We took the Northern Lights package with Holiday Village Valle in mid Dec 2018. Still a quiet season before Christmas, we almost have the whole place to ourselves. We stayed four nights in a cabin for our family of four. The cabin is very well maintained, I would say, tip top condition. Sufficient hot water, nicely adjusted heaters in the rooms, well equipped kitchen, a sauna and a lovely front porch facing the Teno River. We never felt cold in any way during our stay in the cabin. There is also a nice huge dryer in the walkway to our cabin to dry up our thermal accessories quickly, which is great. The only thing we lamented is short daylight hours to enjoy the magnificent view from our front porch as we were out during most of our daylight hours for our activities! Hours with some daylight is only from 9.30am to about 2pm during this polar night season of the year.
Our package includes half board. We arrived late into midnight and our first dinner was packed in our cabin ready for us, which was very nice. It includes nice smoked raw local fish and salmon which we like very much. Breakfast is buffet style at Deatnu Restaurant. For dinner, one of the night was reindeer special, which we must declare it was a bit too strong taste to our comfort level. Another night's Christmas spread special was very nice though.
We were in Finland with the main objective to view Northern Lights, as well as for snow activities specifically within Finland. We went for reindeer safari, huskies safari as well as skiing and sleighing along slopes around the resort location, and ice fishing. And of course, the lights! On the first night, it was very cloudy. We did not go out. On the second night, it was still partially cloudy. Our guides drove us around in search of a clear sky to wait for the lights. And we did manage to find a location, and saw a small display of the lights. Not a very strong one, but we were all very happy to catch this, especially this was after almost one hour of driving around. After we left and went back to our cabin, we still manage to see the lights dimly in the sky from our front porch, changing its display every minute. On the third night, the sky is cloudless. We took a hike from the resort to a high ground nearby, about 1km away. It was a great place on top of a slope with clearing, no obstruction, clear sky, no unnatural lights nearby and our guides set up a nice warm fire as we waited for the lights. The light did come, although it was quite a wait. Again not a very strong display, but it was still a nice experience for us, after a great walk. Again, after we went back to our cabin, the light display in the sky continued on well into the night. We took some pictures of it even from our cabin, although not very bright, but considering there's road lamp nearby, this is quite a good exposure. We were all satisfied with our little encounters with the light display during our stay here.
I must commend on our guides, Antti and Henna, who were with us during our whole stay here. Professional and helpful, they made us feel comfortable and relaxed. We all have an enjoyable time with their guidance and advice. Also, our camera is a whole knockout during the light display. Not a professional with DSLR, we were not able to take pictures of the lights, and if not for the expertise of our great guides, we would not have the nice photos to take back with us for great memories. Thank you again, Antti and Henna, for the wonderful experience we had in Utsjoki.
