• last month
A mum says her family had the "Hollywood Christmas movie" experience in Lapland on a £1.7k budget - saving £19k - by taking hand luggage only and eating McDonald's.

Emily McColgan-Upfold, 31, saw other families online visiting the festive region and wondered if she’d be able to do it for a fraction of the price.

She forked out £1.7k for the three day trip - but says it typically costs a family-of-three £20k - so believes she saved £19k.

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😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00Do you want to go to Lapland but you also don't want to pay 5k for a weekend?
00:04Well let me show you how I managed to get us a weekend in Lapland for under
00:08£2,000 and that included all of our spending money
00:12and our snow gear. Last year we were quoted over
00:15£3,000 for just flights and accommodation
00:18and I thought there is absolutely no way on hell I am paying that for
00:23two nights in Robin Emi. I'm going to get this cheaper and I did!
00:27We were flying from Dublin and that meant our flights were slightly more
00:29expensive than if you live in England. They cost us £929, now that
00:35included our seats and our travel insurance.
00:37Next up was our hotel, we decided to stay in Santa Claus Hotel which is in the
00:41city centre of Robin Emi and this cost us £371 including
00:45breakfast. We had a few bits and pieces to get for snow gear and spent around
00:48£100 on this buying things second hand. Check out any
00:52Lapland buy and sell Facebook groups, you will get lots of bargains on there.
00:57Our taxis from the airport to the city centre and back
01:01plus from the city centre to Santa Claus village cost us £100
01:06and we spent around £200 on lunch and dinner
01:10as we did bring some snacks with us. Next up were the activities that we did. Now we
01:15spent most of our time in the Santa Claus village which is actually free to
01:18enter, you just pay for the activities and
01:20excursions that you want to do. Of course we had to meet Santa and
01:24whilst it is free to do, if you do want to get the photos and things it will
01:28cost you money and that cost £40. Then we wanted to do a husky safari,
01:33that was our number one thing on our list. This cost us £110
01:38at the husky park, that included meet and greets with the
01:41huskies, our entry into the park and our safari. We then went to Elf's
01:47farmyard where we got to feed the reindeer and this cost us £50.
01:52We also went to elf school, now I don't really recommend this, my son did
01:57love it but it was very expensive for what it was, it was £106.
02:02The last thing we did was send some postcards from Santa's post office,
02:05this cost us £11. So instead of spending over £3,000 on just flights
02:09and a hotel, we spent a grand total of £1,917
02:13all in for a weekend in Lapland.
03:13you

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