Anyone do the Lapland tour from Helsinki on HAL?

[lemare]

Anyone do the Lapland tour from Helsinki on HAL? Hello fellow cruisers,

My family and I are booked on the HAL Rotterdam for next July. We would love to do the Lapland excursion from Helsinki just to have the experience going to the arctic circle. The price is a bit hefty,($700. PP) and we were wondering if anyone did this tour. Since there are six of us, $4200. seems to be alot of $ for one tour. Was it worth the money or should we plan something else?

Thanks in advance for your advice. LeMare:confused:

[Cruisetrekker]

We did the Lapland tour from the Westerdam last year and throughly enjoyed it ! We flew from Helsinki to Lapand and boarded a canoe for a ride over the Arctic Circle. There we had a champagne toast and ceremony in the middle of the lake. We visited a reindeer farm where we had another ceremony so we could come back in the afterlife as reindeer !

 

After lunch and some local entertainment, we went to Santa's village / post office and had a photo taken with THE MAN himself...:D There you can mail your letters and post cards to arrive at Christmas time.

 

There was a short tour of Helsinki after the flight back....I thought it was a fun day !

 

Here is a link to some photos we took......sorry I did not do captions...

 

http://members4.clubphoto.com/ted315931

 

Click the album cover called Blatic Blast 2

Click "slideshow" button on the left side

[2bout2c]

This was a wonderful tour. I did it off the Rotterdam in 2003. Only 25 people off the ship did this trip. It was the highlight of the 35 day cruise.

[bpjazzer]

Just did the tour off of the Amsterdam last month. Was an awesome tour. Well worth the price. Only had 23 in our group. I agree with 2about2c as it was the highlight of the entire cruise.

[doone]

I am so happy to read so many wonderful reports on this excursion. I am, hopefully, taking the Baltics cruise in 2008 and was wondering if this excursion was worth the money. I am reading here that it is, I have made up my mind to go see them reindeer. Thanks so much.

[Krazy Kruizers]

A few years ago we signed up for that tour. Only 4 others signed up for the tour. Needless to say the excursion was cancelled.

 

We were so disappointed!!

[Krazy Kruizers]

A few years ago we signed up for that tour. Only 4 others signed up for the tour. Needless to say the excursion was cancelled.

 

We were so disappointed!!

[lemare]

Thank you all so much for the info and the pictures! It looks like it was a fun trip, and I believe we'll give it a try next year. I'd love to hear about any of the other things you did in the Baltics. Thanks again to all. LEMAre

[lindaa]

We also did this tour last year on the Westerdam and must say it was the highlight of the Baltic cruise. After days of churches and cathedrals, it was wonderful to go into the beautiful countryside. The flight was on a large jet with no problems. The Lapland people were very friendly and the day went by way too fast. Meeting the real Santa was terrific.

 

Where it is pricey, we would do it again in a moment's notice.

[Cruisetrekker]

There was 17 people on this tour from the ship ( 9 of them were with the group we were travelling with)

 

Photo with Santa was included with the price by the way ...

 

There are more Baltic pictures in the Baltic Blast 1 album too if you care to see what else we did. See my link above .....^

 

One other fun thing was Legoland in Denmark. Many people told me this was just for kids. I am glad I found out about it myself instead of listening. The lego minitures were wonderful !