Santa’s Hotel Tunturi, Saariselkä: Rooms, Apartments, Prices and Is It Worth It

Updated 5 October 2026.

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At Santa’s Hotel Tunturi you can step out of your apartment onto the ski tracks, ski into Urho Kekkonen National Park, and come back to your own sauna and kitchen. It is the base for families and groups who spend all day outdoors, not for watching the aurora from bed.

Rooms and apartments compared

Tunturi is the Santa’s Hotels property in Saariselkä. It is not a single block. It is a main building plus five others, and the room you book determines which one you sleep in, how far you walk to breakfast, and whether you have a sauna behind the bathroom door.

The spread of rooms is unusually wide for one property. At one end, a 22 m² economy room in a side building. At the other, a 172 m² apartment with five twin bedrooms and a sauna department with a jacuzzi.

Add those up and 164 of the rooms and apartments have their own sauna. That is the single most useful fact about this hotel, and it is the reason Finns book it.

The Kontio deluxe rooms and suites were renovated in 2017-18, so they are the newer end of the non-apartment stock. The economy rooms are the oldest proposition: small, in a side building, fine for two people who plan to be outdoors all day.

The apartments are the actual point

A three-bedroom apartment here has two storeys, a kitchen, a sauna and beds for eight. In early December it was 487€ a night for the whole apartment. Two hotel rooms for the same group would cost more and give you no kitchen and no sauna of your own.

This is simply how Finnish families and groups do a fell holiday. You bring or buy food, you cook, you ski or walk all day, you heat the sauna in the late afternoon, and you eat out once or twice rather than six times. The village shops are a walk away, so self-catering is realistic rather than theoretical.

What a night includes

Breakfast is included in the room rate. Note that from some room categories breakfast is served in a different building from the one you sleep in, which means dressing for outside before breakfast, not a scandal, but worth knowing if you have small children and a lot of snowsuits.

The gym and the scheduled guest sauna sessions are included too. Private sauna bookings and massages are extra. Every room has a kettle and coffee set, hairdryer, TV and WiFi.

Food is handled in-house across five places: Restaurant Siula for à la carte, plus Pirtti, Lutto, Kaltio and the Kota Lappish hut, with a bar and lounge.

Location, trails and getting there

The hotel is in the centre of the village. Ski tracks and walking trails start from the door, the downhill slopes and the shops are on foot, and Urho Kekkonen National Park begins from the hotel grounds.

Ivalo airport is about 30 km north. Check the route map at Finavia before you assume a direct flight exists for your dates.

What it costs

The cheapest room for two was 116€ a night in late November, an economy room. From December to March it held at 271€ to 276€ on every window.

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.

The bigger rooms follow the same curve. A superior room with its own sauna and balcony was 186€ in late November and 399€ in early December. Over Christmas a studio with sauna was 276€ and a junior suite 451€. A three-bedroom apartment was 363€ in late November, 487€ in early December and 452€ over Christmas.

In early December the superior room costs 128€ a night more than an economy room. With a family, put that money into an apartment instead.

Late November is the cheapest window, though the UK Santa-break groups start arriving then. The apartments are the scarce item: twelve three-bedroom units, five two-bedroom, three five-bedroom. For Christmas and New Year, book them a year ahead, and for December generally as far out as you can.

The Finnish school winter holidays run from late February to the second week of March, when domestic families fill the fell resorts and the apartments tighten again. January is the easiest month to get the room you want.

The things nobody mentions

Six buildings and more than 250 rooms and apartments make this a small campus, not an intimate place. Tunturi is one of the hotels UK Santa-break operators use, so from late November to Christmas you are sharing the building with package groups on a tight schedule of elves, huskies and coach departures. That is fine if you are on the package. It is less fine if you pictured silence.

Then the aurora. You are in the village, surrounded by hotel lighting. The northern lights are visible from Saariselkä, but you will want to walk a short way up one of the trails away from the buildings to actually see them properly. Check the forecast on the Finnish Meteorological Institute page before you dress for it.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

It suits families and groups who want an apartment with a kitchen and a sauna, and cross-country skiers and walkers who want the tracks from the door. It also suits a first Lapland trip where you are not confident driving on ice, because you do not need a car in Saariselkä at all.

Look elsewhere if you want a glass roof over the bed, if you are a couple after somewhere small and quiet, or if your idea of Lapland involves a cabin with no neighbours. Tunturi is a big, busy, functional hotel in a village centre, and it does not pretend otherwise.

Alternatives in and around Saariselkä

Star Arctic Hotel sits up on the fell above the village, with glass-fronted cabins and suites looking north over the treeline: the opposite proposition in every way, smaller and higher. Northern Lights Village Saariselkä is a dedicated aurora-cabin resort just outside the village, and Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, the original glass igloo place, is about 10 km south of Saariselkä. Holiday Club Saariselkä is the spa hotel in the village if a pool matters more to you than a private sauna. The Visit Inari-Saariselkä regional site lists the smaller village options too.

How I researched this

Room counts, sizes, building names, what breakfast and the sauna sessions include and the restaurant list come from santashotels.fi in September 2026. Distances are as stated by the property. Nightly rates are Booking.com rates as shown on Google Hotels on 30 September 2026, for two adults on the dates in the rate table. 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.