Joanne Gellatly

No one can ever imagine the magical experience of Lapland until you have experienced it yourself. Greeted by elves at the airport that never come out of character, then seeing the breath taking whiteness of the snow. Snow mobile, toboggan and snow sports, to sitting in front of the fire listening to the elves telling stories about the true magic of Christmas. Cookies baked by Mrs Claus, and your own private meeting with Santa himself. Then at night time if you are lucky enough you can see the sky light up with the electrical colours of the northern lights. The whole trip was an amazing lifetime experience.

I love Mexico my favourite part is Playacar, it has the top hotels with amazing cuisine in the hotels many restaraunts,all located on the long stretch of golden sand that you can walk for miles on,the sea is turquoise and crystal clear and have various watersports.

I love the fact that it is safe enough to walk out of the hotels and see the locals on their day to day lives. There are a few shops there too. A little further away you have 5th Avenue with an array of shops bars and restaurants, 5th Avenue comes to life at night time. There are lots of different excursions to experience too.

The brochures don’t lie, these are the ultimate desert island idylls, palm trees white sand beaches, lagoons and reefs. The islands are all different shapes and sizes. I stayed on a smaller one and you could swim all the way around it. My accommodation was a beach bungalow just a few steps from the ocean. It is complete paradise, the days were spent seeing the life under the water snorkelling, and then the beautiful sunsets with incredible colours are a definite photo shoot. Nightlife consisted of Asian cuisine followed by Maldivian dancing and music on the beach. I loved the sea plane transfer to our island it was a fabulous little adventure.