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Private tours in Rovaniemi, and what they actually cost

Santa Claus in a red cloak crouching beside a small boy on a lakeside jetty, pointing across still water to a frosted autumn forest

Illustration photo: Santa and one child on a jetty, with nobody else in the frame.

Lapland Handbook Staff Updated September 20, 2026 How we research this

The short answer

Four of Snowtrail's tours carry a published private price: the ice fishing trip at €159, the electric sled and the snowmobile sleigh to Santa's Hidden Cabin at €149 and €159, and the Private Evening with Santa at €1,540 for the whole party. That last figure is for the group rather than each person, which is the one number on this page that is easy to misread. Everything else – the husky safari, the snowmobile safari, the aurora tours – can be made private on request, and no price for doing so is published anywhere, so a private version of those is a quote rather than a booking.

How the operators compare

Prices are the operators' own published starting prices as of the date this guide was updated, and they change through the season.

Ice fishing, privateElectric sled to SantaSnowmobile sleigh to SantaPrivate Evening with Santa
Price €159 €149 €159 €1,540 the party
Priced per Not stated Person Person The whole party
Length 4 h 4 h 4 h 6 h
Youngest accepted 3 3 3 3
Who drives Nobody From 15 Nobody Nobody
Largest party Not stated Not stated Not stated Not stated

Nothing is marked. These are four different evenings rather than four bids for the same one, and the only row where a lower number would be better – the price – is not comparing like with like, because one of the four is a lump sum for the group.

Where these figures come from
  • Ice fishing, private: Sold as a private tour rather than as the private version of a shared one. A snowmobile-towed sleigh to the lake, the holes drilled, and a fire.
  • Electric sled to Santa: The cheapest way into Santa's Hidden Cabin, and the only one of the four a fifteen-year-old can drive.
  • Snowmobile sleigh to Santa: Nobody in the group drives anything, which is what makes it the one to book with small children.
  • Private Evening with Santa: A different tour rather than a private version of one: six hours with dinner and aurora watching, priced for the whole party.

Tripadvisor ratings, 18 Rovaniemi operators

Highest first
Snowtrail Safaris 5.0
Nordic Odyssey 5.0
Nordic Adventures 4.9
Arctic GM 4.9
Book Lapland 4.9
Bearhill Husky 4.9
Arctic Attitude 4.9
StayLapland 4.8
Wild About Lapland 4.7
Wild Nordic 4.7
Lapland Winter Park 4.6
Safartica 4.5
Nordic Unique Travels 4.5
Apukka Resort 4.4
Lapland Welcome 4.3
Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park 4.3
Arctic Circle Husky Park 4.2
Raitola 3.4

Ratings read from Tripadvisor. The shaded compartment left of the divider holds any score below 4.0. We record the score only; review counts and review text are not part of our comparison.

Every operator in Rovaniemi will tell you that any tour can be made private. Almost none of them will tell you what that costs, and the difference between a tour that is sold privately at a published price and a tour that is private on request is the difference between booking something and starting a negotiation.

For our own supplier the split is four and the rest.

The four with a price on them

TourPriceLengthWho drives
Private Ice Fishing Experience with snowmobile sleigh ride€1594 hNobody
Private Electric Reindeer safari to Santa’s Hidden Cabin€1494 hFrom 15
Private Snowmobile Sleigh Ride to Santa’s Hidden Cabin€1594 hNobody
Private Evening with Santa€1,540 for the whole party6 hNobody

Three of those are four-hour tours at ordinary four-hour prices. The fourth is not, and it is the number on this page most likely to be misread.

€1,540 is not a per-person price

The Private Evening with Santa is priced for the party rather than for each person, which is stated on the tour and repeated here because every other figure on this page is per head and the eye reads down a column.

For two people that makes it the most expensive thing Snowtrail sells by a distance. For eight it is €192 each, which is less than the husky tour to the same cabin. Neither reading is the right one until you know how many of you there are – and the page does not say how large the party may be, which is the first question to put to them.

It is also six hours rather than four, with dinner and aurora watching added, so it is an evening out rather than a private version of a safari. The Santa’s Hidden Cabin tour page sets the five ways into that cabin side by side.

The ice fishing figure has a question attached

€159 is what the page says. What the page does not say is whether that is per person or for the group, and on a private tour that is the difference between €159 and €636 for a family of four.

We have left the row as “Not stated” rather than guessing, and it is worth asking in writing before you compare this with a shared ice fishing trip. The ice fishing guide has the shared tours in Rovaniemi at their published prices, which is the comparison that question decides.

Everything else is a quote

The husky safari, the snowmobile safari and the aurora tours can all be made private, and none of them publishes a figure for it. Snowtrail’s own wording on the snowmobile tour is that there is no price for the private version, no minimum number of guests and no difference in route or programme.

So a private version of those is an email, a description of your party and a date, and a wait. Start it early for the Christmas weeks: the departure you are asking to have to yourselves is one the operator could otherwise sell eight seats on, and by December it already has.

If a private booking is the point rather than a preference, the three cluster guides compare what other Rovaniemi operators charge for one, and several of them do publish figures: a private husky tour, a private northern lights tour and a private Santa visit.

What a private tour is actually for

Not exclusivity, in most cases. Pace.

A shared four-hour tour spends twenty minutes on boots because eight people need boots, stops when the group stops, and gives the guide eight sets of questions to answer. A private one does the same route in the same time with one family’s worth of all three, which matters most with a small child, with someone who is slow on ice, or with anyone who wanted to ask the guide something and did not want to do it in front of strangers.

That is worth paying for or it is not, and it is a different question from whether the price is fair. On three of these four it costs nothing extra at all, which is the most useful thing on this page: if the date is free, you can simply have the tour to yourselves.

What nobody publishes

The largest party any of the four will take. The season, on any of them. Whether the ice fishing price is per person. And what a private husky or snowmobile safari costs, which is the figure most people arrive looking for and the one that still is not written down anywhere.

Snowtrail supplies this site, and these are its tours; we have no private tours of our own to compare them with, and where a figure is missing above it is missing because nobody has published it, not because we have left it out.

Questions people ask

Is a private tour worth it for two people?

Usually not on price, and sometimes on everything else. Where a private version carries a published price it is the same figure as the shared tour on three of the four – the ice fishing trip, the electric sled and the snowmobile sleigh all cost what they cost whether or not anyone else is in the group – so for those the question is availability rather than money. Where the private version is a quote, expect it to cost more than two shared seats, because the operator is selling the whole departure. What two people actually buy with it is pace: nobody else to wait for at the boots, nobody else's child to be cold, and a guide answering your questions rather than the group's.

What does "any tour can be made private" actually mean?

That the operator will run the tour for your group alone if you ask and pay for it, and that nothing about the route or the programme changes. It does not mean there is a button for it. Snowtrail says it on its tour pages and publishes no figure, so making a group tour private means writing to them, describing the party and the date, and waiting for a number. That is worth starting early for the Christmas weeks, when the departures that could have been yours are already sold. It also means the four tours on this page are a different thing from the rest: they are private as sold, at a price you can read before you commit.

Does a private booking include anything the shared tour does not?

On these four, no – the inclusions are the tour's inclusions. The electric sled and the snowmobile sleigh to Santa's Hidden Cabin include the transfer, winter clothing, the guide and the meeting with Santa exactly as the shared versions do, and the ice fishing trip includes the sleigh, the equipment and the fire. The Private Evening with Santa is the exception, and it is a different tour rather than a private version of one: six hours instead of four, with dinner and aurora watching added. If you are comparing it with the others, compare it with an evening out, not with a four-hour safari.

Can children come on a private tour?

Yes, and the age rules do not change because the group is yours. Every Snowtrail tour on this page takes children from three, and the driving ages are separate and stricter: fifteen to drive an electric sled, eighteen and a licence for a snowmobile. On the snowmobile sleigh to Santa's Hidden Cabin nobody in the group drives at all, which is what makes it the simplest of the four with small children. What a private booking does change is the tolerance for a child who has had enough, because the pace is yours to set.

Written by

Lapland Handbook Staff

Lapland Handbook is written by its editorial staff in Rovaniemi. Every price, age limit and group size in a comparison is read from the operator's own page and marked "Not stated" when the operator does not publish it. Each guide names who should not book, and says so when a competitor is the better choice.