Aston R
We stayed in Luosto with Canterbury Travel on their ‘Winter Interlude’ package holiday.||||The 3-hour chartered flights to and from Lapland from Gatwick with Jet2 were basic but the friendly and accommodating cabin crew made the journey memorable and pleasant.||||On arrival in Luosto the Canterbury Travel reps (“stars” as they are called) take control of your stay taking you from the airport to the Lusto resort and chaperoning you between activities. Unfortunately the calibre of our rep was anything but star worthy.||||Within an hour of meeting our “star”, on the coach journey to the resort, they fell over on the bus full of families and young children and shouted out ‘For F**k Sake’. Clearly an accident and an error but certainly not an appropriate start to our once in a lifetime journey to find Father Christmas.||||This poor start was only exacerbated by the coach journey (that should have taken 1.5hours) being unexplainably delayed to over 3 hours arriving at Lusto extremely late in the evening. We were so late that the “star” rep did not have time to provide any explanation of the resort layout, no directions on how to get from accommodation to dining facilities and leaving guests in complete confusion and to their own devices as how to find an evening meal.||||After a half hour trek through Lusto at night with no clear signposts or guidance we eventually found a restaurant - by this time we and our children were exhausted, freezing and starving! The food on offer was unfortunately nothing to write home about and did little to satisfy our appetite.||||For dinner buffet style restaurant offered one meal option for adults (typically a very poor soup, a meat eg turkey, pork or beef alongside a small salad, roast potatoes and unappetising vegetable medley) and one meal option for children (ALWAYS chicken nuggets and chips) and for desert was always a dry cake that tasted like bread.||||For breakfast the restaurant offered a buffet of dry croissants, greasy bacon, heavily spiced sausage, tasteless instant scrambled egg, baked beans and toast.||||The only beverage options were water, syrup squash drinks eg orange or apple, coffee or tea. There was very little fresh fruit or vegetables and what were offered were poor quality. The adult meal was “acceptable” but to constantly offer chicken nuggets and chips to children with no other option or verity was unhealthy and poor quality.||||The lodge accommodation in which we stayed was tired, shabby, in need of modernisation. There was no bathroom, one WC with basin and a separate very old shower in a communal drying area where you were expected to also dry you clothing and simultaneously have a shower?||||The lodge was cold and not sufficiently warm to prevent discomfort. To try to overcome this we lit a fire in the open hearth, but the fireplace did not seem to have been suitably cleaned / maintained and the lodge simply filled with smoke (this was despite following lodge instructions to open a fire vent before igniting the fire). Eventually we worked out how to overcome the covers on top of all radiators and manually adjusted all thermostats to a higher setting.||||The trips undertaken were acceptable, but some did not meet the quality expected. The reindeer ride, dog sledding and skidoo ride were all good but very short and children’s entertainment seemed to be an afterthought for these more adult orientated activities. A snow based tug-o-war and sports games seemed to be a total afterthought and poorly planned with even the “star” rep and elf helpers getting visibly bored and giving up on activities. Visiting Santa’s post office was ‘ok’ but it was essentially looking at a shed from the outside with no experience of going into a post room or seeing Santas letters.||||The most highly anticipated event of all was obviously meeting Santa. Whilst the kids enjoyed the experience and truly believed they had met Santa, our adults perspective was less impressed. We essentially visited a domestic property and met a dress up Santa in a downstairs room, no real effort to find a grotto style environment to make the experience magical. And the time with Santa was EXTREMELY short. For our two children we must have spoken to him for all of 10minutes before being pushed out for the next customer.||||The most enjoyable experience was meeting Mrs Claus and some of her elf’s in a secluded lodge in the Forrest. All the children in the group were entertained by the elf’s and Mrs Clause gave attention to each of the children with cookies, stories, interactive play and photos afterwards. This is what all of the experience should have been like, but unfortunately this level of quality and magic was not present in other activities.||||At the end of our stay the “star” reps hosted a party. Considering this is a children orientated holiday I cannot understand why this party was set for 9:30pm. My only guess is that this is more a party for the reps to blow off some steam at the end of a busy week than to give the guests and children a memorable farewell party.||||On our day of departure our trip was really set off by the “star” rep locking us in our lodge for over an hour. There was no means for our family to escape as all doors and windows are fully locked with no means of opening them. No means of contacting the “star” rep or any other member of the in resort team was provided. The only way we could escape was by using roaming charges to email Canterbury’s generic UK email account and waiting until someone came to save us. We were about 15minutes. From throwing a chair through a window in order to escape then the “star” rep returned to the lodge stating the whole situation had been our own fault for shutting our front door after she had taken all the keys. No apology was offered.||||It is my opinion that having a lodge that could trap people inside int his way is a serious health and safety issue. In a small timber lodge where children are sleeping in a room with completely sealed and locked windows and an open fireplace in the other room with an oil fires p boiler and old electrics I fear it is only a matter of time before there is a serious fire hazard and young children are out at SERIOUS risk with no means of safe escape.||||Our return coach trip to the airport that should have taken 1.5hours took over 5 hours! To slay the distraction of all on board the “star” rep decided to play a movie on the coache’s overheat TB screen. Considering the age of children on the coach ranged from 3 and up with most being about 5/8 years of age the “star” reps selection of a movie only suitable for 13+years of age was unwelcome. Despite some comments being made the rep didn’t see fit to stop playing the movie they left some younger children scared and traumatised.||||Our final memories of Lusto were a heaving airport, exceptionally long queues, overburdened facilities and exasperated adults and children alike.||||All in all, Lusto and Lapland is a majestic and beautiful country well worth a visit, but Canturbury Travel have not provided the quality expected, especially for the price tag. My advice do some research and maybe go with another operator.
