{"id":343,"date":"2008-12-16T00:02:02","date_gmt":"2008-12-16T00:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=343"},"modified":"2024-12-03T10:09:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T10:09:25","slug":"lapland-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Lapland UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, we took the kids to Lapland UK<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The first reaction I got when I mentioned this to people generally went along the lines of “OMG, you’re going there?! I heard about them in the news!”. <\/p>\n

It’s not the same place. This isn’t the New Forest Lapland-themed attraction that made the headlines so spectacularly<\/a> a couple of weeks ago – it’s a place in Kent. <\/p>\n

Even their website has a banner on the top to reassure visitors saying: “Please be assured Lapland UK has NO association with Lapland New Forest”. <\/p>\n

Hmmm… I guess they have a bit of a brand problem, at least in the short-term. <\/p>\n

With this in mind, and as we had such a lovely day there, I thought I’d do my little bit to help their image by sharing our experience.<\/p>\n

The day is more than just letting the kids meet Santa and asking for presents… although we did meet Santa, that came at the end of a day of Christmas-themed activities<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Grace got to: <\/p>\n

Work in Father Christmas’s toy factory (well, assemble rocking horses from bits \ud83d\ude42 )<\/p>\n

Help Mother Christmas to decorate gingerbread men in the Gingerbread House<\/p>\n

Send a postcard from the North Pole Post Office<\/p>\n

Go ice skating <\/p>\n

Meet husky dogs (well, see them from a distance and refuse to go any nearer! \ud83d\ude09 ) and see real reindeer<\/p>\n

Hear traditional Saami stories in a Saami teepee<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Lapland’ is a spread-out camp of log cabins surrounding an ice-rink in a wooded area of fir trees. <\/p>\n

Fake snow machines give the place a coating of snow, and with reindeers and huskies being led around, the whole place definitely looks the part. <\/p>\n

In fact, it makes quite an impact when you first see it – the journey to Lapland is a walk through a long covered tunnel, and when you come out of the other side, the first impression is quite cool. <\/p>\n

The most impressive part are probably the staff. <\/p>\n

It’s almost Disney-esque in the way that we didn’t see staff out of character once all day – the elves were always elves, the Saami were always Saami. <\/p>\n

And they all had smiles, energy and bags of enthusiasm. <\/p>\n

As well as doing the actual activities with the children, the characters read stories, and teach songs and dances. <\/p>\n

There were even elves on hand to help take Grace round the ice rink after I demonstrated my ineptness by being unable to let go of the side while still holding Grace’s hands.<\/p>\n

They make an effort to maintain the illusion of us really being at Lapland – from the explanation of the magic journey to Lapland to justify why we could get there so quickly, to the way that someone quietly pulls a parent aside while the kids are busy, getting information for the visit with Santa. <\/p>\n

When Grace went into meet Santa, he knew what she liked, what her sister’s name is, what her friends at nursery are called – that sort of thing. <\/p>\n

Okay, as magic stunts go, it’s hardly Derren Brown, but for a four-year-old it all added to the magic and believability. <\/p>\n

The attention to detail is impressive. There is a consistent narrative that runs through the day, as characters throughout the day referred to who you met earlier. <\/p>\n

It’s more than just a theme park with a few separate activities to do. There is an obvious effort into tying it all together into a whole day experience. <\/p>\n

But… <\/p>\n

If I’m honest, it’s hardly cheap. <\/p>\n

At \u00a3275 for two adults, a four year old and a baby, it’s an expensive day out. And if this hadn’t been bought for us as a present from my (fantastically kind!) father-in-law, I don’t know if we’d have been able to justify paying that much for one day. <\/p>\n

It was a great day – Grace totally believes that she met Father Christmas. And the cost did cover everything – from all the activities, to the nice hot cooked meals at lunch and the presents that we all got from Father Christmas. <\/p>\n

Even I got a present – a hard-back copy of “The Night Before Christmas”<\/a> that he made me promise to read to Grace on Christmas Eve night. <\/p>\n

It was a lovely day, and definitely left us all feeling very festive. Merry Christmas, everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, we took the kids to Lapland UK. The first reaction I got when I mentioned this to people generally went along the lines of “OMG, you’re going there?! I heard about them in the news!”. It’s not the same place. This isn’t the New Forest Lapland-themed attraction that made the headlines so spectacularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,9],"tags":[65,317],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kids","category-misc","tag-christmas","tag-lapland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}