Finland resources

I'm putting up all the resources we found useful for this trip - so if any of you want to go and check it out for yourselves you can....

We stayed at the Aurora Chalet in Luosto - they had really comfy rooms (each with their own sauna), and our breakfast and dinner was included in the price - both meals were delicious. The hotel books out early.
www.aurorachalet.fi

We did all our activities through Snow Games - they were pricey, but it was worth it because if you do 2 or more activities with them during the week, they let you keep the snow suit, socks, boots & mittens for the week (and they are essential for any walking around town to check things out, or to go and see the Aurora in a dark spot only a few hundred metres from the hotel). Because Snow Games & the Aurora Chalet are owned by the same people, you don't have to return all the gear (which meant we got to see the most amazing Aurora sighting on our very last night in Finland) - you just leave it in your locker in the changing room in the hotel. All the staff were very friendly and incredibly laid back (we never had to sign for the gear & in fact picked it up on the Monday afternoon, even though our first activity with them wasn't until the Wednesday).
www.snowgames.fi

In Helsinki we stayed a the Hotel Arthur - very central, great food, but not the best double glazing so we woke up at 5.30 to the sound of snow clearing, but that may have had more to do with our jetlag & still being on Australian time zones.
www.hotelarthur.fi/eng

In Bangkok we stayed at the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel - we had two rooms on the way over (and thought we had asked for interconnecting rooms, but were actually given rooms on separate floors a looooong way away from each other) and one very large room on the way home (a junior suite with an interconnecting king room). The beds were enormous and VERY comfy and the food in the breakfast buffet (which we had on both stays) we very good (although I'm glad it was included in the room, because it was pricey otherwise). We ordered room service for lunch and it was a HUGE amount of food, for fairly reasonable prices. The pool is lovely and you can have a massage if you feel like it (it looked very relaxing). One hint is to make sure they give you interconnecting rooms if you are traveling as a family (we thought we had done this in our booking, but it got overlooked - I emailed a few days before our second night there and when we arrived they had to upgrade us to a junior suite because they hadn't organised interconnecting rooms). Another hint is to ask for a room near the lifts, because with over 600 rooms on 3 floors it is a long way to the lift if you are placed on the opposite side of the hotel. The hotel has 24 hour check in (& your can check out up to 24 hours after you check in before you have to pay for another night), and there is a free shuttle bus from the airport (there is a Novotel desk in the arrivals section of the airport - ask for directions if you need it because the airport is MASSIVE - the free shuttle will also take you back to the airport - it is a 5 min drive - but you need to check out 2 hours before your flight, because it takes a long time to get through security and immigration).
http://www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-6183-novotel-bangkok-suvarnabhumi-airport/index.shtml

I hope this helps if you are planning on going to Finland to see the Northern Lights. Hannah did a lot of research before we went and found out that Luosto has the most number of sightings each year of the Aurora, and this is why the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory is only 40km away.