Grotto @ Painshill Park or other ?

[BeaLola]

DS will be 9 and at mo still believes.

I am wanting to go and have a lovely Christmas visit to Santa that is special and am looking for ideas. Friend took her younger nieces last year to Painshill and said its lovely with its underground grotto with stalactites/mites and very Christmassy. Will probably be our last visit oft his kind :-(

Any thoughts ? Re distance can do any Surrey/Kent/London

[Waterlemon]

I really like painshill, it's best to book an evening slot so you can walk through the park and see all the trees lit up with lights. You wait for your turn in a marquet where you can buy hot drinks/snacks and they provide colouring books for the kids. It's pretty low key but magical and the santa we saw was pretty authentic looking, he chatted for quite a bit to my two.

Chessington Garden centre is VERY popular. This year it has a charlie and the chocolate factory theme. It's the complete opposite of painshill. It's also good but in a very different way!