MoominworldHappyBudgetPlan

We recently visited Moominworld in Naantali. It is ½ h drive from Turku, Finland. We've been in Naantali before but never visited Moominworld. That's because it is so far away and when our own children were small it was totally out of our budget.

In Finland Moominworld arises a critic of its high prices and the fact that buying the creepy expensive tickets is not enough. They say it is just a shop-shop-shop place with high prices. And all with the fact that small children are frightened, even feeling horror in there. I do agree about the prices. We took our 2 yrs old granddaughter there and paid 111€ for the tickets of 2 adults and  one 2 yrs old toddler. It was the discounted online family ticket! Only children under 2 yrs get the free entrance. You need also 15€ for the parking! That means the total entrance cost is 126€ all together for 3 persons!!! With the discounts!

Right when we stepped in through the gates and walked into the Moominworld we faced a market street. It was shop-shop-shop for food, face painting, games you need to pay to be able to try on etc. All masked to look like a play world in the way that the children don't realize it costs but the adults get huge stress about it. BUT on the other hand, if you know this for beforehand, you can talk about it at home with your children and tell them they can't get that there. It is easy to make true not to shop-shop-shop because it all is only right on the begin. In Finland nothing is big so when you get through it you can return only when leaving because there are several toilets also deeper in the world. And if you have children that understand you are not shopping there you can pass it slower and take a look at the beautiful buildings.

We visited only the post office book shop when leaving. If you send a post card there you get a special Moominworld franking on it. That is something you can send also home and is a budget and sustainable option for a souvenir. And a nice surprise for the children when it arrives!

How to avoid the fear and horror of smaller children in the Moominwold? No matter how much they love Moomin stories they can feel fear and horror in there. You need to prepare smaller or more shy child for the visit. To avoid the fear we explained to our granddaughter for several times there are no real Moomin characters in the world. They are just humans dressed up into the characters like we all can dress up in different clothes. They are like a puppet which has a human hand inside but in Moominworld the whole human is inside the costume. And we told her that's why the characters are so big; there are adults inside dressed up. Also, she was allowed to see videos about the Moomin world on which she could see the characters and children so she saw the actual size how small the children were compared to the characters. We did these both several times to make sure she remembers it and gets the point but also gets used to the idea. 

Preparing the child helped. No fear. She was shy but I must give all the credit and thank you for the workers dressed up into the characters. They read very well the children's expressions and body language. They didn't cause any single panic. If some was caused it was the stupid parents who forced their kids too close the characters. In those cases the characters stepped away.

With more shy children go there as early as possible to avoid crowds. Wait and seek silent moments. The characters move around the world; so do people. When you stop moving or go to another direction you get excellent changes to seek the Moominworld in peace an quiet. 

We all found our soul cabinet! Even if you don't have children or don't like Moomins but are nearby I recommend you to go anyway because there's a lot of excellent and good quality carpenter and decoration craft. At the end I think it all was worth of the money. The prices are acceptable when you realize it locates on an expensive land area on a small island in a beautiful most famous archipelago region of Finland. The only big minus was the fact that there was not any single picnic site (table and benches) to eat your own lunch in there. That's important especially with the special diets. There do are few single benches you can see at the city parks. You can find the benches also at the experience routes which are like small hiking paths. You can sit on one to enjoy your own lunch in the nature. Remember not to leave any trash into the nature!!!