Wilderness Hotel Nellim

Amazing trip |The hotel is very geared to the temperatures we experienced which were minus 25-35.|The resort gives you all gear and as much as you want |Balaclavas, socks, suits,gloves etc . We didn't have any problems. We bought our toe and hand warmers but on 2 trips were offered them by the guide . We of course, took thermals ski pants and jackets to put on under suits |We had problems with the room being cold we were moved straight a away |The snowmobile trip was awesome. Karol was brilliant. Small group of 5 people. Very informative and we all just chatted and discussed nature. Lovely outdoor soup etc |Quentin was so patient with me and the snowshoeing again 5 people |The only trip I was a little worried on was the Aurora camp. No shelter, we were told we couldn't use it minus 36 and people were so cold. We should have come back sooner imo. |The Aurora can n was lovely.|My main comment is the wonderful staff. All friendly and so pleasant . Being honest, I fell over and rolled with 6 layers on. I felt a twit and got upset. The staff were super |It's easy to criticize but sometimes kindness and thought goes a long way

Absolutely magical Christmas stay in this beautiful and remote hotel. We did the four night family arctic Explorer and loved every second! Great range of activities including husky sled rides, ice fishing and much more! The staff (both on the catering and activities side) were fabulous. When we had an issue with the hot water in our chalet it was sorted within half an hour. Thoroughly recommended.

Wilderness Hotel Nellim delivered a truly unforgettable experience for our family.|The lakeside cabin was beautifully designed—compact but extremely well thought out, spotless, and complete with a private sauna. Our family of four adults fit comfortably. We picked up our full winter gear on the first night, and everything was in excellent condition, high quality, and perfectly suited for the Arctic cold.||The main lodge—where meals, activities, and gatherings take place—is rustic, warm, and inviting. All three meals are served there, and the bar stays open until 1 a.m. There was always great energy in the evenings, with guests socializing, playing games, and sharing stories from the day’s adventures.||The food was outstanding. A huge buffet selection featuring local specialties, hearty mains and soups, and pasta options for pickier eaters. Every meal impressed us. Breakfast can get a bit chaotic around the waffle maker, but the staff handle it all with constant replenishment, cleaning, and genuine cheerfulness—it really adds to the atmosphere.||The activities were, in a word, UNFORGETTABLE. We did the Arctic Explorer package, and the snowmobiling (twice), dog sledding, and Aurora camp were absolute highlights. Each excursion was thoughtfully paced with warm shelter breaks and delicious food before heading back out again. Instructions were clear and safety-focused without being overbearing. My only minor suggestion would be a bit more tailoring to different skill levels—at times we moved a little slower to accommodate less experienced participants—but this is a very small quibble.||One small area for improvement: on departure day we planned a relaxed final morning, but the hotel organized a large bus to the airport nearly four hours before departure. This resulted in a long wait at the airport, with check-in counters not yet open. Minor issue, but worth noting.||Overall, this was truly a trip of a lifetime. Wilderness Hotel Nellim is exceptionally well organized, welcoming, and clearly committed to creating a magical experience for its guests. Well done—and thank you for an unforgettable stay.

We stayed at Wilderness Hotel Nellim for 4 nights as a family of 5 (children aged 9,12 and 14). We chose the Arctic Explorer package, which included Aurora camp, Aurora snowmobile, meet the reindeer by snowmobile, dog sledding and snow shoeing. The temperature while we were there averaged -25 C. I'll list the great and the not so great things about our stay below in the hope they'll be helpful to the hotel and to future visitors. Brilliant things:|1. We stayed in a log suite cabin, and it was amazing. Always toasty and the sauna was absolutely amazing with the cold temperatures. It was clean and modern and we were super happy with it. I'd definitely recommend this.|2. We had two brilliant guides - Quentin and Aro - they were both amazing.|3. The food was wonderful - full credit to the chefs. And the bar was great too.|4. The aurora alarms worked a treat - you really can't stand around waiting for them when its -25 outside!||Not so great/things I wish I'd known:|1. The hotel is much bigger than I thought and was fully booked when we were there so dinners felt busy and the tours where all for 10-30 people, which was larger than I was expecting. You may need to wait for a table.|2. Some of the staff were very brusque and unhelpful, particularly at the activity centre booking desk, and on reception. This definitely reduced our enjoyment. |3. If you have kids, I'd say the most they can handle in -25 C is about 2 hours, so I'd consider booking the family adventure, which has shorter activities as you don't want to make it feel like you're affecting other guests' enjoyment by coming back early|4. Most importantly - equipment. The website makes it seem like you need only bring thermals, a hat, woolly socks and a scarf but in these temps you need so much more. I'd recommend lots of hand/foot warmers (we also had some battery charged ones, which were great). You need non-cotton glove and boot liners/socks as well as thick ski gloves/mittens of your own that you can put the ones they supply over (I'm not kidding!) and one or two pairs of thick wool socks. Plus lots of layers (thermals, trousers, jumper, fleece layer). And finally a balaclava and good woolly hat. It's serious stuff being in the cold for 2-4 hours. It would have been heflpul if the shop sold more cold-weather gear - we had enough but I'm sure we might have upgraded a few things!|5. We left our kids in the suite for an hour in the afternoon to go snow-mobiling because they couldn't manage any more cold, and that was great, but it would have been amazing if the hotel had a room with games/activities etc. and perhaps even a member of staff to keep an eye on the kids. ||Overall, a once in a lifetime experience that was truly wonderful - especially the snow mobiling, dog sledding and snow-shoeing with the great guides, but I do think there are things the hotel could improve and most importantly, they need to do better to prepare you for the cold weather in advance.

Staying at Hotel Wilderness Nellim and participating in all the activities was an awesome experience. Scheduling was impeccable with everything very organized and communicated thoroughly. I absolutely loved taking part in the activities, especially the snowmobiling and snowshoeing. The guides provided instruction and were great at leading these and letting us have some independence (while still making sure we were doing things safely). Absolutely recommend staying here and taking part in everything they have to offer.

We’ve been to 2 excursions organised by this hotel: snow mobile 4h tour and a haskis riding one. That was the best experience in my life! Crossing endless lakes we explored stunning Lapland landscape, cuddled and rode adorable dogs and had great time riding snowmobiles. All equipment (warm outfits) was provided, guide Antony (snow mobile tour) was fun and very professional. 100/10 points for the both tours!

My sister and I had such a special experience at Wilderness Nellim! We loved the cozy atmosphere, the deluxe igloo, the incredible excursions and we made friends with other travelers. We would absolutely come back.

This was a magical experience to share with our 9yr old Grandson. From start to end it was magical. We travelled 20/12 returning 23/12 we used Discover the World travel agents to book at Santa package. I had seen the wilderness hotel on tv and felt I wanted a less touristy visit than the Rob and Ramesh trip! Callum our adviser had asked me for a wish list and a budget and built our short stay trip around not only Santa but what we as adults, wished to experience as well. We weren’t made aware of upgrades such as driving a snowmobile but I think this was due to age restrictions of our lad. ||Early start at Heathrow and plane was on time. As we walked into the plane my grandson had a sticker popped on him saying official Santa airline. The magic had begun. It was a long day, huge rush at Helsinki to get to connecting flight made it frantic and no time for food. Pizza was stodgy that we pre ordered on the flight. If I did this again I would ask our agent to build in an overnight stop on both journeys. Once at Ivalo the coach was waiting to take us to Nellim. Snow like we had never seen before and magical houses lit with fairy lights. We arrived at our hotel and to be honest it was a bit chaotic. Families on the coach all had children that were fractious, tired and hungry. Someone outside the coach called out names and said go with a man and someone else did the same for you to follow a women. By the time we got off the coach we were alone so made our way to reception and found we were in the right place. We were told to leave our luggage by the coach. We were shown to a table but no further instruction followed so we watched others and got some food from the buffet. Eventually we were allocated a lovely warm log cabin, and set up our tab for drinks. After eating we went outside to find our bags in the middle of the entrance road abandoned. We worked out to get a sleigh and take to cabin. First impressions weren’t similar to Monica Galletti/Rob Rinder!!||Our itinerary had been adjusted and our first trip was 9.30 the next morning. The cabin was great, very steep ladder type steps to upstairs beds, with downstairs double bed, sauna and wet room. One set of three drawers upstairs and hanging wardrobe but no other storage. Lovely toiletries and towels. Comfy beds but not a great amount of black tea (1 teabag) and powder creamer. Room was serviced every second day so not helpful. |Breakfast next morning was good, varied choice and hot. ||Across a frozen lake our Husky trip was fabulous, lots of time in kennels to see dogs before the husky ride. Very informative guide. Then back to hotel for lunch. Next was cookie baking, our grandson had already made friends with a little lad from the plane so they baked and decorated gingerbread. My grandson was convinced one of the ladies was Mrs Claus and when asked she just winked at him….more magic. Lots of dough and lots of icing with plenty of time to enjoy. Next supper and then off across a huge frozen lake to aurora camp fire on snowmobile pulled sleighs. Hot chocolate and pancakes served, fire made from nothing and again well organised and informative trip. My nephew had said to take pictures even if you couldn’t see aurora as it may be picked up by camera. I did this and to my delight, the sky was ablaze but with the naked eye, we were all sure we did not see the northern lights! Back to hotel for a good nights sleep. |. |Next day was off to the reindeer farm, this was by minibus, time well spent and info re Sami people was informative, more hot berry juice was welcome and then onto an Orthodox Church made of wood and really beautiful, just a few km from Russian border. We were dropped back for lunch at hotel, there was not a lot of choice for the children considering it was a Santa trip, pasta was a staple but this ran out one evening. In the afternoon we went ‘gentle’ snow shoeing….out across the fields and into the forest where we bumped in crème fraiche…..Santa’s personal chef. This was the only elf we saw, at a camp fire where we were served hot chocolate or berry juice. The elf joined the walk back and took the children off to snowball. They had a great time. As this was our last night, our private sleigh ride was booked. My grandson worked out it was our Santa visit. By now the choice of reindeer served every which way was becoming a bit tiresome but the children had chicken nuggets so we coped. My husband was in the one shop on site when the aurora alert was sent out, so we got our kit on and wow what a site. We went down to the frozen lake to see an amazing show of northern lights with very few people about. Our Santa visit was very special met by our friendly elf, Santa had my grandsons letter. They discussed the year and talked about the naughty elves invading our home and our grandson will believe for a very long time that he saw the ‘real’ Santa. |During our trip we saw reindeer in the bus stop and had time to use the sled run for games in between trips. There were no commercial outlets or a town nearby so it was a truly unique experience and made it all very real for us to understand just how far north in the artic circle we were. We were experiencing a true wilderness. ||Lots of children were totally overwhelmed by the experience and fraught parents were beside themselves with the tantrums. My grandsons meltdown arrived once home! ||The hotel supplied all the cold weather gear you could want including hats, gloves, boots and scarves although we took our own ski gear. Each trip was well organised and on time. We felt safe in the hands of the guides.||My thoughts are that maybe my age at 65 should have been taken into account as this was a fast paced and heavy going trip. Just putting on and off all the gear was tiring……..let alone scrambling in and out of sleighs. I’m active and still working full time but I was exhausted at the end of it. Maybe a different type of accommodation/cabin could have been offered as the steps were treacherous to the upstairs especially for that 3am trip to the loo. |An overnight stay in Helsinki would have relived the stress of literally running for planes. |Better tea/coffee in the cabin would have helped us. We should have asked for more at the time. |The only thing we paid for was our drinks. We didn’t pay 10euro a night for the aurora warning gadget as it didn’t alert after 1am so felt it wasn’t worth it. |A person coming onto the bus with instruction to check in would have helped the confusion upon arrival||All that said, it was an amazing trip that lived up to everything we had wanted. Yes, it was very expensive for three nights but we learnt that the season is very short so it is understandable. |We thank everyone from Callum to coach driver, pilots to ground staff, to guides and housekeeping for making this a trip our grandson will never forget.