Canterbury Travel 44 High Street, Northwood HA6 1BL

"We booked a slot to see Santa at 3.30 pm. We kep bring asked to wait for 10ins then one of the staff said we might not get to see Santa. Our 2 8 year olds were upset. They had stood waiting in the cold for 2 hours. Not the experience we wanted for them Wouldn't do it again. Lack of organisation and lack of communication between staff wouldn't recommend this trip or the company"

"Absolutely brilliant trip to Lusoto with Canterbury Travel. Magical country and such a lovely quiet area to be based in. We had a log cabin which was very spacious and a short walk to the shops and restaurants. Food was lovely, some bits better than others but nothing “bad”. Our guides Karl and Caitlin were fantastic and kept the kids entertained and engaged. Activities were great especially with reindeer ride through the snow and trees. The visit to Santa to was great as the kids didn’t expect it at that time. All in all it was a perfect Lapland trip and highly recommended. Yes it is expensive but very much a once in a lifetime experience."

"We paid for a 3 day break with Canterbury Travels to Lapland (the Majestic Lapland package), if you're planning on booking a Lapland trip with Canterbury travels I'd strongly recommend you read the below, as the marketing material we had read prior to the trip did not prepare us for it! Keep in mind that this is a 3 day package coach holiday and the whole "holiday" is based around a tightly run schedule with a group of approx. 50 people/20 families, who you'll be with for the whole 2-3 days. I say this because it was a surprise to us and a lot of families on the tour, who were understandably expecting something a little more bespoke, considering the huge amount of money they had forked out. There were many frustrating situations over the three days, but below are the main ones. I set this out to help manage your expectations, so hopefully your experience will not be as disappointing or maybe you're able to find a travel company that offers an experience which doesn't feel like you're on a production line. 1) Accommodation The accommodation we were allocated was really poor. The bathroom was akin to something you’d see in cheap student accommodation. There were random bits of furniture/objects that had not been tidied away. Some of the draws had books/magazines in and there was hardly any wardrobe space to hang clothes. To sum up, it was the sort of accommodation you would expect if you were backpacking and paying $50 a night . We were assigned better accommodation on the second night, which was more in line with what I would expect, however it was obviously irritating and stressful that we had to unpack and pack twice. Speaking to other parents on the tour there seemed to be a huge difference in the quality of accommodation, despite paying the same price. When you’re paying this sort of money it's not reasonable to have “luck of the draw” in terms of the accommodation quality. 2) Food The food was very basic and no different to school dinners. I was assured that the restaurant we had been assigned was very good and they had never received negative feedback, which I find hard to believe. Again not what you expect when your paying this sort of money. As a result of the bad food, we paid to eat at a different restaurant for the remaining nights and had breakfast in our cabin! 3) The pace of the tour and the activities Our guide, was amazing and did a great job at managing an incredibly challenging schedule. The Huskies, reindeer, meeting santa and story time at the Elf house were great and the kids enjoyed these activities. I have two complaints around the activities: 1) There was far too much packed into day 1. We started at 8:50am on day 1 (6:50 am GMT) and finished at 5:30. We didn’t have lunch until 2pm so we had cold, hungry kids, who were absolutely exhausted by the end of it. The second day still had a really early start (08:30/06:30 GMT) but finished at 2:30. 2) A number of the activities felt like we were just playing for time - in a holding pattern – snowball fight and tag in a car park? The skidooing was also really disappointing, literally got to do one figure of 8, which lasted 1 minute, then back on the coach. The last two activities of Day 2 were also disappointing/pointless – another game of tag and pathetic catapults and then tobogganing down a tiny slope (the paths in the resort were better), with a ditch either side (making it slightly dangerous), queuing for 15 mins and managed by a really grumpy "elf". Overall, given the money we had spent, the activities did not feel up to standard. In addition it felt like Canterbury Travels had overbooked/had far too many coach groups to manage and as a result everyone suffered by having the activities unevenly spread over the two days and not in a logical order. This was typified when we were given the final clue to find santa, after we had met santa!"

"Amazing holiday to Luosto Finland, well organised, great customer service despite changing COVID rules. Reps couldn’t be more helpful. Log cabins were comfy and clean. Hotel food (we booked half board) was good and only one night our fussy daughter didn’t like options available."

"Absolutely amazing time with Canterbury Travel. Every person and Elf were just perfect! We did the 4 day at Luosto and everything was done to such a high level of perfection. It wasn't crowded, the food was delish, the activities were amazing, the elves and special elves went above and beyond. I would highly recommend this company to help find Santa, thank you to everyone who made our holiday a lifelong memory."