2023 Seasonal Event: Christmas Wonderland

[James no5]

We are at the park today and I must admit I’m impressed with the hot chocolate. A massive improvement on last years offering. For anyone who’s interested , if you phone the hotel to book a room over the phone then they take payment the day before your arrival however if you book it over the internet then payment is taken instantly.

Looks nice. Wish I was there to have some

 

[Charliie]

Looks nice. Wish I was there to have some

I had the after eight and actually it was pretty decent. I might have to have a few more of them next week when we come for Xmas eve.

 

[alfie8]

U not been in the main summer season when a basic 1-2 min ride has a queue for a hour+.
For the Christmas Event that’s only got Thomas land and 4 family rides open the queues can get busy.

For Thomas rides yes, for anything even marginally thrill I've only had to wait 10 minutes max in peak summer.

 

[Elise]

I think the main thing wrong with this event has been the ride offerings. Like having non of the Vikings rides open when u have to walk though the area seems a strange choice. Like can understand if they only want young family rides open but why have the bounty open with its 1.2m restriction.

This is a decision I definately question... Really doesn't seem right when you have to walk in that way.
All of those rides would be able to run without issue at this time of year from what I know.

I can imagine a lot of children questioning that too - expecially as it was on the line-up last year (I think?)

 

[Charliie]

I remember it being on the line up but I think that’s because accelerator had maintenance though that being said this year when troublesome trucks, accelerator and submarine splash was all down due to cold weather , they never opened anything else up to make up for it.

 

[alfie8]

I think the main thing wrong with this event has been the ride offerings. Like having non of the Vikings rides open when u have to walk though the area seems a strange choice. Like can understand if they only want young family rides open but why have the bounty open with its 1.2m restriction.

On my visit I saw countless guests just wandering around in Vikings not knowing that the rides were closed there. I mainly disliked the ride offering due to it being mainly Thomas Land as the area was absolutely packed. I feel it would have been a bit less busy if Vikings was open but then again that's just my opinion.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Well the combination of late night opening and the ending of after school clubs means that we've been able to pop up after school for a couple of hours each night.

Tonight was really eerie. There were only 50 or so cars parked when we pitched up at about 5pm. Every ride was walk on, stay on.

I think Mrs Claus gave her show neck when there was no one to watch. We went into the theatre and there were 5 of us. None of this detracted really from our experience, just thinking the park may want to do something different next year in terms of the marketing. I can imagine the weekend will be mega busy.

We have our wishmas and grotto booked for Thursday evening.

 

[Charliie]

Well the combination of late night opening and the ending of after school clubs means that we've been able to pop up after school for a couple of hours each night.

Tonight was really eerie. There were only 50 or so cars parked when we pitched up at about 5pm. Every ride was walk on, stay on.

I think Mrs Claus gave her show neck when there was no one to watch. We went into the theatre and there were 5 of us. None of this detracted really from our experience, just thinking the park may want to do something different next year in terms of the marketing. I can imagine the weekend will be mega busy.

We have our wishmas and grotto booked for Thursday evening.

We are going on the 23rd and 24th so it will be interesting to see the atmosphere on the Christmas weekend and what attendance will be like.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

We are going on the 23rd and 24th so it will be interesting to see the atmosphere on the Christmas weekend and what attendance will be like.

I think the park not done their research and not noticed that the kids are finishing later than last year as last year they finished on the 16th as we went on the 20th. This year both my kids don’t finish to Friday.
I doubt I will be going again this year as I also finish work on Friday but got my work do, Saturday do the Christmas food shop as we hosting for 8 this year and Christmas Eve deliver all the presents and do finish things before having a curry on the night. Then the 27th going to watch Birminghams pantomime, could maybe do the 28th morning and then going up town with friends on the evening, 29th putting my sons new bed up and 30th going to my parents house for dinner and 31st have a rest and see the new year and take the decorations down and put away on the 1st then I’m back at work on the 2nd.
My son gonna not like that the park is not open again to Feb half term.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Had an email from the park this morning about our Grotto trip this evening. With the winds rides won't be open today.

We are being given the option of coming tomorrow instead or receiving a free ticket for prior to March 28th.

Grotto remains open though so we will be going along for that.

The fact about the ticket and the restrcition may be giving a hint as to the planned launch date of the new coaster though?

 

[RustyShackleford]

Had an email from the park this morning about our Grotto trip this evening. With the winds rides won't be open today.

We are being given the option of coming tomorrow instead or receiving a free ticket for prior to March 28th.

Grotto remains open though so we will be going along for that.

The fact about the ticket and the restrcition may be giving a hint as to the planned launch date of the new coaster though?

Or that that's the Easter Holidays.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

Or that that's the Easter Holidays.

The coaster I been told is roughly 6 weeks behind schedule so you got to be looking at a May opening date now.
The school Easter holidays start on the 23rd March with Good Friday on the 29th March.

 

[MPDarby]

Had an email from the park this morning about our Grotto trip this evening. With the winds rides won't be open today.

We are being given the option of coming tomorrow instead or receiving a free ticket for prior to March 28th.

Grotto remains open though so we will be going along for that.

The fact about the ticket and the restrcition may be giving a hint as to the planned launch date of the new coaster though?

Just out of interest, which rides were open today with the winds or was it a blanket closure?

 

[RustyShackleford]

Just out of interest, which rides were open today with the winds or was it a blanket closure?

Sorry for the late response. It was difficult to tell as I think they were on rotational opening, there were so few people in.

When I went in I was amazed to see staff on Accelerator, but no guests. When we made our way up there afterwards the shutters were shut. We did however get to have a trip or two on the troublesome trucks. The little lad also went on the Submarine splash and the diesel mayhem.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Couple of thoughts on the Thursday and Friday when we did the Santa's Grotto (thurs) and Friday (Wishmas express)

I've got to give masses of credit to the staff who were doing the grotto and other festive bits on Thursday. It must have been so difficult when there were so few people there but they were, well, magnificent. We tried to match their energy!

We were effetively personally escorted through the grotto experience, it was pretty much the same format as two years ago - story / reindeer food craft and Santa. This was followed by the photo, gift and hot chocolate. Then there was also the Mrs. CLaus's kitchen (which we actually did on the Friday).

Then on Friday we scooted back to the Wishmas Express. Well there are some lessons that can be learned for next year I think. For those that don't know this is a trip on the Polperro express which is also equipped now with headphones. The headphones (Actually wishmaster 3000 or somesuch) allow you to hear the noises that Christmas Elves can here. This allows you to hear wishes being made and then you try and help a wish come true. This wish is for snow...which is lovely. Except we didn't quite arrive at the snow machines in time with the audio and when we reached the back of the train there was not the greatest of evidence. So a couple more snow machines next year I think. Nice idea, could do with some help in the execution I think.

As for the shows and things, well we enjoyed the Rory show in the theatre. Again it must be difficult keeping up the energy when there are only 7 people in the audience but fair play they did it well.

I saw Mrs. Claus doing the singing and whilst we didn't watch she looked amazing, was giving it a really good go and trying to enthuse the audience who were responding. Again, I don't know what it has been like at the weekends, but to keep up that level when the numbers aren't great must be really difficult. Also I am not sure how reactive you can expect a crowd to be when any clapping is going to be muffled by gloves and folks may be more inclined to shiver than rock and roll.

The Thomasland shows do work well with the snow machines and in the night sky it really is quite magical.

The little lad loved it all. Properly buzzing.

 

[Charliie]

That’s so lovely to hear that you had a great grotto experience. We did ours on Saturday 23 and we are doing it again today 24th with the wishmas express at the end so I will be rounding up my thoughts later this evening but I must admit the hotel have been amazing. The archway that you walk through is just truly magical and they’ve been bringing the reindeers from the park into the hotel. As part of the Christmas wonderland event in the hotel, the children are tasked with locating the cheeky elves and we was pleasantly surprised when instead of receiving a sticker or a sweet, the children received a plush Christmas teddy. There was a choice between a Santa , penguin , snowman, gingerbread and Christmas tree.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

That’s so lovely to hear that you had a great grotto experience. We did ours on Saturday 23 and we are doing it again today 24th with the wishmas express at the end so I will be rounding up my thoughts later this evening but I must admit the hotel have been amazing. The archway that you walk through is just truly magical and they’ve been bringing the reindeers from the park into the hotel. As part of the Christmas wonderland event in the hotel, the children are tasked with locating the cheeky elves and we was pleasantly surprised when instead of receiving a sticker or a sweet, the children received a plush Christmas teddy. There was a choice between a Santa , penguin , snowman, gingerbread and Christmas tree.

I’m glad they decided to extend the opening hours to 5pm today as you would have had to go on the train when it wasn’t completely dark.

 

[Charliie]

I’m glad they decided to extend the opening hours to 5pm today as you would have had to go on the train when it wasn’t completely dark.

I must admit I was confused because when I booked the train when it first came out online , the park was originally open till 5 and then then shorted the hours. We are looking forward to the train. I’ve noticed yesterday more entertainment than what we have previously seen.
Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

I must admit I was confused because when I booked the train when it first came out online , the park was originally open till 5 and then then shorted the hours. We are looking forward to the train. I’ve noticed yesterday more entertainment than what we have previously seen.
Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas

Merry Christmas to u and everyone else. How was today? Much work been done since last week.

 

[Charliie]

Merry Christmas to u and everyone else. How was today? Much work been done since last week.

I’ve spotted a few treats not visible to a nine thoosie.
Park was fairly quiet today which I expected due to most people travelling to see family. The longest queue for the day unsurprisingly was submarine splash which seemed to be at capacity all day but to me it seemed to be on half the submarine boats. Everything else was literally walk on including accelerator which staff were keeping guests in the platform for re rides without the need for queuing again.

We had a good day overall and I can’t thank the staff enough. We started our day off with breakfast with sir toPham hat and dusty which is always amazing . The shows to me work better when theirs only one show of each in the day and we had some special time with the characters in the park.

Our day took a turn for the worst when 1) we ended up in the first aid hut after my son somehow really banged his mouth on a bar in the accelerator queue station. The blood didn’t seem to stop. Then a little while later my son went missing and all the staff at park searched for him. Even dusty on his break helped search for him. It was a scary situation but it was amazing to see the policies in place and in action.

On arrival to park , guests were being offered the chance to go into the grotto straight away because it was so dead. I’ve noticed improvements in the queue for the wishmas express. They’ve blocked off 2 out of the three entrances and now you only enter from the main entrance. It worked very well and our train was delayed by 10 minutes but that was because the ride before us broke down for a few moments.

We also noticed that the Rory show was a different experience with some of the set being replaced by different elements all together. After the Rory show on exit all
The children were being given the Santa lolly pops.

We also noticed rusty and dusty doing multiple entertainment gigs including being elves. When my child spotted this , they told him they was being under cover due to wanting to meet the reindeers which was brilliant.

The bellow photos are taken during the Christmas wonderland event in public areas. It may have helped the wind had blown the tar pooling up but we spotted a familiar friend.