I joined the ice floating activity with Nordic Unique Travel on 26 November 2023. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, because (1) WATER LEAK in the suit; (2) Unprofessional behavior from the tour guides and assistants; (3) No rescue plan. Despite the tour description promising an activity duration of around 3.5 hours, the actual ice-floating time is indeed only about 20 minutes. Given that I paid 88 euros for this experience, I essentially paid for a 20-minute unpleasant experience.
Here are the details of my bad ice floating experience with Nordic Unique Travel:
We traveled for around 20mins from Santa Claus Village to reach their base/office where we started changing into the suit. One of the girls noticed water in the suit around the foot area and asked for changing to a new suit. This indicated that not only did I encounter the water leak problem, but someone else had experienced the same issue before.
There were 3 staff members present, one of whom provided me with a suit. I was concerned about the suit being too large for me, so I asked 2 staff separately to confirm if the suit was a good fit. Both of them assured me that it was fine. Despite my doubts, I proceeded to put on the suit. However, my hand could not reach the glove area, and my feet could not reach the foot/boot part of the suit.
After changing the suit, we needed to walk for about a minute to the lake. The suit was too large for me, making it super difficult to walk. I asked the staff for the third time and the third staff member reassured me that a larger suit was actually better. I proceeded to the lake, where I was the first few people to get in.
The lake was small, with around 15 people in it at the same time. After getting into the lake for around 1-2mins, someone get in and swung his/her arm, and then I got water splashed all over my face and water started to leak into my head area, wetting my left side head, hair, and shoulder. When I called for help, the staff simply told me to swing my arms and return to the lake shore. However, due to the suit being too large, I could not see the shore, making it difficult for me to return.
My husband could see the shore so he tried very hard to locate the shore and pushed me there. And when I reached the shore, again someone else passed by me and swung his/her arm, water splashed on my face again and more water leaked into my head.
Since we could only enter and exit the lake using the built-in ladder, I had to walk back to the ladder to get out. The suit was so large that it was like walking in a penguin suit, with my feet literally stepping on the "trouser legs" part of the suit. The bottom of the lake was full of soft soil/snow, making it extra difficult to walk properly. I had fall down once and my whole head drown into water. The staff did not have any action and just told my husband to help me get up. On the way to the ladder, every second I felt like I’m falling down again and could NOT get up again. I was so afraid and walking back to the ladder was 10 times harder than lifting an 80kg barbell.
You can only rely on yourself or your partner to rescue you. The staff just stand by the lake side in their warm clothes and told you go the shore. I am so shocked that they do not have rescue plan…
After the activity, we were taken to another room for drinks and cookies. The water was room temperature, and the blueberry water (yes it is not even juice) was a bit warm. The ginger cookies were also at room temperature. After about 10-15 minutes in the room, we were taken back to our hotel.
While I know my review may not gain much attention as there are too many positive reviews on Google, I still want to share my experience to help at least someone avoid a similar situation. I hope everyone can have a fun and relaxing holiday in Finland!