Santa’s Lapland cancels December trips
Santa break specialist, Santa’s Lapland, has cancelled all December 2020 trips following concerns that increasing COVID-19 safety measures and travel restrictions would ‘take too much away from the magic of the experience’.
Paul Carter, CEO of the parent company Hotelplan, said there were a number of conditions in place in order to operate the trips to Lapland which weren’t easy to overcome.
"It is with great sadness, that we have regretfully made the extremely difficult decision to suspend all trips to Santa’s Lapland in December 2020," he said.
"We know that this will come as an enormous disappointment to our customers, therefore it is not a decision we have taken lightly.
"Despite tremendous efforts by our partners in Finland to find a way to allow travel to Lapland to go ahead this December, there are still a number of conditions in place, which are not easily overcome.
"Above all, we know a trip to see Santa is a once in a lifetime experience and we want to ensure that it’s as magical as our customers expect it to be. Over the past few months, we’ve been continually reviewing what the Santa experience will look like for families this year and listening to our customer’s concerns.
"Our top priority has always been to keep everyone safe and in order to do this, we would have to make some changes to the holiday experience. We felt that those changes would impact too much on the magical experience."
Customers who have already booked have the option to delay until next year or receive a refund.
While 2020 physical trips will no longer go ahead, Santa’s Lapland are offering families a 10-minute video call, in which ‘an Elf leads the family through the snow and gets up-close with a reindeer, before going live to Santa’s cabin for a personalised meeting with Santa himself’.
The personalised ‘Santa, Live from Lapland’ video call experience will be available for up to four children and costs from £85 per family.
Booking will open from early November, but families can pre-register now for priority booking on the Santa’s Lapland website.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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