Lapland UK (Kent) Review

We felt this was a bit of a rip off even though we bought the 2 for 1 "offer" so effectively half normal price. My wife and I attended Lapland UK with our 5 year old twins and a 4 month old baby.

We found lots of niggly problems with the site. For starters, we felt it wasn ' t baby friendly at all and there was a distinct lack of changing and feeding areas whilst on the initial elves tour. Incredibly, there were no children's level toilet facilities! My 5 year old twins couldn't reach the urinals, soap or taps, we had to lift them up to help them use the facilities and wash their hands. As this site is presumably aimed primarily at 4 to 7 year olds this is a major oversight on behalf of Lapland UK management.

The tour seemed to start off OK, but deteriorated as the tour progressed. The toy workshop, we felt, lacked atmosphere and authenticity, they could have had more toys around the room and noises in the background to sound like a workshop or factory. The paths around the site were complete mud baths. This could have easily been rectified using some gravel or simple water drainage channels. The reindeers looked caged in and not very happy. Our kids asked why Rudolf didn ' t have a red nose.

We were particularly disappointed by the fact that they would not allow us to take photos of Santa and our kids but instead you could have a "professional" photo taken on an ordinary little digital camera behind a piece of wood; smallest picture was £10, they could have emailed it to you for next to nothing.

To quote from their website regarding additional charging:

' For this reason the experience must be uncommercialised - just as children imagine Father Christmas' homeland to be. The child's spell would be broken if he were to see his parents paying for the activities available at LaplandUK. '

Really!! So why does the path from Santa ' s shed lead you straight out into the Lapland shop full of commercial items and the photo counter.

There were no hot drinks available with the meal only kids ' ribena ' at the table, however they charge extra for tea & coffee (surely they could throw in a bit of hot water and a tea bag for £360 per family!!!). Nope I ' m afraid that little magical spell has to be broken once again as the disappointed children watch their parents reach for the money once again. The meals were not child friendly and served in silly little aperitif sized pots making it impossible to cut up for kids. You are only allocated half an hour to queue up, eat and take the children for that inevitable trip to those awkward adult level toilets immediately after eating!! If you don't get back to your group within half hour you could miss your slot with Santa.

The "Elves" (local students dressed up) were standing around chatting about their weekend.
Presents were advertised as being worth £20 (which for a family of five implies 5 tickets would entitle you to £100 worth of presents), we received a cuddly toy (husky dog) for each child!! Even though the adults have to pay the full ticket price to accompany their kids, only one present between all the adults is handed out. A storybook!

Give this place a wide berth you could take the family to Legoland 4 times for the normal price of this!!!!

Next year we will be attending our local garden centre experience which we feel offers a far superior experience at a fraction of the cost.

I felt like a proper donkey, £165 lighter, on the way out of this place ee or ee or ee or!