Winter Wonderland, Hyde Park London

This has now become a tradition of ours to visit London in December and visit Winter Wonderland. We’ve been quite a few years now, and I still love it – I hope it lives on.

Imagine your local Christmas market… now times it by 20, and you have Hyde Parks’ Winter Wonderland. It’s huge, filled with rides, market stalls selling everything from hand-carved items to fresh tea leaves. And not to forget the food and drink, I think you can get pretty much every type of cuisine. So much to choose from.

Over the years we visited Winter Wonderland at many different times – from the start of December when it’s not as busy, to the lead up to Christmas when it is jam-packed.

From the minute it opens to the moment it closes, it has an amazing Christmassy-vibe about it, full of hustle and bustle and cheer.

Attractions

There’s an array of attractions, with over 100 rides and a variety of things to do. Entry is free into Winter Wonderland, however, you do have to pay for a few of the attractions. There are ticket offices dotted around where you can buy tickets and tokens. Paying attractions are the following:

Ice Skating
The Magical Ice Kingdom

The Nutcracker on Ice
Bar Ice
Zippos Christmas Circus (I reccomend only to attend if you are with children as it didn’t entertain two 20-odd year olds)

Cirque Berserk
The Sooty Christmas Show
Giant Observation Wheel

The main ride is a giant Ferris wheel – we haven’t been on this, but I can imagine that the views are spectacular.

Games

We’ve wasted so much money playing silly ‘play-to-win’ games (basketball, rifle shooting, balloon popping) but it’s all part of the experience…right?

We resisted playing any last time we visited, because you know what it’s like playing these games. You spend so much, and loose so much. Apart from the occasional Hook A Duck game where you seem to only be able to win a teeny-tiny teddy bear.

Food and drink

For some reason, having sweet potato fries at a Christmas market is better than getting them from anywhere else. One year, all we ate was sweet potato fries.

Like I said earlier, you have so much food to choose from; smoked sausages to curly fries, charcoal grilled burgers to pizza, giant Yorkshire puddings to mini pancakes drizzled in white chocolate – yes, that’s a thing!

The food stalls are dotted around the whole of Winter Wonderland, along with drink stalls selling the likes of mulled wine, beers from around the world and Prosecco.

The best part to go to for atmosphere is in the German village. Here you find the most amazing German sausages and a cocktail of smells.

People are walking around with steins of beer, and they always have live acts on in the centre of the village. It has a great pumped-up vibe.

One of my favourite places to drink is on a slowly-moving carousel. It’s a brilliant idea, there are stand up tables and seats where you can chill with a mulled wine or, my personal favourite, hot chocolate (nothing better than a hot chocolate on a cold night).

Overall, Winter Wonderland is pretty impressive, and the location of it is perfect, especially if you’re looking to do some Christmas shopping as it’s extremely close to the likes of Harrods and Selfridges. I go to buy Harrods Earl Grey tea and to look at all the decorations – makes me feel so christmassy.