Family Santa visit from Tornio: planning around the children
Illustration photo: a child's mittens in the snow, not at the places named here.
The short answer
With children under four, Ylitornio is the easier day: a 49-minute drive, and the youngest go in free. With older children who cope with a longer drive, Rovaniemi costs nothing at the door for any age and keeps long hours in the Christmas weeks, so a family can leave Tornio after a slow morning and still arrive in good time. Neither includes transport, so the car sets the plan.
From Tornio, a Santa trip with children comes down to two drives, and the children’s ages decide which one is worth making.
What each age costs
At the Santa station in Ylitornio, children up to three go in free and everyone from four pays the full day ticket, the same as an adult.1 Rovaniemi’s Santa Claus office charges nobody, whatever their age. A family with one toddler and one older child therefore pays for three people at Ylitornio and for no one in Rovaniemi.
When the doors are open
Rovaniemi’s office is open daily from eight in the morning to eight in the evening between 30 November and 3 January, by the city tourist board’s listing.2 That leaves room for a late start from Tornio and a nap in the car. The Ylitornio station’s pages do not give opening hours, so check them before you set off, especially outside the Christmas weeks.
The drives
Ylitornio is 49 minutes up the Tornio valley, with the park gate as the meeting point. Rovaniemi is an hour and a half east. With children under four, the difference between those two drives, twice in a day, is often the whole decision. The Ylitornio day is described on Santa Station in Ylitornio, and the Rovaniemi office on meeting Santa Claus in Rovaniemi.
Tours you can book
An entry ticket to the Santa Station, with Santa and reindeer
Run by Santa Station
From €47per person
Book now on GetYourGuide(opens in a new tab)
Questions people ask
What is there for small children to do besides meeting Santa?
At Ylitornio, quite a lot within the ticket: decorating gingerbread, making Christmas decorations, feeding the reindeer and riding a hobby reindeer, a stick horse with a reindeer's head, through the snow. The outdoor ice and snow activities depend on the weather. In Rovaniemi the office itself is the meeting, and anything else in the village is chosen and paid for separately.
What should the children wear?
Their own full winter kit. The Ylitornio listing asks visitors to bring warm clothing and a camera, and lends nothing, and the Rovaniemi office is a walk-in visit rather than a tour with an outfit to borrow. Snowsuits, hats, mittens and wool socks, with a dry spare set in the car for the drive home, cover both.
Is it worth doing both in one trip?
Only with a spare day. They are in opposite directions from Tornio, up the Tornio valley and east to Rovaniemi, so they cannot be joined into one drive, and each is a full day with small children. Two separate days, with a rest day between them, is the realistic way to do both with young children.