Santa Claus Holiday Village, Rovaniemi: Cottages, Suites, Glass Igloo Cottages, Prices and Is It Worth It

Updated 5 October 2026.

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Santa Claus Holiday Village puts you in a cottage with your own sauna inside Santa Claus Village on the Arctic Circle, with the Santa programme outside the door. It is the easiest family base for a Santa-first trip, and the wrong one for dark skies.

What the place actually is

Santa Claus Holiday Village is a holiday village of cottages and suites inside Santa Claus Village itself. It is open year round, though the village around it is a different animal in July than in December.

The units split into three families: cottages (Classic, Superior A and B, Superior Plus), suites (Classic, Jensen, Tempur, Vispring, Family), and one Glass Igloo Cottage type with a glass roof. The suite names are bed brands. Jensen, Tempur and Vispring are what you will be sleeping on, which is a slightly odd way to sell a room. Those three suites are 41 m² and the Classic Suite 39 m².

What a night costs, and when to book

A cottage or suite for two costs 469 to 505€ a night from January to March. The Santa season is a different price list: 915€ between Christmas and New Year and 1,380€ in late November, when the charter weeks fill the village. The Glass Igloo Cottage was 1,710 to 1,840€ a night on the January to March dates.

Rates are Booking.com prices per night for two adults, checked at the end of September 2026. Prices are for the 2026-27 season and change annually, so check current rates for your dates.

Nothing about the cottage changes between March and late November. The Santa season does. For December, book about a year ahead and expect to choose dates, not room types; for the dates marked not on sale, ask the village directly.

Cottages, suites and the glass igloo compared

The practical takeaway: between 35 and 43 m² the sizes are close, and the price gap between them is small. If you are five people, the Family Suite is the only unit that takes you. If there are four of you, book on price and take whatever is cheapest for your dates. Every one of them has the sauna.

What is included in the rate

Breakfast, towels, bed linen and the final cleaning are all included, which is worth flagging because self-catering cottages elsewhere in Lapland often charge extra for linen and final cleaning. The sauna is in your unit, so there is nothing to book and nothing to pay.

Activities are not included. Northern lights tours, husky safaris, reindeer sleigh rides, snowmobiling, ice fishing, skiing and Ranua Wildlife Park trips are all sold through the village, priced separately. That is convenient: the activity desks are within walking distance of your door.

Where it is, and getting there

Rovaniemi airport is a few minutes away by car, near enough that a 07:00 flight is not a crisis. The city centre is 8 km south, a short drive or taxi ride.

You do not need a car to stay here, and that is unusual for a cottage stay in Lapland. Everything the village offers is on foot. You do need a car, or a tour, if you want to get away from the lights at night. For what the wider town has beyond the village, Visit Rovaniemi is the official starting point, and Finavia publishes the airport’s live arrivals.

The restaurants, and what the village is like after dark

Places to eat and drink inside the village include the Christmas House Restaurant, Three Elves Restaurant, Santa’s Cuisine Restaurant, the Lobby Bar and private dinners inside heated glass igloos. With small children and a long flight behind you, having dinner a short walk from the cottage is worth more than menu variety.

The interesting part is the timing. The quiet time is the evening, after the day-trip coaches have left, and guests staying inside the village get the Arctic Circle line, the post office and the shop fronts without the daytime crowd. Santa meets visitors daily, and entry to the village is free; the photo with Santa is a separate charge. The official Santa Claus Village site lists the daily opening hours.

What to watch out for

Light is the real problem here. The village is lit all evening, so aurora watching from your doorstep is limited. Book an aurora tour, or drive out to somewhere dark: Apukka Resort sits about 15 km out for exactly this reason. Check the Finnish Meteorological Institute forecast before you commit an evening to it.

The crowds. Christmas week and the late-November charter weeks are the busiest days of the year here, and prices reflect that exactly. If your dates are flexible at all, January to March gives you the same cottage, the same sauna and the same Santa for about half the Christmas rate and a third of the late-November one.

Then the setting. Everything within walking distance is the tourist village: Santa, the post office, the souvenir shops, the restaurants, the activity desks. There is no neighbourhood, no local bar, no walk to a bakery. Some people find that restful. Others find it thin after three nights.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

It suits families whose trip is built around the Santa programme, especially on a short break where the flight home leaves early and you want the airport a few minutes away. It suits anyone who wants a sauna of their own without renting a car and driving to a cabin in the forest. And it suits travellers who would rather pay once for breakfast, linen and cleaning than tot it all up at checkout.

Look elsewhere if you are a couple chasing dark skies, because the village lights are permanent and the glass igloo cottage here costs three to four times a standard suite at the same property and sits under the village lights. Look elsewhere too if your idea of an evening is walking to a restaurant you chose yourself. Rovaniemi centre has that. The Arctic Circle does not.

Alternatives worth checking first

Four places compete directly with it, and the honest comparison depends on what you are buying:

• Nova Skyland Hotel, about 300 metres away, with suites that also have saunas. The obvious cross-check if you want the same location in a hotel format.
• Glass Resort, glass roofs at the village itself, for people who want the glass ceiling but will not leave the Santa area.
• Apukka Resort, roughly 15 km out, where the point is dark sky rather than proximity to Santa.
• Arctic SnowHotel, about 30 km out, combining ice rooms and glass igloos in a genuinely remote setting.

Before you pay 1,700€ or more for the Glass Igloo Cottage here, price the Rovaniemi igloo resorts for the same nights.

How I researched this

Non-price facts come from santaclausholidayvillage.fi (the home and accommodation pages) in September 2026. Nightly rates are Booking.com rates as shown on Google Hotels on 30 September 2026 for the dates in the rate table, two adults, cheapest room available.

Nobody from Lapland Trip Planner has stayed here; the verdict is a researched comparison, not a review.

Common questions

Written by Ville Laukkanen

Ville is a Finn who runs Lapland Trip Planner. The site is a researched planning guide: hotel rates come from Booking.com listings and activity prices from the operators' own pages, each dated, and nothing is presented as a personal stay or trip unless it was one.