Click here to read day 1, day 2, day 4, day 5, day 7 and day 8 report
Day 6
Morning
We signed up 2 hours husky safari with Lapland Welcome at 159 euros per pax. They picked us up from our hotel at 07:50 and brought us to their office before we headed to husky farm (Husky Point). There were only 2 of us, we were given overall snowsuite, snow boots, hat, gloves and a bag to keep our jacket, our shoes and personal belongings. The hat and gloves quality were better than what was provided by Lapland Safaris. We left our bags in our guide's car and brought along valuable staff with us to husky farm.
We didn't know that we could actually sign up with Husky Point directly and that would save us a bit of money. Husky Point provides free return transfer from Rovaniemi hotel and winter clothes too, click here for more details.
There were about 10 participants who come from other safari company. We were pretty comfortable with the size of the group, it made us felt more attentive. Before we get started, Husky Point staff briefed us how to control the sleigh, what were the important things to look out, how should we react in an emergency and etc. It was a 2 hours ride with about half an hour break in between in the forest.
Kids younger than 18 years old are not allowed to drive husky sleigh. It was a 20km ride with 2 people in one sleigh, one controls and one sits in. We were allowed to switch driver in between. We chose to do the morning sleigh so we could take pictures under sunlight.
We stopped half way in a tent with fire and all dogs got to rest too. The dogs were friendly and sociable, we got lots of licks and cuddles.
Some of you may find husky sleigh is cruel but in fact, it's not! We could see that they were so excited that they get to have chance to go out and have fun instead. They enjoy the run instead.
Here is a short clip we filmed during the husky ride. It was thrilling and so fun!!!! Don't miss this if you visit Rovaniemi. It's a fantastic experience.
Sleigh dog team member positions are assigned according to individual dog character. Members include lead dogs, swing dogs, team dogs and wheel dogs. Lead dogs are commonly in pair. Leader should be intelligent, initiative, common sense and able to find a trail in bad condition. A smaller team may not have team dogs.
You can read more about husky in wikipedia.
After we got back to the starting point, we visited husky farm and husky "kindergarten". Kindergarten is the place where young huskies are trained. We also learnt more about the dogs themselves as well as husky racing.
Young huskies were so excited to see visitors. They were trained to socialize with human since young.
Husky puppy
Afternoon
We took bus number 8 from the bus stop beside Rantasipi hotel (in front of Lapland Safaris building). Return ticket from Rovaniemi town to Santa Claus village 7.80 euro per pax and took us about 30 minutes. You can ask for the bus time table from your hotel reception.
It passes by Rovaniemi airport and Santa Park before Santa Claus village. Santa Park is 2km away from Santa Claus village. We got off at at Santa Park, luckily we realized that was not Santa Claus village, we quickly got into the bus again. It's too cold to walk 2km during winter time.
Lunch
We decided to have lunch in Santa Claus village. One of my friend recommended me this Santa's Salmon Place, it is located next to Santa Claus post office, a Lappish kota style restaurant.
Menu is pretty simple, just grilled salmon and different types of drinks. Grilled salmon was served with salad and bread. It is one of the best salmon I've ever had. Salmon was perfectly cooked, crispy outside but tender and juicy inside. Salmon was just marinated with sea salt but it tasted so nice!
Santa Claus village
Santa Claus village does not require entrance fee. You can meet Santa Claus for photograph, you can visit Santa Claus post office and you can also do winter activities such as reindeer ride here. You can also visit Snowman World within the village.
There is an arctic circle line in Santa Claus village (below the blue line). You can't see it during winter time, it's covered under thick snow.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to meet Santa Claus everyday at Santa Claus office. It's free to enter, you only pay if you want the photos. We paid 40 euro for 6 digital photos (basically only 2 poses) and 1 video, downloadable from santaclauslive.com within 30 days. There were long queue when we were there, took us about 30 mins to meet Santa Claus. Santa Claus is friendly and talkative. I was very excited when I met him!
We bought a few postcard from Santa Claus post office. All postcards sent out from here will be franked with arctic circle's special postmark.
Pigeon hole.
Winter night activity
We signed up "northern lights snowmobile driving safari" with Lapland Welcome at 159 euro per pax. They supposed to pick us up at 19:50 but they only came at 20:20 because one the participants was late and delayed the whole bus.
Everyone was brought to Lapland Welcome office to get changed into the snow suit provided. There were about 40 people in the bus and only 6 were going for the snowmobile while the rest were going for the aurora viewing. They drove us to Katkavaaran Luontokeskus which is about 50km away from Rovaniemi town.
6 of us together with our snowmobile guide got off half way and left our bag (provided by Lapland Welcome) in snowmobile hut.
This activity is not suitable for pregnant lady. The exhaust gas can be harmful to baby and it's so smelly. We didn't get to see any aurora for that night, weather was very bad and cloudy.
We started at about 11pm. We stopped at 4 different aurora viewing spots during the ride. All spots were in the deep forest, really dark and it's perfect for spotting aurora.
We went back to snowmobile hut at about 1am, we changed into our own jacket and shoes and kept Lapland Welcome snow suit into the bag provided. This arrangement was better than Lapland Safaris as all of us didn't have to go back to their office get changed again before sending all of us back to hotel, the time saved here allowed us to spend more time at aurora viewing place.
Generally, this tour was pretty good. The guide was friendly and we were all well taken care. Most importantly, we stayed longer outside and this help us better chance to see aurora. I strongly recommend you to sign up with Lapland Welcome instead of Lapland Safaris if you are interested in catching aurora tour.
However, if you are going to visit Rovaniemi for northern lights, you may want to stay in log cabin outside of Rovaniemi town instead of signing this kind of tour and you will have all night to spot aurora.
Interested to visit Finland? Click here to read day 1, day 2, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7 and day 8 report
Day 6
Morning
We signed up 2 hours husky safari with Lapland Welcome at 159 euros per pax. They picked us up from our hotel at 07:50 and brought us to their office before we headed to husky farm (Husky Point). There were only 2 of us, we were given overall snowsuite, snow boots, hat, gloves and a bag to keep our jacket, our shoes and personal belongings. The hat and gloves quality were better than what was provided by Lapland Safaris. We left our bags in our guide's car and brought along valuable staff with us to husky farm.
We didn't know that we could actually sign up with Husky Point directly and that would save us a bit of money. Husky Point provides free return transfer from Rovaniemi hotel and winter clothes too, click here for more details.
There were about 10 participants who come from other safari company. We were pretty comfortable with the size of the group, it made us felt more attentive. Before we get started, Husky Point staff briefed us how to control the sleigh, what were the important things to look out, how should we react in an emergency and etc. It was a 2 hours ride with about half an hour break in between in the forest.
Kids younger than 18 years old are not allowed to drive husky sleigh. It was a 20km ride with 2 people in one sleigh, one controls and one sits in. We were allowed to switch driver in between. We chose to do the morning sleigh so we could take pictures under sunlight.
We stopped half way in a tent with fire and all dogs got to rest too. The dogs were friendly and sociable, we got lots of licks and cuddles.
Some of you may find husky sleigh is cruel but in fact, it's not! We could see that they were so excited that they get to have chance to go out and have fun instead. They enjoy the run instead.
Here is a short clip we filmed during the husky ride. It was thrilling and so fun!!!! Don't miss this if you visit Rovaniemi. It's a fantastic experience.
Picture courtesy from wikipedia.com
You can read more about husky in wikipedia.
After we got back to the starting point, we visited husky farm and husky "kindergarten". Kindergarten is the place where young huskies are trained. We also learnt more about the dogs themselves as well as husky racing.
Young huskies were so excited to see visitors. They were trained to socialize with human since young.
Husky puppy
Afternoon
We took bus number 8 from the bus stop beside Rantasipi hotel (in front of Lapland Safaris building). Return ticket from Rovaniemi town to Santa Claus village 7.80 euro per pax and took us about 30 minutes. You can ask for the bus time table from your hotel reception.
We decided to have lunch in Santa Claus village. One of my friend recommended me this Santa's Salmon Place, it is located next to Santa Claus post office, a Lappish kota style restaurant.
Menu is pretty simple, just grilled salmon and different types of drinks. Grilled salmon was served with salad and bread. It is one of the best salmon I've ever had. Salmon was perfectly cooked, crispy outside but tender and juicy inside. Salmon was just marinated with sea salt but it tasted so nice!
Santa Claus village does not require entrance fee. You can meet Santa Claus for photograph, you can visit Santa Claus post office and you can also do winter activities such as reindeer ride here. You can also visit Snowman World within the village.
There is an arctic circle line in Santa Claus village (below the blue line). You can't see it during winter time, it's covered under thick snow.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to meet Santa Claus everyday at Santa Claus office. It's free to enter, you only pay if you want the photos. We paid 40 euro for 6 digital photos (basically only 2 poses) and 1 video, downloadable from santaclauslive.com within 30 days. There were long queue when we were there, took us about 30 mins to meet Santa Claus. Santa Claus is friendly and talkative. I was very excited when I met him!
We bought a few postcard from Santa Claus post office. All postcards sent out from here will be franked with arctic circle's special postmark.
Pigeon hole.
Winter night activity
We signed up "northern lights snowmobile driving safari" with Lapland Welcome at 159 euro per pax. They supposed to pick us up at 19:50 but they only came at 20:20 because one the participants was late and delayed the whole bus.
Everyone was brought to Lapland Welcome office to get changed into the snow suit provided. There were about 40 people in the bus and only 6 were going for the snowmobile while the rest were going for the aurora viewing. They drove us to Katkavaaran Luontokeskus which is about 50km away from Rovaniemi town.
This activity is not suitable for pregnant lady. The exhaust gas can be harmful to baby and it's so smelly. We didn't get to see any aurora for that night, weather was very bad and cloudy.
We started at about 11pm. We stopped at 4 different aurora viewing spots during the ride. All spots were in the deep forest, really dark and it's perfect for spotting aurora.
We went back to snowmobile hut at about 1am, we changed into our own jacket and shoes and kept Lapland Welcome snow suit into the bag provided. This arrangement was better than Lapland Safaris as all of us didn't have to go back to their office get changed again before sending all of us back to hotel, the time saved here allowed us to spend more time at aurora viewing place.
Generally, this tour was pretty good. The guide was friendly and we were all well taken care. Most importantly, we stayed longer outside and this help us better chance to see aurora. I strongly recommend you to sign up with Lapland Welcome instead of Lapland Safaris if you are interested in catching aurora tour.
However, if you are going to visit Rovaniemi for northern lights, you may want to stay in log cabin outside of Rovaniemi town instead of signing this kind of tour and you will have all night to spot aurora.
Interested to visit Finland? Click here to read day 1, day 2, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7 and day 8 report
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