We have slowly been doing some planning for this trip, probably not as quickly as we should be. Most of the planning effort has been spent on the the pre-cruise time in Finland. We have not really done much for the post-cruise time in London, other than to verify the address of where we will be staying with Stephanie’s cousin and his wife. We now know that they reside in an area near what is called the Battlesea Power Station, which is a historical landmark in London. This will allow us to begin understanding how we might get around to some of the sights we want to visit. There has not been any additional planning for the cruise itself, that is pretty well set now that we have our reserves independent excursions, as well as a few included Viking excursions.
Adding the pre-cruise side trip to Finland has required a little more effort than we initially thought. Making our reservation at the Apukka Resort was fairly easy, there were not a lot of choices since we were so close to the trip departure when we started this whole effort. Once we decided to go the day early and stay in Helsinki, this also made things a little easier once those reservations were made.
We have been dealing with another Delta change to our flights, there was a slight adjustment for the return trip from London, but it was insignificant. The bigger change was to the aircraft for our flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam. After going through all of the effort for the Comfort + seats for that flight, our seat assignments were changed. We had specifically chosen not to sit in the first row at the bulkhead, it is too much effort to seal with the retractable entertainment screen and the retractable lap tray in those seats since we don’t have a seat back in front of us for those items. Plus, there is no under-seat storage.
I just happened to look at the seat assignments online at Delta and noticed we were now in the first row. I immediately started a chat session to see why we had been changed. I had an inkling it was a different aircraft, there were now only three rows of Comfort+ seats in this section, I knew there had been more when I had made the reservation changes a few days before.
This was confirmed by the agent on the chat, and there was nothing we could do, all of the other side seats were taken. I wondered if someone in the seats farther back had been moved to economy, who knows what the priority is for reducing the passengers that have the better seats when a change in aircraft is made. I guess it could have been worse, maybe we would have been moved altogether. I will continue to monitor seat availability periodically, one never knows if something might come open, but the chances are slim when there are so few Comfort+ seats available on this aircraft configuration.
We still have not figured out what activities we might do in Rovaniemi. Stephanie wants to go on a reindeer sleigh ride, we just need to figure out when and where and make a reservation. We were also looking at going on a dig sled ride somewhere, either on the cruise at one of the stops, or in Finland. Cost may definitely be a factor, some of the pricing for dog sledding at the port stops was outrageous.
We did join a Facebook group for Rovaniemi, and it has been interesting to read some of the comments. Apparently, it is a really popular place to visit for European families during the December holidays, especially for the Christmas-New Year season. And why not, there is a place called Santa Clause Village. The majority of the posted comments are about the lack of snowfall that has happened so far this winter. Most people want more snow and many of the activities require snow such as dog sledding, and reindeer rides, as well as snowmobiling, and as a result of the lack of snow, many are being canceled. It seems like many of the people going there for the holidays are from the United Kingdom, and are all using a company called TUI for their reservations. Many are complaining that they had “no snow-no go” guarantees from TUI, and the company is not fulfilling that guaranteed.
It is also interesting to read about people’s opinions on visiting Rovaniemi itself, it is apparently a little but of a touristy spot, and extremely crowded during the holidays. Hopefully, by the time we get there the third week of January, the crowds will be less. We may have picked a less touristy place to visit had we known what we know now, but our reservations are not cancellable, so we are going no matter what.
One big area of discussion in the Facebook group has been around Taxis and how many of the taxis are not “official” and are ripping people off for rides. There are official taxi companies as well ad Uber and another rideshare service called Bolt, which is supposed to be less costly than Uber, which has just recently been introduced in Finland, maybe in the last year or so.
After reading about the difficulty of getting rides and the costs, we decided to rent a car, which many people recommend. However, there was some consternation about the weather and road conditions, but after reading several online posts about driving in the area, we opted to go with the car rental so we could be more independent. Most of the roads in and around Rovaniemi are kept clear, and the cars are all required to have snow tires with spikes. It should not be any worse than the driving I did in Colorado and Utah for many years on ski trips, there were some bad driving conditions there at times due to storms, and just going slow and staying aware of conditions is a requirement.
We were able to rent a car at the Rovaniemi Train Station when we arrive in the morning and then return it to the Rovaniemi Airport when we fly out, so that made it easier. The only downside was having to rent for an extra day to cover the three-hour difference in the early arrival time on our train at 7:20 AM, and the need to keep the car for the drive to the airport to leave at there at 1:00 PM, there was no a good solution, we either had to wait at the train station for 2-3 hours before we rented the car, or arrive at the airport 2-3 hours early and wait on our flight to avoid the extra day of rental. If the car rental was not so expensive, it would not be an issue, but the cost is over $100 per day, so that is an expensive three hours.
We looked ad several rental companies and at several third-party rental agencies like Booking.com and Kayak, as well as AutoEurope. The prices varied great, and most of the differences were for the additional insurance coverages. Insurnce through the rental car companies direct was pretty expensive, but getting a policy through a third party was fraught with potential problems. Most of these third-party policies had significant deductibles and they were basically reimbursement policies, meaning we had to pay upfront for any damage and then file a claim, that never goes well, there are too many loopholes to getting reimbursed.
In the end, we opted to rent from a company called Green Motion, they were one of the companies Booking.com used, and they had great reviews. We are paying a little more, but we also got a zero deductible policy from them directly as part of the cost, and it came with a few other perks, like a free additional driver and the ability to cancel within 48 hours before our arrival, all of which were additional costs at the rental car brokers. Knowing we were driving in winter weather just made us feel like that increased our chances of an issue with car damage, and with a zero deductible coverage, there is no issue when we return the car, it is all covered anyway.
This will just give us more flexibility, we can venture out to other places if the weather is good, and not be constrained to eating at the Apukka Resort’s expensive restaurants. We can also go to the grocery store near the train station the morning we arrive and stock up on snacks and beverages.
On another note, we have purchased some additional merino wool base layers, these used to be called “long underwear” in the past, but “base layer” seems more technical. We purchased the heaviest weight available to go with our previously purchased light and medium weight base layers. We are also opting to take our Viking Antarctic Coats with us for our outer layer, we don’t really have any other winter coats, and these should be fine. We have purchased warm snow boots from Baffin, as well as some pricey mittens. Now, we only need to purchase some good wool ski hats and balaclava face coverings.
Hopefully, we will make the reservations this week for the outdoor activities we want to do.
The last effort will be determining the post-cruise places we want to visit I London while we are there.
Leave a Reply