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.