Lapland - Levi - 2022 Ingham’s - Husky/Reindeer Safaris and Santa Visit

Our trip to Levi - Lapland at the beginning of December 2022. I’m by all means no vlogger, this is just a video account of our holiday that we can share with our family and maybe some people may find it useful if you are planning a trip in 2023…. We are family of five, our boys are aged 4, 11 and 13 (grandparents also came too) We went 27th November to the 4th December. We had plenty of snow for all activities. Accommodation was Immelmokit Cabins (4 bedrooms) there was 7 of us and it was fine, the living area is a bit small but otherwise we had no complaints. We booked a 7night ski holiday (we didn’t ski) with Inghams. It wasn’t that much more than if we had booked a 4 night Santa break. We added on snowsuits & boots, husky ride, reindeer farm and sleigh ride and Elves Hideaway. All of our activity days were planned for the end of the week so for the first few days we were free to explore. Monday, our first day was spent mainly sledging and the boys just having fun playing in the snow. The best places to sledge were next to the ski slopes at zero point. Then when the ski slope closed at 7pm we were able to sledge on the slopes. There were plenty of free sledges left behind at the cabins. If you’re staying there they are all stacked up behind cabin 12. We also fed the reindeers behind the K5 hotel, just up the road (bought reindeer food from K5 reception) On Tuesday we went to the secret cafe behind Panorama hotel. We took the gondola up there, it cost €8 one way (€11 return) We were second in the queue for the secret cafe but the queue goes very slow as only 8 people are allowed in at a time so get there early to get to the front of the queue if you can. They sell sausages, hot chocolate, pancakes, hot juice and marshmallows and prices are reasonable. The views are amazing, the snow was the gorgeous deep, fluffy stuff. Lots of photo opportunities up there. Myself, hubby and oldest kids walked back down the 766 steps and the grandparents took our 4 year back down in the gondola. The walk down was fine, a couple of the steps were slippy but it was mostly ok, not sure the walk up would have been as easy though! On Wednesday we had a walk into the forest to the kota near the frozen lake, this was a lovely place to toast your own marshmallows. (We bought our own sticks from Amazon) We found the price of things expensive in supermarkets and restaurants. We only ate out at the pancake house but it was lovely. Our first trip with Inghams on Thursday was the huskies ride. One adult ‘drives’ with another adult and child sitting inside. If none of the adults want to drive then the guides will drive it for you. It was the 8km husky ride (around 50 minutes) and was lovely, my 4 year old fell asleep towards the end so he must have found it relaxing. We then got to stroke some of the dogs at the kennels. The group was split into two, the first half went on the husky ride while the other half of the group waited in a hut with warm berry juice and a cookie. We were the first group out which I was happy about as the other group went when it was dark so would have been harder to get a good view and take good photos/videos. On Friday we went to Santa’s Elves Hideaway which was our favourite day. There’s an outdoor play area, igloo, cave to explore, Elf school to make Xmas decorations and a place to make gingerbread cookies. There’s a kota where you can get free hot juice & sausages to cook on the fire. Santa was very realistic. He got everything on the letters right and the older boys were left confused as to how he’d actually got their letters with him that they’d posted back in London a few days before. The boys all got a reindeer teddy. Saturday, our final day was the reindeer farm and sleigh ride. This was also lovely, we were able to walk around feeding and touching the reindeer’s, the sleigh ride was a 3km walk around the forest. We then had hot chocolate and cookies and learnt more about the reindeers. Our middle son then had a go on the snowmobiles at the Arctic Circle Snowmobile park, 20 euros for a 10/15mins ride around a track which he enjoyed. Saturday evening we went to the festive gala held at the Crazy Reindeer hotel. The food was buffet style, not the best food but the kids enjoyed the disco and the party games. This was our second time in Lapland, the first time we went to Rovaniemi. We preferred Levi for the older boys because they loved the sledging so much but I like Rovaniemi for the younger kids as we really enjoyed Santa Park & Santa Claus village there last time.