In ten years of parenting, this is the most epic, and extravagant, Christmas attraction I’ve ever been to, writes Dianne Bourne
Parents were sent into a frenzy when Lapland UK announced it was opening a second location. The original Ascot site has been visited by thousands of families over 19 years and I’ve seen the rave reviews and photos year after year from those lucky enough to get a ticket.
When tickets went on sale for the new Manchester site earlier this year they swiftly all sold out even with the eye-watering price tag of £65-£155 per person, with both adults and children paying the same price.
Since opening last week in the grounds of Capesthorne Hall near Macclesfield, Cheshire, it’s been a bit of a baptism of fire for organisers. On the first preview days some slightly negative reviews started to appear on Lapland Manchester fan groups then on Friday Storm Claudia hit and the event had to be stopped, with families evacuated from the site. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I headed along on Sunday on a pre-planned press visit with my two children, 10 and 5, wondering quite what was in store for us.
Thankfully the storm had passed and it was a lovely tranquil, if rather cold, morning when we headed to the attraction. One of the main differences of the Cheshire site to Ascot is that it is all under cover rather than with open woodland areas, but the first thing I’d say is you still definitely need your winter coats on.
We found it really chilly on both the walk over and through a lot of the walkways inside, where I think the temperature is purposefully set to be cold to give the ambiance of a real-life snowy Lapland. But the benefit of being inside is no need to worry about rain or mud.
Once inside though, you cannot fail to be swept away by the festive magic that unfolds.
And many signs on the way encourage you to leave any grouchiness at the door with the “Strictly No Grump-a-Lumps” signs that amused us all on the way in. From the moment we checked in at the departure lounge, collecting the kids’ “Elven Passports”, it really is like being transported to another world.
It feels like a traditional Christmas show at the start of the day as you are introduced into the Lapland world by the colourful cast of Elves, with children (and parents) encouraged to use the “cheery-hi” greeting of fingers waggling on your nose – this will come in handy to greet any of the Elven folk throughout the adventure.
It’s then through to a vast magical woodland that will take your breath away. If you don’t want any spoilers about what happens next, then I’d probably look away now. From this point, the families in your time slot will then split into two groups, to head to the more interactive elements of the day.
We all gazed in wonder as we entered the huge Toy Factory, a spectacular space complete with magic wishing jars and festooned with toys.
Here, children get to help the elves make some toys – an adorable polar bear that they then get to take over to a conveyor belt to help Father Christmas out, which was a truly enchanting experience.
It’s then on to Mother Christmas’ kitchen where kids get to decorate their own gingerbread house, again an activity that my two boys absolutely loved.
What follows is an adventure into the vast Elven Village, where you have 90 minutes to spend between ice skating, writing a letter to Father Christmas, a range of hot food and drinks and browsing the assorted Lapland shops.
The finale of the day is walking through the Reindeer Lodge before the big one – a meeting with Father Christmas. Here at Lapland the bearded one seems to know an awful lot about your kids (if you know you know), checks if they’re on the Good List and is happy to pose for loads of photos.
You can choose one souvenir photo to take away from the day included in the price – or you can opt to pay for more of these on your way out if you wish. There’s really no doubting this is the most epic, and extravagant, Christmas attraction I’ve ever been to in terms of scale and attention to detail.
And that’s from a mum who has spent ten years trudging around all sorts of festive events, lights, grottos, Christmas farms and Santa adventures with my kids.
The Lapland Manchester experience takes 4.5 hours in total, so you also need to be prepared for a full-on festive day out. As this was our first time there are some things I’d wished I’d done a bit differently, so below are some of our tips and advice from navigating it all.
But remember, most importantly of all, if you are one of those lucky enough to have secured a ticket, you’re in for one heck of a festive time.
Get there early
On your booking confirmation it recommends arriving 45 minutes early. By that, we thought that meant to arrive in the car park 45 minutes early.
Realistically though you want to be at the entrance itself 45 minutes before your allocated time slot, so we didn’t factor in the ten minute walk from the car park to the magical entrance itself, so I’d suggest arriving at the car park an hour early.
It’s a lovely walk though through woodland and past the splendid Capesthorne Hall though, so especially if it’s a nice day, you might want to take your time.
But what it all meant was, due to queuing to the departure desks at the start, we had barely five minutes in the marketplace (not enough time to get a coffee much to my despair) before we were called in to start at 11.20am. Nor did we have time to look in the first shop.
In hindsight, we could have actually stayed in the coffee queue for a bit longer, as the main show didn’t really start until 11.25am, but we didn’t want to miss our slot so went straight in.
Be prepared for the walking
This is a HUGE attraction spread out across acres and acres of the Capesthorne Estate. And that means there is a lot of walking involved. Sparkly, tree-lined tunnels connect all the different areas which we found fun to walk through, but that’s because my two kids are now fully mobile and able to run off without my assistance.
I know that if you’re still parenting in the toddler stage it may become more of an issue walking with lots of bags and prams etc over the distances involved. Don’t worry about mud though – inside the venue is all undercover, and outside the car park itself is all completely boarded and the path to the entrance is all wood-chipped so it’s a really good route.
Be prepared for lots of questions from your kids
As the whole thing is billed as LaplandUK, and with the intricacy of the invites and Elven Passports etc, I know that many parents treat this experience as if you’re really going through a magical portal to Lapland itself. Some folk even freeze the invites to present to their kids on the day of the event.
But if you’re going to this level of planning, then prepare to have inquisitive kids batter you with a barrage of questions – and what to answer them with. From my two kids I had the likes of “Is this indoors or outdoors?” “Why is there a roof on?” “Are they real elves?” “Are they real reindeer?” “Is this real Lapland?” “What’s in that bag, is it for me?”
Oh and the piece de resistance at the end of it all: “Mum, why is it light outside when it was dark in there? Which is real?”
The number of people in your session
I didn’t know what to expect on this front, although seeing other Facebook posts did prepare me a bit. I thought we’d be in fairly small groups, but in our time session of 11.30am I counted around 200 people. That is split into two groups, so you’re either Team Husky or Team Little Rudi.
For the start you are all together, but then each group splits so you have around 100 people in each themed interactive area, like the Gingerbread making. It sounds like a lot of people, but actually it’s so well organised, it’s not like you’re fighting over seats or anything – there are enough for everybody. But what it does mean is that inevitably you will have to queue for a little bit going in and out of each zone.
If you’re not a fan of a queue, my advice as a parent would be to eye up where the next doorway is when you enter a zone, and then find the seats closest to it. This helps in getting into the next zone more quickly if you don’t feel you want to be queuing.
The biggest queue we saw on the day was for the ice skating rink – although we managed to avoid this by heading straight to this area when we first entered the Elven Village.
When we eventually slid off the rink around a half an hour later into our session, the queue was quite long we noticed.
If there’s more than one adult in your group, my advice would be to get one to queue for skating while the rest of the group go and do other activities so as not to squander time in this area.
The food and drink
I’ve seen many people on Facebook groups saying they prefer not to eat and drink while inside the event to try and save on time (and money), and now that I’ve been for myself I can understand what they mean.
If I did the experience again, I would definitely take food and drink in with me for the kids to eat – especially as our time slot ran straight over lunchtime starting at 11.30am.
We didn’t get through to the Elven Village, where the main food and drink area is, until 1.30pm, by which point the kids were really hungry.
But this is also where we wanted to do the most activities, so it ended up being a bit of a hectic run-around with the kids staying with their dad to do the letter to Santa, while I ran over to the food stations to order food for everybody.
The other thing, of course, is the prices. We ended up spending £80 on hot food and drink in this section.
I made the mistake of buying two of the colourful marshmallow lollies for the kids without asking their price first, and couldn’t quite believe it when I checked the receipt afterwards and found they were £6 each. Even worse, we dropped one, so that was £6 straight down the drain.
The hot food we had though was pretty delicious. We had a smash burger on a pretzel bun that was massive (£13) a tasty pepperoni pizza (£13) and a hot dog and chips from the Small Folk Menu (£10 which includes drink and side).
Oh and the Lapland Hot Chocolate is worth every penny of the £6 – trust me on that one.
As you might be able to tell, there was not much in the way of healthy options, aside from apple slices which you can order as a side for kids.
However, what I would say is that everything was served up very quickly and there was loads of seating for families.
What do you get for your money?
On the date we went, the tickets were £105 each (that’s for adults and children alike). So there’s no getting away from the fact that for a family of four, you’re looking at shelling out a lot of money for this attraction.
For me, I was keen to see what you get for that kind of money and whether it represents value for money. What I would say is that when you break down everything you experience during the day, and how much you would usually spend for things like skating for a family on a day out, you can start to see why the price tag is what it is.
Essentially you get a Christmas show, skating, gingerbread making, meeting Santa, a cuddly toy for the kids and an extra surprise that parents get to take home at the end too (no spoilers) as well as one free souvenir photo in a presentation booklet.
Sadly, parents don’t get to partake of activities like toy-making or getting a toy from santa, but you do get to watch the joy on your child’s face so it depends what kind of price tag you put on that.
Ultimately, it’s an experience you either buy into or you don’t. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
What else can you buy?
Apart from food and drinks, there are lots of shops dotted around the Lapland Manchester experience – at the start, in the Elven Village, and one you can’t avoid that you walk through at the end to get out.
You can buy “Jingles” which are gold coins in a pouch for your kids at the start which they can then use to buy treats in the shops, but we didn’t have time to do this.
But basically 1 Jingle equals 1 pound and you can buy everything on cards throughout the day if you don’t have the Jingles.
You can buy everything from Christmas baubles (from around £5) to cuddly toys (from around £10) and outfits for the husky every child gets (from £15).
You get one official photo free, and then you have to buy any extras – we ended up buying the all-inclusive photo package for £40 which meant we got all 10 photos taken during the day as prints, as well as the full digital package.
This was the only thing I purchased on the day aside from food and drink, as I kept telling the kids “you’ve already got your present from Father Christmas” and miraculously this seemed to work.
The kid verdict
My ten-year-old and five-year-old as you might imagine were pretty impressed with it all.
It was my youngest child’s first time ice skating which he absolutely adored, and both kids were made up with their presents from Father Christmas.
“I want to go back”, summed up the eldest. He might want to start saving up now is my thought!
