What a disappointment! Our family with 2 young children first visited Winter Wonderland the first weekend it opened. It was not a pleasant experience at all, with hordes of people everywhere and noise so loud you could not hear the person next to you. We had really looked forward to experiencing the European food/ traditions that we'd experienced abroad at traditional Christmas markets, but it was virtually impossible to divert from the flow of the crowd, let alone get nearer a stall and stop to queue. We purchased £20 worth of ride tokens, but sadly only managed to get onto one ride, before giving up and taking the family home with the promise that we would return again later on in December to use up our ride tickets. The one ride the kids did go on proved a rather tense experience before they even got on it, with the ride assistants at the bottom of the slide refusing to understand my husband when he asked if he could escort our 5 year old up to the top. They replied abruptly in German, saying they only spoke German and as we stood there trying to organise the kids, they proceeded to make rude and agressive remarks about and towards us, still in German.
We did brave the complex again today, hoping it would be a lot quieter now it is at the end of its run. It was, but we found that we were unable to use the tickets we'd paid for in early December as the tickets you purchase are only valid on the day! We had failed to read this on the ticket booth when purchasing the tickets, but honestly cannot believe that they can get away with this! It was now our choice not to use them up originally, it was just that we could not actually physically get anywhere near the rides in the commotion! So we ended up spending another £20 to let the kids have fun. We did enjoy a reasonably nice couple of hours there, but overall, apart from the gimmicky rides that please younger children, I am not sure the idea has much in common with a traditional Christmas experience on the continen

I begged my family to come to as I had been to events in Germany and Holland and felt it would be a good experience for all. At first glance it appeared very similar and I was expecting to have a good time. After a 3 rides and 60 pounds lighter for 2 adults and two children I felt a little cheated. This place is just one big rip off and just not worth the money. The stalls just sell tat and sweets at inflated prices and this is not a place I would recommend to families. Go to a theme park and at least there you will get some value and better fun for your money. I won't be going back, I would rather head off to Disneyland Paris on Eurostar as it would a much better experience.

My girlfriend and I went to Wonderland on Fri 23rd Dec. We have no kids and are both 40 years old(!!) but just wanted a bit of a Christmas Experience - and we both had a really good time. I had pre-booked the skating and the circus. Unfortunately as we were skating the rain was very heavy - which at least meant there weren't too many people to see my very poor efforts. The market was ok - but a really weird mix of stuff - from Dream Catchers to proper Christmas gifts. I found all the bars and food places really relaxed and good fun to be in. The beer is no more expensive than a pint anywhere else in London and of decent enough quality. The mulled wine is pricey for what you get but.....! I appreciate that a family would find the fairground rides expensive but they are good fun. The Cirque Extreme was fantastic. And at the end of the evening we went to the Carousel Bar where a DJ was playing some fairly decent dance music - which soon deteriorated into cheesy Euro pop. But there was a really fun atmosphere and my girlfriend had to drag me out!!
After a great day out we both agreed we would go again.

Me and my boyfriend visited Winter Wonderland on Wednesday 14th Dec to celebrate his birthday, and I have to say we were both pleasantly surprised! We had such an amazing day, the most fun we have both had for a while, and we are both fully grown adults!
There really is something for everyone, the German Christmas market was fantastic, there was a great variety of items and had I not already bought my Christmas presents, I'm sure I would have found some things here! The stalls were a little expensive but this was expected due to the free entry. Make sure you get a hot chocolate from the Crepe stand, they are to die for!

We had pre booked Private Pod on the wheel which was lovely and very Christmassy, however we paid £45 to make sure we had a pod on our own, when others were getting on in twos anyway for a much cheaper price! This was a little annoying, but the Private ticket did mean we jumped the queue so it wasnt all bad. We also booked to see the adult circus show at 7pm which I have to say was brilliant and at a modest price of £8 a ticket we were thoroughly impressed! The performers were all fantastic, and did some incredible tricks with great skill which really had us on the edge of our seats.

As for the rides, yes they are pricey and I can imagine for families it can get a bit ridiculous (there were only two of us, and we spent £40 alone on tokens for rides... two of which we didnt use because I felt so sick after the third ride! haha) but the rides that we went on were fantastic. Great fun and wish we had time to go on them all!

Overall it was a lovely day out, we both had a wonderful time & it has definitely put us in the Christmas Spirit! One thing I would say though is that we arrived at around 4pm on a Wednesday and left at around 8pm. From 4-7 it was relatively empty much to our suprise! No pushing crowds like others have said. However at the time we were leaving it got VERY busy, so that's something to be aware of.

Merry Christmas!

I went last night with my family and whilst we absolutely loved it last year it was far to busy this year to the point it felt quite frightening. We waited for 2 hours just to get in as there was so many people.There were far to many people squeezed into such a small space. Some of the rides are far to expensive especially things like the slide where you walk up the steps and slide down at £4 a go with four children I think its a rip off £16 and it was over in less than 10 seconds.The food and drink prices too are over priced and after waiting for over two hours to get inside everyone was cold hungry and thirsty. Such a shame that this country only seems to cater for the very wealthy.
Lynda

What a mess, we arrived at 16:00 and faced waits of up to 2 hours. There were hundreds of people with children trying to get in, why it was all closed in I have no idea. If they are going to have fairground attractions why fence it all in? It's free entry after all and Hyde Park has ample space!
In fact the whole thing was dangerous and not a place for children. They'd be crushed in the melee. Trust London; fairground attractions work well with large crowds in loads of other countries, how can London manage to mess it up.
They must have expected, in these austere times, that free entry will attract many families looking to save some money. So not only are you forced to wait hours, when you finally gain entry, every attraction is designed to rip you off. Unbelievable prices for tat!
Very very disappointing. Would be better value for money to travel to Germany/ Belgium to their famous Christmas attractions. They can certainly do it better.
Complete rip off and dangerous for children. Stay home.

I visited Winter Wonderland yesterday with my 3 children for a nice Christmas experience and as we had been a few years previously and enjoyed it we were all looking forward to it again. Well unfortunately this experience this time was not an enjoyable one!! Winter Wonderland had definitely grown in size since our last visit and obviously in popularity as I could not believe how busy it was so much so that you could barely move to get round. I had arranged to meet a friend there and it must have taken us a good 45 minutes to get to the place where we were meeting and in one area we came to a complete standstill as there was a bottleneck of people and at this point my 8 year old son became very scared as the crowds were all pushing to get through and I have to say it really didn't feel safe as people were beginning to feel crushed. There is no organisation within to stop this from happening and there are definite health and safety issues that need to be addressed and they need to think about limiting the numbers of people they allow in. As we were going round my children were getting excited about all the rides they wanted to go on but when I found out that most rounds were going to cost £3 or £4 each for them to go on and if I wanted to go on any with them it would have cost me £5 a ride - this to me is an absolutely extortionate amount for it to cost £17 for us all to go on just one ride that lasted less than 5 mins! I then unfortunately had to limit the number of rides they could go on because I just could not afford or wanted to be spending so much money on just rides! As for the prices of food and drink within again they were just extortionate - 2 of my children had a crepe that cost £4.50 each! Winter Wonderland now has completetly taken away the magical experience of Christmas with its greed and I will not be returning again unless they think about Christmas spirit and reducing the costs of everything within.

My partner and I went to Winter Wonderland for something a bit different. We had no children with us which was, admittedly, the first issue. This place is clearly not for adults because there's nothing here to entertain us. It boasts of 500 stalls, but it doesn't state that it's the same 5 stalls repeated again and again. There wasn't much to buy - unless you like winter hats.

I think it looked very pretty, and I think children would enjoy the funhouse and the sweet stalls (though only the first time they see one - they're everywhere!) but there really wasn't enough space. On several occasions we had to remove ourselves from the area to catch our breath. It's like taking the crowd from the London Underground during rush hour with you at every step. Most stalls were food (snacks) and drink (the same ones, over and over). There weren't really any suitable gifts you could buy and take home. To call it a Christmas market is a bit of a joke. Everything was ridiculously overpriced.

We were really unimpressed.

Took my family to Zippos circus this opening weekend. If you're happy to be transported back to the 1980's to witness some very amateur non inventive acts performed by miserable performers, then this is for you. I would have thought things have moved on, apparently not (other than the price) !

Winter Wonderland is simply not value for money. £4 to go on slide which is just about bigger than the one at my local park and £8 to go on a Ferris wheel when London boasts the 100x better London eye. The third joke is the Roller coaster, perhaps the lamest attraction at a real theme park which costs £4 go on its own. Oh wait, there's more laughs, it's cheaper to have a three course meal on St James Street than try to entertain a few snacks while your robbed at every stand. Last but not least, you have to queue to buy the tokens to go on the rides, without any form of group discount listening to everyone around you muttering that they know there all getting ripped off. Winter Wonderland is perfect for anyone with more money than sense.

I was going to go this year but they are going to have Zippo Circus which involves animals; so now i won't be going. What a shame they have to bring the circus there.

Loved it last year only got half way round though as we had to go meet Santa at Harrods but were definitely going back this year goin to go Harrods 1st this time then to the park can't wait very christmassy don't know why every1's moaning!!!

The park is brilliant, Especially in the summer holidays! The only negative comment is that they should have a bike hire scheme in the park for fast and easy transportation around the park

Rip Off.

Been going to the Winter Wonderland for 3 years now. Each year it gets more and more expensive. This year I think it pushed it too far and I won't bother going again.

The price of rides vary between 2 and 4 pounds each. The slide was £3 per person and I needed to accompany my child so ended up £6 for 20s ride. I could have taken my kid to Gumbardos and he could have played on the slide there all day. No manager was around to complain too.

The rest of the park had arts and crafts stalls and food stalls. These were all quite expensive. £3 for small bag of chestnuts.

They have done a good job of expanding the number of stalls and Iunderstand that they want to make money but it seems that it's now extortionate.

We mainly went down for the Room on the Broom play for kids. The actors were great and had real enthusiasm. However at an hour it was a bit long and my kid lost interest (along with me and my wife). I think it would have been better at 30mins.

Overall experience has been negative and that's a shame as my wife and I used to like going to this each year.

It's okay, I guess. Far too busy and badly designed though, so trying to get anywhere with a push-chair takes a lot of patience, especially at the food 'street' near the entrance where it's a bit of a scrum to move anywhere.

I have a 2 year old, and he really enjoyed the circus, probably the highlight of our visit. The rides are generally over-priced but you know the price before you get on them I suppose. The queue for Santa was too long to bother with, so we braved the scrum to get out and went for a nice sit down and a bite to eat elsewhere.

The fair is ok, but I wouldn't go again in the wheel, not even if it was for free. Really, nothing to see from up there. The windows are so steamed you can't take pictures, but in any case, the views are quite limited, this not being only the wheels fault. I guess that if it was placed somewhere else views could be amazing, but from there you can just guess a couple of buildings in the distance and a lot of blackness.

I went here last year for the first time and I must say I loved it. I hear a lot of bad reviews, but I guess it's all in expectations. As we live in London (no kids), I thought it was a great place to meet with friends in the evening and have a drink, especially the mulled wine in clay mugs etc. There's no charge to enter. It certainly got me in the Christmas spirit. It IS Hyde park so the rides would be expensive. I'm sure they pay quite a bit to lease the land for 2 months. I've thought the staff were pleasant. I think it's worth going if you know what to expect. It will be expensive if you have kids going on rides and playing games. I thought the wooden chalet's we're nice and there were no cheap tents. At the end of the day it's a fun fair. Expect a fun fair, smile and you'll have a good time.

The ice rink was wet, the prices far too high, the food a complete rip off and the big top a total disappointment. This is an event that is absolutely best avoided this year just as in previous years.

The staff are also extremely rude and think that shouting at paying customers is a good way to garner repeat business.

Stay well clear - zero stars

I thought it was good fun. Expensive rides, that didn't work out as good value for money most of the time, but you get that anywhere these days. The food and drink prices weren't that bad considering you were in Hyde Park for a christmas event that's clearly there to grab money, and not much more expensive than our local town's offerings. Some staff were good at their jobs, others were totally indifferent towards adding some enjoyment towards your experience, and, rarely, a downright rude one. Again, on a par with your average experience on a day out in London. BUT. The trip was to celebrate our kids birthdays (a day apart) and. they. had. an. absolute. ball. Job done. Thank you, very much.

How do you give zero stars.

Went last year and it seemed a lot better.

This year the food was over priced and pretty bad, especially the first place you come to from the tube station side. My bratwurst was cold, so when I brought it back the threw the same one back on the heat and made me wait.

For some reason the staff think they have to shout at you rudely and the security staff are even worse.

Never again...

What a big disappointment this was! It is a fair with a Christmas tree and lots of expensive fairground rides. £3 for a child to spend 10 seconds on a helter skelter, food that is rubbish and very expensive. Few places are undercover. The website gives a completely different impression to the actual tacky place this is. If you like overpriced food and fairgrounds, and you are not bothered about parting with your hard earned money to miserable people then go there. You have been warned!

Trying to buy tickets for this is a nightmare, ticketmaster are rubbish, do not answer their phones I am currently still holding which has now been in excess of 25 minutes.

The ticketmaster website does not offer the combination tickets advertised on the winter wonderland site I want wheel and ice skating as advertised but the ticketmaster site only offers wheel, circus, skating, of course at more money.

My advice to winter wonderland is use a ticket vendor that can answer their phones within half an hour and have a website that offers the ticket choice that you do. I already have had a bad experience and I haven't been yet. well done Ticketmaster.

Turns out that they only have tickets for skating left at 10 am or 9pm, the guy on the phone couldn't offer me a combination ticket, then admitted it would be cheaper to buy tickets when I turn up due to the booking fee.

Sunday 29 nov 2009. Visited today. Read many mixed reviews. Two kids age 4 and 1 had lovely day, although to be honest, it is just a glorified fun fair. I was disappointed with the german xmas market which conststed of food stools, selling sausage and also fries. Had hoped to see some nice craft stools. The big wheel was good although do not buy tickets in advance. We advance purchased and it was actually cheaper to buy on the day £7.50 adult and £4.50 child. It was good with hardly any queue.

Father Christmas we only had a ten minute wait and he was very nice and obliging and posed for photos. The elves were happy and this was free, although there is an option to purchase a photo for £8.00 or 2 for £10. Kids rides were all ticket purchase at £2.00 for smaller childrens rides or £3.00 per person on other rides. A good variety of rides, but it does work out expensive if the children want to go on a few rides.

We parked actually in Hyde Park which if you go by sat nav, Hyde Park serpentine road its dead easy. Only about £5 or something sunday parking and not far to walk. As I said a nice day but really an expensive glorified fun fair.

Isn't all about what you want to make of the day?

Three of us (mature adults) drove in from Oxford today (Sunday) and had a great day! We did a bit of shopping in Oxford Street and ate elsewhere before going to the park - having read the dire reviews about rip off prices! Whilst our meal at the Selfridges pie shop was fine, we needn't have worried so much. On site catering appeared to be 'wholesome' and, whilst not cheap (this is London!), a fiver for a hot steak and onions baguette certainly wasn't excessive. Perhaps the cost of a basic 'German' hot dog wasn't such good value but "you pays your money..." etc.

Most of the rides were £3. What's so bad about that? If you are hell bent on going skating, etc. please expect the higher prices as the operators cannot benefit from the rapid 'people throughput' that the 'thrill' rides can rely on.

The craft stalls were certainly different, inventive and very well presented.

The general atmosphere this afternoon was a good one where everyone there truly wanted to make the effort to get out into the gruesomely cold winter weather and just have a good day out!

Would give zero rating but unable to. Went with my 2 children yesterday and have left with a really sour taste in my mouth, have not been ripped off as much as this in years. Have told all my friends to avoid at all costs. The rides were really expensive and rubbish. My children went on the helter skelter at £3 each which was not impressive and lasted about 30 seconds, the attendant was very aggressive, rude and miserable (as were the majority of the people working there). I was disgusted to have to spend £8 on a disgusting jacket potato with a few beans and grating of cheese.

Luckily we didn't do the ice skating as the ink was completely packed and looked out of control.

I will not be returning to such a money making scam again and I am really disapointed in London for the first time.

Pre-booked the skating, but didn't find the booths easily, no signposts.
Well organised system for exchanging shoes for ice skates (£1 needed if you put bag in to be looked after)
No puddles on rink at all. Enjoyed it very much, but thought the festive music could have been louder, to give the feeling of 'dancing on ice' even if, like me, you were going round quite slowly.
Not sure if it was because people moved the barriers, but getting shoes back was dis-organised, started as a queue, then when barriers were moved it was a rather claustophobic squash which took about 15minutes.
Stalls had good choice of gifts etc, even bought something 'made in England'!
Free 'hot' Pimms was wonderful thank you.
Didn't do the rides.

I too went with my boyfriend and we had a brilliant time - we did the ice-skating, the 'Observation wheel' and two of the fairground rides and had quite a bit of food. All-in-all the day was fantastic but yes, was expensive, but you can expect that as one. any fairground is expensive and 2. the most obvious - it's London!The ice-skating did have little puddles, but didn't bother either of us - was a really nice outdoor, wintery atmosphere!The atmosphere is brilliant - I read the reviews on this site beforehand, so we were prepared to spend the money.

My only advice is that I wouldn't recommend the 'Observation wheel' that much - just a smaller version of the Millenium wheel and it's all over within about 10 minutes. Me and my boyfriend spent most of the time just taking silly pictures in there. It also says that in busy periods you can be expected to share your capsule with other people. The two rides we went on were 'Sleigh Ride' and a 'Bauble' one - it cost £10 for both us. The sleigh ride was really fun - just goes around sooo fast and is quite good really (just don't have donuts before the ride like we did!).

The Bauble one was ok - wouldn't really recommend it.Hope I have helped. Even if you are slightly low on the cash, I would still go because it is a lovely place just to have a walk around and get take lots of nice pictures (I pestered a lot of the security guards for pictures and they were really co-opeartive and actually managed to take pertty good pictures :)Happy Christmas all!

Don't prebook the ice skating. I did, the rink was waterlogged and the skaters were drenched - what a waste of time and money. No refund has yet been given. None of my party wanted to skate on water!

I took the little boy i look after as a Christmas treat and although the rides and food are a rip off, i was impressed with the Santa!
We where there on a Friday lunchtime, we waited no longer than 20 min to visit with Santa, during which the Jolly traditional looking Santa waved and shouted Ho Ho Ho to the waiting children, the elves made a lovely effort to show interest in the kids and when we did get to see the big man, we could take as many photo's as wanted, it wasn't rushed and Santa actually had a good conversation with my little boy, then we got a lovely book as a gift and there was no charge what so ever! Definately a magical experience! I guess that's why everything else is overpriced, but nice to give something back to the kids!

i went with my boyfriend Ryan and we had the most thrilling time. its an absolutly perfect place to take your kids around this time of year!
Amazing day out with my boyfriend proposing in the middle of the ice rink :)

I've just got back from the Winter Wonderland event in Hyde Park and had a fantastic time! We had a full hour of Ice skating which was quite exhausting so found the session time just right. Ok, so the food and ride prices were steep but that can be expected at any big event in London nowadays. Just eat before you get there! There were some lovely little stalls in the market area too. It has a really exciting atmosphere - great for kids, so be sure to visit if you haven't already!

Went today, miserable little grotty place with as much christmas cheer as Spain in August.. Had 2 kids with me and some of the rides were £4 EACH and £3 for kids (none of them were anything special either) so that's £13 spent on one ride!!!! and 2 mins later you have to go on something else.

I tried to barter down for some of them with not much luck, the cheapest rides are £2 and the 'highlight' was a really really bad ride on 'Santa's Express'.

For all of us it cost £10 and it lasts maybe 2 minutes as they only go round once plus all there is to look at are some grubby, broken reindeer and a muddy Father Christmas. All the stalls are a rip off, Egg-nog at £4.50 etc etc. I asked the kids if they had a good time and they all said 'no'. What a waste of time and money.

07/12/2008 22.40hrs Well laid out, well lit, not overcrowded BUT What a disappointment, the stalls were either jewellery, handicraft or sweet stalls. where were the german goods ??. And the prices well most were reasonable except for the food , £5.50 for a roast beef roll, £4.00 for a sausage in a roll. what a rip off !! . This event is obviously aimed at families (most of whom will be Londoners) and tourists, so why charge so much?. All this does is give visitors a taste of " rip off london " and put people off from returning next time. Come on you organisers be brave cut the prices, put value for money before mega profit.

I was most upset that i couldn't get tickets to skate last year so made sure i had them booked early in November this year, at £12 each to skate and six of us i was erxpecting a lovely Xmas time but NO, what i got was a tacky funfair with a small ice rink that was way overcrowded. The whole thing was squashed into a small area of the park making moving between the rides and attractions a most unenjoyable experience because of the amount of people and limited space! i cannot belive i have been ripped off in this way. My children had a burger at £5 a go and i tried a German sausage that had the most chewy skin that i nearly choked on it. I think the whole thing was extremely badly organised but hey at least i can save myself some money next year! What is sad is that this is London the capital of our country, and the village where i live could have put on a similar event and i wouldn't have to have driven an hour to get there!!!

We went on Sunday, what a rip off !!!!!!! Although the setting and atmosphere were great the prices are way too high. I am a Londoner and object to paying sky high prices for events in London. God knows what the tourists think! It cost £36.00 for one ride for 5 adults and 2 kids. We then decided to have some chips, £21.00 for 7 tiny portions, not even a proper helping. We then made another big mistake of taking the kids to the pick and mix. £24.00 for 5 bags of sweets. The ice skating cost another £65.00. This could have been such a lovely afternoon, if the prices were not so high and you didn't have to count every penny.PLEASE LOWER THE PRICES NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree - very disappointing, over-rated and overpriced indeed. I went with my husband and 3-year-old son today, and there was absolutely nothing we wanted to try (OK, I absolutely love skating but not in water puddles, and the skating rink was simply overcrowded anyway - the skating crowd looked miserable!). The rides were just common-place rides at triple prices, and the food looked like dog food (and we were hungry all right!).

I couldn't disagree more with all the miserable bunch! I am 27 and went with my boyfriend - we had no expectations as to what it would be like, or should be like and we had such a good time! We queued for about 10 minutes on a Saturday night and didn't queue at all to hand skates back in. The stalls were great, everyone was smiling, mulled wine delicious and everyone seemed to be getting into the Christmas spirit! Bar humbugs I say!

I went to the Winter Wonderland on Friday evening and had a great time. I wasn't impressed that one stall was selling Reindeer hide though. I'm an animal lover and totally disagree with selling animal hides anyway but to sell Reindeer hide at Christmas time is pretty thoughtless...especially in a place where there are lots of children and Rudolph being a fairly prominent feature at this time of year!

Hi there, just wanted to warn people about the skating - went last night and had to queue for 40 mins to get the skates which took 25 mins out of our 1 hour ice time. And then for another 40 mins to get our shoes back, most of that time spent standing outside in the cold as the queue stretched outside and back in again. The rink is lovely but its a total rip off compared to all the other rinks in London - dont touch with a barge pole...

I don't know what you two are complaining about, I thought Winter Wonderland was pretty cool, especially if you have little kids. Everyone I saw seemed to be enjoying it.

There was lots of food stalls and some of the craft stalls were great, especially selling the one selling the wooden toys. I didn't go on the ice rink or the observation wheel but the queues were huge!

It's a winter fun fair, not Chessington World of Adventures... get into the spirit people!!