The Instagram effect hit me hard! Ever since I saw pictures of people staying in glass igloos I was determined to stay in one of these one day and see the Northern Lights. Now, I understand you’re never guaranteed to see the Northern Lights, all you can do is visit during the time of year where you have a higher probability and hope for the best.
After much research we decided to book Kakslauttanen. We read through tons of reviews that were on opposite ends of the spectrum. The most recent reviews were NOT good but most were from the 2020 winter season which was far from normal for the hospitality industry. And the only positive blog posts I found were mostly from travelers that were hosted by the hotel, so not exactly unbiased reviews.
The week before our stay I found myself down a rabbit hole reading more and more reviews and debated cancelling, but it was too late. So, we packed everything we thought we would need for this stay and hoped for the best.
Here’s what it was really like…
Table of Contents
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How to get there
Getting to Kakslauttanen is quite simple compared to similar accommodations. The hotel is 30 minutes away from Ivalo airport and the hotel offers shared or private transfers that you can book directly from their website. It’s also possible to book a taxi service from the airport or take a city bus that stops right in front of the resort. In our opinion the easiest and most cost-effective option is to book a shared transfer directly through the hotel.
Right after baggage claim in the arrivals area you’ll find several people standing with signs for who they are picking up. Just look for the Kakslauttanen sign and you’ll be on your way shortly.
Room Options
The hotel offers several different accommodation options from small to large cabins, small to large igloos and kelo-igloos.
The cabins include kitchenettes and vary in size from 2-6 people. It didn’t look like these had many windows but might be more suitable for a family as they have more space.
The igloos vary in size from 2-4 people. These are what you see all over social media. The best way to think of these is luxury glamping. The rooms are quite small so not great for huge suitcases. There is plenty of space for 2 people and the 2 carry on size suitcases/backpacks.
Each igloo is heated to 73 degrees and comes with its own bathroom and sink (no showers).
The room has a total of 6 outlets, 2 on each side of the bed and 2 at the entry, as well as wifi, a kettle and a small basket of instant coffee, tea and hot chocolate powder.
The other accommodation option is the kelo-igloo. This is a combination between a cabin and an igloo. The end part of the cabin has a half dome igloo and looked quite impressive from the outside. These are much larger than the standard igloos and include a shower and private sauna (but also double the price).
Cost
At the time of this post the rates for a 4 person cabin and 2 person igloo are the same, at a little over $500/night. The kelo-igloo has a rate of a little over $1000/night.
Check out the website for more accurate pricing though! https://www.kakslauttanen.fi/
The rate includes a buffet breakfast and 3 course dinner per day. Not included are drinks (besides water, coffee, tea and hot chocolate) during meals as well as lunch. The pricing for drinks and snacks seemed standard for being in the middle of nowhere, personally we did not find it outrageous. The cheapest glass of wine was 6 euros and a pint of draught beer was 7.60 euros.
Any excursions you want to do such as husky rides, reindeer safaris, etc. are not included and can be booked ahead of time through the website or on arrival.
How to book
Booking directly through the hotel is possible by using their website. We booked this hotel because it was bookable through the Chase Travel Portal. With our Chase Sapphire Reserve card, we can redeem our chase reward points for bookings like this one or we could pay the rate through the portal and earn 10 times the points. With a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you can earn 7 times the points by booking through the portal. Here’s our affiliate link if you’re interested in this card! The Capital One Venture also has its own travel booking portal and it may be possible to book through their portal as well.
We looked at a few other igloo places to stay that were not bookable through the Chase travel portal and ultimately decided on this one for that reason #pointsandmiles.
Things to know
Our experience is based on staying in an igloo, which we booked for a little over $500 per night. If you’re splitting it with someone that works out to $250/night. That’s an expensive rate for a luxury glamping experience, but considering where you are, and this bucket list experience, the cost is justified for us. Especially since we booked through the Chase portal which means we’ll earn more points. I’m not sure we would feel the same about paying $1000/night to stay in the Kelo-igloo.
We did notice several people complain to the front desk during our stay that appeared to stay in the Kelo-igloos but not sure what their issues were (besides paying so much more).
- The standard igloos do not have showers, there are showers probably a 5 minute walk away in the old reception building. The shower/sauna room is separated by gender and includes towels, shampoo, and conditioner. There are 6 shower stalls and an area before you walk in to leave all your things. We visited these at 6pm and didn’t see anyone in the shower area or sauna area. While the showers are available 24/7, the sauna is only available from 5-10pm. For our 2-night stay, we had planned on not bothering to shower (TMI??) and brought body wipes in case it was a problem.
- After deciding to visit the sauna Nate used the showers as well and found the showers to be fine with plenty of hot water.
- These standard igloos are quite small, so you’ll need to be close with the person you share or you will be after this stay! While the beds are single beds they are pushed together so you’re sleeping in close quarters, but not together as there is a gap in between the beds. In addition given the bathroom inside the room, just with wall dividers, it’s not the most private bathroom. So you may not want to stay with someone you just started dating…
- The igloos are set to 73 degrees Fahrenheit or 23C. At first this seemed kind of too hot for us but as the temperatures dropped outside the room also dropped to 71 degrees which was more pleasant for us. Even though you can’t change the temperature of the inside of the igloo, just open the door for 30 seconds if you get too hot and problem solved.
- There is no luggage assistance. When you get dropped off to the main reception/restaurant area, you’ll receive a map and a key to your place. There are sleighs outside of reception where you can put your things and pull them to your room. If you’re staying in a standard igloo, this is not a bad walk even in the cold. The experience is pretty funny and fun! If you’re staying in a larger cabin or kelo-igloo, this walk is much further and could include some steps, so probably not as enjoyable when it’s negative something out and quite dark. An option is to pay for luggage transportation which I believe is 9 euros per bag so not cheap.
- Each room does come with a wifi hotpsot and we found the wifi to be rather fast, no issues streaming Netflix shows!
Things to bring
After reading tons of negative reviews we brought way too many things to make sure our stay was ok, that we didn’t need such as entirely too many snacks and a kettle. Nowhere does it say a kettle is provided in the room, which is a game changer because the reception where the drinks are is pretty far away. We knew we would want a kettle for warm drinks in our room and bought a small 10 euro one with us. There was already a kettle in our room so it appears these may be a new edition.
In addition since breakfast and dinner are included, it’s not necessary to go crazy on snacks. It’s nice to have some things but I wouldn’t go crazy (like we did).
- Warm clothes are the most important thing! A good parka, underlayers, gloves, hat, something to cover your face and waterproof pants. It’s very cold and any part of you that is not covered will HURT. Honestly my Athleta mask has never been so helpful!
- If you think there’s a chance of seeing the Northern Lights a tripod is a MUST. Taking pictures without one is incredible difficult as you need a longer exposure which means your camera has to stay perfectly still. If you have an iPhone Pro, it’ll take great photos with night mode set to max. Put your phone on a $25 amazon tripod and you’ll have epic photos. This is the one we have and recommend.
- A DSLR is even better of course but don’t buy one just for this trip. We brough this tripod (thanks to a rec from another blogger) with us which we cannot recommend enough. It’s quite compact but sturdy and actually meant for a camera.
- An eye mask is helpful to have for sleeping, as the skies are rather dark from the lack of light pollution however there are lights out on the paths in between the igloos for safety that stay on all night. These lights can be rather bright as well as there are some igloos that will choose to keep some of their lights on that can be distracting as well.
Overall thoughts
Overall we really enjoyed our stay and found the igloo life to be really fun for 2 nights. The resort offers tons of paid activities to do as well as plenty of food during the provided breakfast and dinner meal times. I think rather than marketing the hotel as a 4 star hotel they should really market it as more of luxury glamping. I think for people staying in the cabins and especially the kelo-igloos they are expecting a luxury hotel experience given the 5 star prices and the cabins are supposed to come with way more amenities inside. Had we stayed in one of those options and paid THOSE prices I’m not sure our review would be the same. However for the standard igloo, the luxury glamping experience was fantastic.
One of the only negatives we had was when we booked our transportation back to the airport with the hotel, we were given the wrong time. We were told to report to reception at 6:20am for a 6:30am shuttle, only to be told the shuttle time was actually at 7:10am. 40 minutes is not a huge deal, but in our opinion there’s always a big difference between waking up in hours of 5am (yuck) compared to 6am. The breakfast buffet starts promptly at 8am each morning but since we were the only ones sitting in the lobby at 6:30 in the morning, they started to put out food early so that we could help ourselves to it. After reading lots of reviews of the lack of customer service here, we really found the customer service to be quite positive and enjoyed our stay.
