Lapland Safaris North / Lapland Safaris Saariselkä — Local services in Northern Lapland

Absolutely recommended! We did three of their trips in mid March 2018, and had a blast! First we tried the „Reindeer Safari“, a 2hr program where you first get to meet reindeers, do a 50min trip on vintage sleighs out into the snowcovered landscape (like a trek, about 10 sleighs in a row), then get a tour through a typical vintage Saami village, and then enjoy a tea break by the fireplace in the warm and modern wooden roundhouse. A great Lappish experience, especially with kids or for the romantic ones!

Then we were off for a „Icefishing Experience“, a 4h program, where you drive off to one of the many lakes around Saariselkä on snowmobiles (pricing is for shared/2pax per mobile; an additional 45EUR makes you a solo driver), then learn how to drill a hole into the lake‘s icecap and how to handle the fishing rod, and then it‘s up to luck and skills what‘s for lunch: if you are not successful, your friendly guide has tea/coffee, sausages and gingerbread cookies ready by the campfire in a tipi. Lucky fishermen may roast their prey on the campfire grill. We were on the tour with Tomi, a great local with incredible knowledge about icefishing and outdoor cooking. Five star tour and guide! Only advice: If you are into fast snowmobile driving, this may not be your preferred tour. Depending on the group, you may have slow drivers, and breaking off the group for individual fun is not allowed.

So we did a third tour, „Driver‘s Dream“, a 3h full throttle snowmobile excursion for the fast and the furious. Solo drive is included in the price, and you‘ll do a lot of track and see a lot of cool places. We did 84km in 3h with only short photostops, were allowed to „chiptune“ our mobiles into sport mode, and had incredible fun, doing high speed runs on frozen Ivalojoki river, learning a lot about different handling in various snow depths, and driving all kinds of tracks, between easy and demanding, drove to several great viewpoints on „tunturis“ (hills), and were treated to hot berry juice and gingerbread cookies mid-run. Our guide Hugo was awesome, a great guy who perfectly catches your driving desires, teaches you a lot about the snowmobiles and lets you try and do about everything the company procedures allow :-) Here as well: five star tour and guide! Advice: Try to catch a small, fast group, and it will be the snowmobile adventure of your life. Awesome. Breathtaking. More pleeeeeze!! Yayyy!!!

We both work in the service sector, and have to admit: there‘s barely anything this company could do any better! Perfect organisation, perfect material (from outfits up to machines), perfect admin/office people and guides!

We‘ll be back....

I'm almost a little sorry to leave such a bad review, but in the end Lapland Safaris is the provider of this tour and therefore responsible.

This tour should have been a highlight of our holiday and was a big disappointment instead.

First the positive: The guides were good (especially Max was nice, funny and he definitely knows how to ride a snowmobile). We were warmly welcomed and equipped with warm clothes. Also the introduction to the snowmobiles was good. The guides always tried to spread a pleasant atmosphere. The small lunch at the campfire was really nice, especially the stories and background information of the guides were really interesting.

And now the negative aspects: Ice fishing came a bit short, but this was probably due to the late arrival of our group at the lake. in our group of 6 snowmobiles (+ 2 guides) there was a team that was extremely slow (slow does not mean "not fast", but really slow - max. 10 kmh, most of the time even only 5 kmh). The whole group had to adapt to this speed and so the tour lasted until 15.40 instead of 13 o'clock. It was so disappointing and no fun at all.

As I said before, I'm almost sorry for this rating, as Lapland Safaris can't help it if people who are frightened and should have stayed at home were taking part in the tour. However, this problem was already noticeable shortly after departure. Each participant had to pay a lot of money for such a special experience - it simply can't be that due to one or two individuals the entire event is delayed that much. For us it was not only boring and disappointing, but also almost a torment because after such a long time the provided clothes couldn't help against the bitter cold. So although it was not the fault of Lapland Safaris directly, in my opinion they have to make sure that everyone is having a nice and fun experience. And today, that was definitely...

**i could not add another review, so I'm changing this one. First I was on Sunday with a group with millennium tours company . I tried the husky and the snow mobile with you The snow mobile was amazing. The guide were awesome and very polite I would give them 5 stars for the snow mobile

Why for the husky dogs ,If I could give them less than 1 star , I would do it without thinking twice. They gave us 5 dogs in the husky sleigh 3 of them had broken legs, and the dogs did not move at all . I literallybegged them to move ( probably because they were tired ), but again, it is not my problem that they are tired, I paid, so I expect to get The guide was rude .when I pointed out that the dogs are not moving, he body-shamed me , yelled at me, talked with a high tone and threatened me more that once that (and a quot) " one more word and I will through you out and make you walk to the beginning" At that point, I lost it and started yelling at him after all of that , in the stop after he said to me " it is not your weight, it's global warming." Then, when we finished that tour, he denied EVERYTHING he just said It was a dream of mine to live the experience of husky sleigh since my childhood. However, unfortunately, it was that worst experience in Lapland Thank you, husky dogs crew, especially you in saariselka ,for the worst customer service that includes body-shamed...