Santa's Hotel Tunturi

Location of this hotel is great, it is walking distance to shops, restaurants, and a supermarket and about a 15 minute walk to saariselka ski and sport resort. Rooms were clean but a little dated. Breakfast had a decent selection at the buffet.

This hotel has very large and comfortable rooms. Even included a sauna in the room. The lounge area was very roomy and comfortable. The on downside was that the shower was over the bath. Breakfast was served in an adjoining building and was a let down, the food was often cold and not much variety.

サウナを満喫してしました！

We booked through Santa's Lapland and their team were fabulous. Saariselka was a picture post card place. We booked the 3 night 4 day package, will book 4 night next time. The extra activities we did husky ride and snowmobile search for northern lights on Christmas day unbelievable. Then saw the northern lights later that night.

We are hear in winter, the town ship beautiful. We entered our room, 2 single narrow beds (all rooms have single beds) with very small pillows, we had to order another two. Good size rooms with corner lounge. Only 4 non English TV channels although we scoured Indiana Jones on TV in English. Please note : rooms are not cleaned on sundays, even if you put a room hanger outside to clean, they just ignore it, you must ask reception as a special request but they do not tell you this. The morning breakfast starts at am & is minimal at best. their extended hotel across the road starts at 7 am & is much better. A lovely cloths warmer/dryer. A lovely Sauna in the bathroom. The dinner was very nice & large. The staff very friendly

The rating I have given is purely for the hotel but I will comment on some elements of our experience from the TUI side of our holiday at the end. A few things to bear in mind when reading this: 1. We had researched this hotel before we came so knew what to expect and as a result only booked B&B. This is a 3* hotel remember regardless of what it costs. 2. We travel a lot and stay in a huge variety of places ranging from 3* B&B to 5* Hotels so have balanced expectations. 3. It was -30c when we were in Lapland. 4. We flew on a 6am Gatwick flight in mid December 24. 5. Family of 4 with 6 & 8 year olds. Hotel facilities: Pretty basic, the hotel is split into a number of buildings the food being served in the ‘Main’ reception building other buildings were about 400m from one another you need to be careful walking a scan be slippery. We were in Gielas building it was ok, typical Europe 3* hotel corridors a bit battered carpets stained lifts quite small. Had a few drinks in the bar €4 for a soft drink €9 for a beer. Staff very friendly. Room: Very very basic but clean, beds comfy walls a bit battered. Our room was warm we had a family room with a balcony which was quite cramped for 4 people but we weren’t in it for long. Didn’t use the sauna. The bathroom seemed to have been renovated and was a bit odd with a tin bath not attached to the wall so water fell down the sides onto the wet room style floor when having a shower. This meant the floor was very wet. Towels not changed i our 3 day stay but tissues etc topped up. Clothes drying machine in room worked well. Free safe kettle cups and glasses all cleaned. Food: I was expecting it to be bad and it didn’t disappoint! We only had breakfast and the choice isn’t great, it’s extremely busy and they run out of things fast. The kids enjoyed the chocolate spread though. The most annoying thing was the two stupid little toasters that allow about 100 people toast 4 slices of bread at once. Ridiculous. I have also never had scrambled egg you can cut into slices, read into that what you will! No fresh orange juice the whole time we were there. Staff friendly and did their best but seems to not be enough of them. The ‘Gala’ dinner we had was a bit of a joke food wise very salty, not enough of it and it was cold. TUI: Flight good but 30 mins late lots of people to meet you and show where to go on arrival. Took ages to get the warm weather gear (lots of waiting around on the coaches for the other coach to be ready) was about 3 1/2 hours from landing to getting in our rooms despite only being a 24 minute coach ride from airport to hotels and the luggage coming out quickly. You do end up carrying a lot of stuff. We had 4 suitcases hand luggage and then two huge sacks of warm weather gear. Very difficult to manage with children in -30c. The most annoying thing was the stupid ’welcome meeting’ which they get you all off the coach for basically stick you in a big conference room and sell