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LaplandUK announces exact time and date 2026 tickets will drop

IT MIGHT be super early to start thinking about Christmas but it is that time of year again where LaplandUK tickets drop soon.

LaplandUK has announced that tickets to its sought-after festive experience will be released later this month on March 27 at 10am.

LaplandUK tickets will be released on March 27Credit: LaplandUK
Last year, 750,000 people joined the waiting roomCredit: LaplandUK

The high-demand tickets usually sell out within a few hours after launch and this year is expected to be the same with the newer £30million Manchester LaplandUK experience running for its second time.

Similar to the rush for Glastonbury but for Christmas, LaplandUK is predicting that over one million people want to get tickets.

Last year, 350,000 tickets were available and before the tickets were released, over 750,000 people were waiting in the virtual queue online.

This year, LaplandUK will run from November 7 to December 24, with tickets costing between £60 and £195.

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On March 27, guests will be able to enter the virtual waiting room at 9am, via LaplandUK’s ticketing platform.

Each guest will then need to select their preferred venue – Ascot or Manchester.

At 10am, when tickets are released, each guest will be allocated a random place in the queue for the venue they have selected.

Once they reach position one in the queue, they will be able to select the number of tickets they want and the date they wish to visit.

Kerrie Thomas, 47, from South Wales said: “This year will be our 25th visit.

“The adrenaline of getting tickets to LaplandUK is literally like trying to get tickets to Glastonbury or Adele.

“We have everything ready before the sale opens, and get friends and family involved too.

“It really is worth it to see my daughter’s face when she steps into LaplandUK, it is just so magical.

“It has become an unmissable Christmas tradition in our household.”

Once guests purchase their tickets, they will be sent a personalised invitation.

Guests can join the online waiting room this year at 9am and then will be assigned a queue position at 10amCredit: LaplandUK
This year will be the second year the Manchester experience is openCredit: LaplandUK

Then, when it comes to the day of visiting, families will get to explore a snow-filled world with Elves, a frozen pond for skating and a Toy Factory.

Around the experience there will also be smells of the Lapland Bakery and the glistening of twinkling lights.

When guests arrive they will venture through “secret portals in the Whispering Woods of the UK and follow magical pathways to arrive in Lapland”.

The experience also includes performances and interactive activities such as helping out the Elves in the Toy Factory to make a toy to pop in Father Christmas’ Sleigh.

And of course, each child gets a special moment with Santa himself, who will give them a gift to take home and another surprise for Christmas Day – the specific toy they created in the Lapland Toy Factory.

To find out what it is like to visit LaplandUK, one Sun reporter visited the new experience in Manchester last year.

Plus, a mum has shared her top Lapland UK tips, including how to save money and the best areas to go to.

Tickets cost from £60 per personCredit: LaplandUK

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The best time of day to book flights down to the exact MINUTE

HOLIDAY prices move constantly. Most people know that.

But only a few realise just how much the time of day you book can influence what you pay.

Holiday expert Rob Brooks has taken a deep dive into data to find the ultimate booking timeCredit: Rob Brooks

I work in travel and spend a large part of my job analysing pricing data, and recently, I wanted to understand how big the swing really is across a single day.

Not just the cheapest day of the week, but the cheapest hour, and even the cheapest minute.

The results were clearer (and way more dramatic) than I expected.

When is the most expensive time to book?

The data shows that the most expensive time of day to book a holiday is between 9am and 10am.

Bookings made in that window came in at around 30 per cent more expensive than the cheapest time of day, according to the data.

There is a straightforward reason for this: it’s when demand spikes.

People arrive at work, open their laptops and start browsing.

Search volumes increase, airline pricing systems respond, and fares begin to rise. Then, package holiday prices follow the same pattern.

In simple terms, booking your summer break with your first coffee of the day is statistically one of the pricier moments to do it.

When is the cheapest hour to book?

At the other end of the scale, the cheapest time to book is consistently between 4am and 5am.

Overnight, demand drops off. Fewer searches mean less upward pressure on prices.

Airline systems effectively reset after the previous day’s activity, and fares often return closer to their baseline before building again through the morning.

It’s not a secret loophole. It’s simply supply and demand working in your favour while most of the country is asleep.

Is there a more realistic option?

Of course, most people are not setting alarms for 4am to book a holiday.

So I looked specifically at sociable hours.

If you are booking in the late evening, roughly 8pm to 10pm, prices were on average around 5 per cent cheaper than during the 9am to 10am rush for the same holiday.

Five per cent may not sound dramatic, but on a £2,000 family holiday that equates to around £100.

That is a tangible difference for many households – mine included.

Rob found a 24% price increase in just a few hours on a stay at Turkey’s Catty Cats Garden HotelCredit: On the Beach

When is the exact cheapest minute?

Out of curiosity, I pushed into the data further and examined booking times by the minute.

Consistently, the single cheapest minute recorded was 2:48am.

At that exact point, bookings were around 60 per cent cheaper than the most expensive time of day in the data sample.

Now – reality check time. Booking at 2:48am does not mean every holiday will magically be 60 per cent cheaper.

Pricing is influenced by many factors, including availability and route demand.

However, it illustrates just how wide the gap can be between peak and off-peak booking behaviour.

Rob tested hotel rates throughout the day to find the exact moment that prices dropCredit: Rob Brooks

Testing it in real time

Data is one thing. I wanted to see it happen on screen. So I tested two different package holidays.

First, I checked Catty Cats Garden Hotel in Turkey at 2:47am. It was pricing at £133 per person.

Later that same morning, at 11:36am, the exact same hotel and dates were pricing from £165 per person.

That is roughly a 24 per cent increase in a few hours.

Then I repeated the test with a completely different deal – Mahdia Beach & Aqua Park in Tunisia.

At 2:48am, it was pricing from £130 per person. When I checked again at 11:46am, it had risen to £143 per person.

Again, same hotel, same dates. The only thing that changed was the time of day. Early hours versus late morning – identical searches but different prices.

It is a simple demonstration of how sensitive holiday pricing can be to demand levels throughout the day.

What this means for sunseekers

I want to be clear: I’m not encouraging everyone to live like an insomniac just to save a few pounds. But the broader trend is consistent.

Peak browsing hours tend to coincide with higher prices. Quieter periods – particularly early morning and late evening – often offer better value.

If you want a practical takeaway: avoid the 9am to 10am window if you can. Consider booking later in the evening instead.

And if you do happen to wake up at 4am and find yourself scrolling… it might be the most financially productive scroll of the week.

Holiday pricing is reactive, it responds to us.

So sometimes, saving money is not about finding a hidden code or waiting for a sale.

It is simply about stepping slightly outside the rush and pressing “book” when everyone else is still asleep.

The early hours of the morning are the cheapest time to book a holiday according to Rob’s dataCredit: Alamy

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This exact time ‘is the cheapest’ to book a holiday — and ‘never book in this hour’

It turns out timing does matter, with a TikTok travel expert revealing that even a few minutes can make the difference between overpaying and bagging a bargain.

Ever wondered when the best time of day is to book a holiday? A TikTok travel expert has the answer — and his viral video is doing the rounds online.

Rob, known as @robonthebeach online, has built a reputation for clever holiday hacks that save travellers money, but on of his more recent tips is truly ground-breaking. In a clip posted last month, he revealed the best and worst times to book, and the results might just surprise you.

In the video, Rob — who says he “works in travel and looks through holiday data every single day” — explains that timing isn’t just important by the day or week, but down to the hour and even the minute. This is a big win for the night owls!

“According to the data, the most expensive time to book a holiday is between 9 and 10am in the morning,” he said. That’s the dreaded office-hour scroll, and it could be costing travellers dearly.

Rob claims bookings made in that hour were around 30% more expensive than those made at the cheapest time of day. His advice? “No more booking holidays as soon as you get to the office.”

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The cheapest time, however, comes much much earlier: “[It’s] early morning, like really early morning, between 4 and 5 am”. He explains how airline pricing systems effectively reset overnight as demand from the previous day drops off, pushing prices closer to their base level before creeping back up as searches increase throughout the day.

And for those searching for the ultimate saving, Rob revealed the exact time where prices are at their lowest: “The single cheapest minute to book a holiday is 2.48am,” he noted. Booking at that precise moment was, on average, 60% cheaper, though he stressed this won’t magically slash the price of each and every trip.

If you’d rather not set a 4am alarm, Rob points out there are other cheaper times, including late evening between 8pm and 10pm, which is still noticeably cheaper than the morning rush.

The video sparked a wave of reactions online, with one user confirming: “On those insomnia nights, can confirm the early hours are cheap,” while a second joked: “Now everyone is going to book at this time and it won’t be cheap anymore.”

Others offered additional tips, including: “Remember to clear your cache,” as another summed it up with “cheap as chips, fair play”.

Brits are certainly keen holiday bookers. Research from YouGov shows that around 35% of UK travellers book their holidays one to three months in advance, while a further 23% book four to six months ahead.

While data from IPA suggests the average UK adult books a holiday roughly 17 weeks before travelling, with online bookings now dominating. ABTA claims that around 78% of adults take at least one holiday each year.



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