Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park is the operator most visitors meet without
planning to, because its safari house is inside Santa Claus Village. It has run
since 1999, works in both Rovaniemi and Levi, and sells snowmobiles alongside
huskies, reindeer and Santa in one catalogue.
If you are standing in the village wondering whether to book on the spot, two
things are worth knowing: what the range costs, and how little most of its pages
tell you.
What it sells in Rovaniemi
| Tour | From |
|---|
| 1-hour snowmobile safari | €100 |
| 3-hour snowmobile safari | €215 |
| Northern lights by snowmobile | €139 |
| Husky safari | €104 |
| Husky and reindeer with snowmobiling | €198 |
| Arctic Circle Highlights, about 7 hours | €252 |
| Elf Hat Academy at Santa Claus Village | €39 |
| Private Santa experience | €250 |
The hour at €100 is the cheaper of the two hour-long snowmobile programmes we
have found in Rovaniemi — Lapland Safaris lists one at €113 — and for a visitor
with an afternoon at the village rather than a free day, that short ticket is
the point of this operator. Cheaper tickets exist, but they are three-hour
programmes from operators that collect you in the city.
The pages give a price and little else
Read the one-hour and three-hour pages and you get a price, a duration and a
difficulty rating. They do not say how many people share a machine, what age you
have to be, whether a licence is needed, what is included, where you meet, or
what you owe if the machine is damaged.
That is not unusual in this market — our own supplier publishes no damage excess
either — but it does mean the booking decision has to be made by email. What a
snowmobile safari involves, and which questions actually change the day, are in
the snowmobile safari guide.
The exception, and what it publishes
The seven-hour Arctic Circle Highlights day is the outlier, and it is worth
reading even if you do not book it, because it is the only page here that states
the rules.
It says a class B driving licence is required, that two adults share a machine,
and that the maximum personal self-liability is €950 per person per snowmobile,
with extra insurance on site for €15 that reduces it to €150. Those figures very
probably apply across the operator’s snowmobile range; the point is that only
one page says so.
The same page is unusually clear about children. Two- to fourteen-year-olds ride
in a sledge behind the guide, under-twos are not recommended, and children under
150 cm are offered ten minutes of mini snowmobiling of their own — the only
children’s driving we have found in Rovaniemi. A child over 140 cm riding
pillion pays the adult price, the same rule the rest of the market uses, and the
family snowmobile safari guide
explains why height rather than age decides where a child sits.
Where it beats our own supplier
Snowtrail supplies this site, and on three counts this operator is the better
booking.
Price for a short ride. An hour for €100 against a four-hour programme at
€149. If your day is already full of Santa, the hour is the honest purchase.
Published excess. It tells you the €950 and sells the waiver for €15.
Snowtrail publishes neither, which the
best snowmobile tour guide says
plainly.
Children. Two-year-olds in the sledge against three at Snowtrail, and mini
snowmobiles for the small ones, which nobody else here offers.
What Snowtrail has instead is a published route of eight kilometres, pickup
within ten kilometres of the centre included rather than a meeting point at the
Arctic Circle, and a programme that ends at a reindeer farm with a cabin stop on
the way.
Who should book it
Book here if you are at Santa Claus Village anyway, if an hour is all the
snowmobile you want, if your group includes a child under three, or if the
combination day — snowmobile, reindeer, huskies, lunch and free time at the
village — is the shape of day you were looking for.
Book elsewhere if you want the terms in front of you before you pay, or if you
are staying in the city without a car and would rather be collected than find
your own way eight kilometres out.
Elsewhere means four operators with published terms, set against each other on
price, driving time, riding alone and the damage excess in
the best snowmobile tour in Rovaniemi.
