Christmas in London

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I usually book a nice Father Christmas event for my children each year, but I think they’re getting a bit too old for it now, so I was thinking of spending a day and night in London. I’ve been looking at Hyde park winter wonderland, but have never been before. Is it worth it?? I’m trying to understand all the different costs etc. can you just pay to go in and wander or is it best to pre book things? Or if anyone has any other ideas of what we can do that’s Christmassy, I’d really appreciate it. My children are aged 10-13.

I live in London and haven’t really bothered with winter wonderland. My teens enjoy going though and it is cool in the evening.

for me I book ice skating - there are various locations to choose
we take a trip to Hamleys toy Shop
always do the panto at the palladium
dinner at bodeans
there are Christmas markets along the river and Covent Garden is lovely at that time of year too.

so it depends on what your kids would enjoy as you will spend a lot of money at winter wonderland anyway

winter wonderland is hell but freezing and crowded. And will probably cost as much as palladium panto tickets. We do fortnums window and ice cream parlour, plus a Christmas film at the Prince Charles cinema, & regent street lights

Avoid winter wonderland. It's awful, overpriced, overcrowded and just overly meh.

How about a show? There are a few Christmassy ones on, or a Panto if that's your thing.

Then use the bus routes for viewing the Christmas lights. Great views from the top deck. It's not worth the expensive of a proper tour bus in my opinion.

There are lots of Christmas markets.

The department store windows are nice too.

Mine are still fairly young so we do Christmas lights and Hamleys and lunch out. I want to do a show this year but not sure if I have been proactive enough. We have also done ice skating once but turns out we all hate ice skating!! 🙂🙂

Winter wonderland is awful, don't go anywhere near it.

I went to winter wonderland about 14 yrs ago as a young adult & hated it then, can't imagine how crowded it is.

I booked lapland u.k. this yr rather than trying to do lots of separate things, but not helpful as not in London!

Hamleys, panto & christmas lights

I took DC to Winter Wonderland one Christmas Eve and they were totally underwhelmed. I quite liked it - the weird circus, the ice sculptures. But it was ridiculously pricey. I asked if they wanted to go again the following year and they said very strongly that they preferred staying home watching Christmas films and eating chocolate.

I like the Seven Dials area at Christmas. There’s a Christmas market down Southbanks. Harrods is always good to go at Christmas.

Avoid winter wonderland at all costs it's awful. When we have been to London we have, been up the shard (it was amazing), had a tea cruise down the Thames, natural history museum, walked through covent garden to see the lights, been in Hamley's and Harrod's. We love London at Christmas the lights in the evening are so lovely and there are loads of lovely parks.

Hope you enjoy it. Now mine are older, we went to the dungeons one year that was brilliant.

If you go to Hamleys, pop round to Libertys, then to see the lights on Carnaby Street.

Thank you everyone. I think we’ll give winter wonderland a miss!!! Some great suggestions on what to do instead. Really appreciate it.

We love winter wonderland !!! We go every year. They do charge you for entry now which is annoying. We avoid going on a weekend because it is way too busy, we will be going on a Monday this year

We were really disappointed in winter wonderland