Rain stops play as Transun cancels Santa breaks

Lack of snow and heavy rain forced Transun to cancel day trips and short breaks to Lapland today and yesterday.

The operator posted on its Facebook page on Sunday to say: "With deep regret we must take the difficult decision to cancel our departures to Lapland on 2nd and 3rd December 2018 – both daybreaks and short breaks."

Later it asked customers not to call its out-of-hours phone number, saying its lines were ‘jammed’.

Transun’s Facebook post said: "Although we have had some snow in our resorts and started our winter season on 30 November, the temperatures unexpectedly rose yesterday and there was a rain downpour in the evening, which continued into the night. A lot of snow has washed away.

"We will offer all affected passengers a full refund or the choice of any available alternative dates."

The operator added: "As you may be aware from recent media coverage, it has been an unseasonably mild winter so far with limited snowfall.

"We have been creating snow using snow cannons, which pumps water into the sky and then forms snow as it freezes in the air.

"We have been using this to create tracks and trails on which to run snowmobiles, huskies and reindeer sleighs – some on paths through forests and some across frozen lakes and rivers. For a number of weeks we have been running the cannons 24 hours per day, through the night.

"It has been an enormous effort from our overseas staff, our suppliers’ staff, and many volunteers from the local areas who want to showcase Lapland and show what a beautiful place it can be in the snow. We have worked tirelessly so that we can provide exciting excursions and enjoyable holidays for families on the run up to Christmas.

"Unfortunately, yesterday, the forces of nature conspired against us. In the morning, temperatures began to rise again, which means that we could no longer create snow because the water would not freeze. Then, in the evening, it began to rain quite heavily. In a few hours, much of the snow had washed away and some of the lakes and rivers which we use for our daybreak locations began to melt."

It added: "Having looked at a number of reasonably reliable weather forecasts, we plan to resume our full Lapland operations from Friday December 7, by which time we hope to have a decent snowfall and low temperatures, and topped up by snow from cannons if necessary.

"As we experienced yesterday, the weather can change rapidly in Lapland.

Newmarket Holidays cancelled day trips over the weekend and says it is hopeful its trips on December 7 and 8 will be able to go ahead.

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