Lanterns at Chester Zoo

[Futureplanning]

It's my 40th in December and I love Christmas, so thinking a nice Christmassy day out with the family would be fitting.

It's £83 for the 5 of us, worth it? Ages are 16, 13 and 9.

Or any other suggestions (not ice skating!)?

Definitely not worth it. We love Chester zoo and have had annual passes for years but I can't see us ever going to lantern walk again. Most of the zoo is closed off so you'll only see rhinos, elephants and bats. The entertainment on the way round is aimed at young children. I'm not even sure the 9year old will enjoy it.

On the plus side Father Christmas is very jolly and the animal lantern display was good but it's almost as good seeing it in daylight when you can visit all of the zoo.

Have you looked at Tatton Park? I haven't been but have heard good things.

Thanks it's good to hear a first hand experience. Back to the drawing board then.

Dunham Massey is supposed to be good too.

We loved it. I think the 9 year old would like it but not sure it's suitable for the older two.

Dunham Massey is wonderful. Really magical, but it gets booked up really fast. I think a lot of slots are already gone so you may want to book asap for a weekend especially.

I think the lanterns are wonderful! Come on - there's no age limit to enjoying being pecked at by a glowing cassowary is there?

I've been to Chester zoo lanterns twice. First time I thought it was good, but a bit over priced and not quite as good as the raving reviews it gets. Missed a year and went the next and it was worse. Way, way busier than the time before which sucked any joy there would have been out of it. I felt stressed because there was so many people there was pressure to keep moving and I kept losing sight of my kids. The lanterns are awkward to carry. We got food in Bembe because we felt a bit meh, with the pre paid sandwich option the time before and once we'd got food had to wait around for AGES to get a table, had to share with strangers. My overwhelming memory is sat in there feeling stressed and saying to DP that this is just an expensive endurance. I've felt like that with most of our Christmas days out though in hindsight. My opinion is that they way oversold tickets that year, it's possible they realised and rectified it last year but probably not and I didn't fancy spending all that money to find out.

One year we went to a really lovely Santa visit at Chester zoo, it was in the projection room bit at Islands, and that was so lovely. The room was lit up with Santa's grotto, then went on a visit to the amazon and had a conservation themed story, and the ticket price included a little orangutan soft toy. Santa was very realistic. I've checked each year and haven't seen it advertised again which is a shame.

The crap lanterns experience happened to be the same year of the flamingos shouting about shrimp. The whole thing wasn't exactly festive.

I too remember the flamingo in the pissing rain.

We have been the last two years. The first one was pretty crap and we were round in about 15 minutes. I think they learned from that as they had some bad reviews and last year was 100% better. Really enjoyed it. Dd (9) has already asked to go back this year. Maybe team it up with Chester Christmas Market?
Last year we also went to the Christmas secret garden at Croxteth Country Park in Liverpool. That was really lovely. Illuminations much better than Chester and really magical. If its still on this year and you can make it up to Liverpool it was well worth it. Seeing Father Christmas at Speke Hall is lovely too.

Aahhh we have booked for the lanterns this year (1st time) and we are giving Dunham Massey a miss as I thought our DS (2 years 3months) would appreciate the lanterns more .....have we made the wrong choice !!!

We didn't really rate Dunham Massey. It was alright, but really busy which detracted from the 'magic'.

My DS was 2 exactly last year and absolutely loved it. We've booked it again this year and can't wait. But it's probably but something I'd take older kids to as it's definitely aimed at little ones (I loved it though!)