides were brilliant and ensure they introduce you to Finnish tradition and customs. The last two tours were small groups and very personalised which was brilliant. However, they did not offer me any discount despite that I booked and paid for all three tours at once. Later I recommended a friend to book two tours with them and they offered her a discount only if she booked and paid at once. When I complained and asked if they would give me a discount since I recommended them to a friend who then booked two tours and they gave her a discount, they immediately said no and ignored my complaint. Also they tell you you will definitely see aurora 100% but that only applies to aurora visible on a good specialised camera rather then the naked eye. Same for the reindeer tour they said you will drive reindeer for one hour when in reality you just sit in a sleigh for about 45min dragged by reindeer that for a path in the snow rather than completely In the wild which was a bit boring though it was nice talking to farmer. Same for snowshoeing we only used them for like 5 mins despite paying more to have a tour with them. So overall good experience but don’t believe everything they say though I must say this company seemed more trust worthy than others.
Thank you for your feedback. Our customer rates are relatively low so normally there is no discount to offer. Anyway according to our discount policy we offer "early bird discount" if you are several people and you book several safaris as it is possible in this case. We also offer online booking discount of 2%.
