Christmas at Luosto with Canterbury Travel Reviews

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The credit crunch has caused Canterbury Travel to cut costs everywhere, but not their price to the customer. I worked for Canterbury travel for the past 2 christmasses, but not the upcoming one. The first year they had the correct number of staff to ensure that each customer was dealt with in a way that is befitting a top end company. But last year changed my opinion of the company. When I was out there the staff conditions had deteriorated drastically from the previous year. Now the staff meals were the previous day's customer left-overs, the staff accommodation also served a secondary purpose during the day as a customer dining hall and the number of staff had been cut by half (with everyone now expected to "chip in" and do extra jobs). After complaints about the food and accommodation, i was informed that canterbury travel were only expected to provide a meal and accomodation. Left overs counted as a meal, and as long as we could sleep and keep our clothes somewhere the accommodation could have been anything too. So i pointed out that MY contract was as an entertainer in the evenings and my contract was for 1 hour show every night, so cleaning, driving, delivering things etc etc was not in my contract and so they could find someone else.
But i'm a nice chap, and because of this I still ended up doing things that the previous year would have had a specific staff member accocated. I did them because i can't bear to see the upset faces of the kids and the disappointment from the parents. I went out of my way to fix customer's problems and to prevent other problems from occuring. Some of these problems were beyond my ability to fix (lost luggage, wrong accommodation, ill child) but sometimes just listening to a grievence can make a person feel like they are being cared for. Whenever I could I tried to make things work for the customers, as i realise that this is supposed to be a magical trip with memories that they will cherish for a lifetime.

This year Canterbury Travel have decided not to hire me because i'm "not what they're looking for". Basically i'm not a push over and i will stand up for myself if someone tries to take advantage of me.

However, i realise that this is a place for customers to air their problems as apposed to ex-staff. I feel I should point out that the number of problems i have read on here don't come close to scratching the surface. Canterbury travel market themselves as the premium product, but they're just an own brand with a big price tag. What you see as a once in a lifetime oppourtunity to visit lapland and see santa, canterbury travel see as an oppourtunity to take as much of your money as possible.

I implore you to not book a trip with canterbury travel, and to instead use a different company. If it's a once in a lifetime trip, then why risk using canterbury travel?

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do not book a holiday with canterbury travel. they are only interested in taking your money and have no customer service. any complaints are dealt with arrogantly and they will not accept any criticism. the santa we saw was terrible - it was not magical - do not waste your money on this company. please take my advice and look elsewhere for a lapland holiday.

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We paid a lot of money to look for Santa and find him on Christmas day but it was such an anticlimax and unfortunately our son wasn't fooled! Everything else was good but the whole point of this trip was to find the 'real' Santa.......there was no magical feeling to the meeting and that made us really sad.

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If you go to lapland you need to take into account you are in another country and they eat, sleep and work in different ways. But to us we embraced this and enjoyed every minute. We got married in Luosto and Canterbury organised everything, and it was fantastic a real winter wonderland.We went as a couple with no guests or even children, and we still got into the whole atmosphere (afterall it is for children really). We found the whole experience breath taking.Highly recommend.

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It was so well organized, never had to wait for anything. So much packed intothe 3 days we were there. Christmas at Luosto was the holiday of a lifetime. Remember to keep secret from those little ones that haven't been.

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We went on 'Arctic express' 2 day tour staying in Luosto in a log cabin which was lovely - comfy beds, really cosy with a 20 min walk to hotel. Our guide was friendly with good english and we didn't encounter any problems. Enjoyed activities and met Santa, which was great. It was fairly mild, but cold to us - we took lots of layers,good quality ski gloves and socks. Hired overgarments and boots, were more than adequate. Would recommend Canterbury, but not neces ...

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Centerbury Travel have no interest in customer service. They will not discuss any complaint over the phone and are dismissive of any issues raised. I wouldn't recommend this company to anyone.