Christmas Coastering in California

While large swaths of the country are already getting dumped on by snow, out here in California most of our amusement parks are lighting their Christmas trees and busting out the snow machines.  In order to help convince those of you in colder climates to come visit during winter season, here’s a quick summary of some of the holiday special attractions and hours for the major California amusement and theme parks.

SFDK Holiday in the Park

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is actually the only Northern California park that is fully open during the winter, and they’re doing their 8th annual Holiday in the Park this year.  Some of the special events and attractions are holiday-themed animal shows and various Christmasy musical entertainment.  In the center of the park a powdery snow hill is built for sledding, and several special areas have been built, including “Toy Land” with giant, life sized toys (maybe this is left-over from Halloween…).  Of course, the best part of Holiday in the Park for coaster fans is that on weekends from now to New Years, as well as a few days before Christmas, the park is open late, which means night rides on the coasters!  Check the official site for more info and exact hours.

 

Six Flags Magic Mountain is also doing Holiday in the Park for the first time ever this year.  The halls of the park will be fully decked, and like Discovery Kingdom there are special live holiday shows, including, according to the park site, “one of the largest programmed light shows on the West coast with millions of lighting variations programmed using tens of thousands of lights.”  Magic Mountain’s Holiday in the park starts tomorrow (the day after Thanksgiving) and runs to January 4th, also open relatively late (8PM) most nights around Christmas time, including Christmas eve.  Full details can be found on the official site, and the folks at ParkJourney posted an update a couple weeks ago with some pictures of Christmas Decorations going up in the park (as well as a bunch of Twisted Colossus construction photos) that you can check out here.

 

Grinchmas!

Universal Studios’ “Grinchmas” officially begins on December 6, although there are tons of decorations up around the park already, and have been going up since Halloween ended.  Universal’s holiday celebration is primarily highlighted by the amazing decorations throughout the park and Universal City Walk.  There will of course be opportunities to meet the Grinch, and the studio tour features singing Who’s from “How the Grinch stole Christmas.”  The dates for Grinchmas can be found on the official Universal Site, and Mice Chat recently posted a bunch of photos of the decorations going up from a recent trip to Universal (including a pre-decorated twisty Christmas tree) that you can find here.

 

Knott’s Christmas Craft Village

Knott’s “Merry” Farm comes to life during the holiday season, and the park is full of holiday activities and events.  The park is beautifully decorated, with practically every building showing off some Christmas cheer, and every shop having it’s own unique Christmas tree (lots of them documented in a recent post over at Inside the Magic).  There are two Christmas themed Peanuts shows (one ice show, one non-ice show), and for those feeling a need for culture there are live performances of “A Christmas Carol” and  “Gift of the Magi,” as well as Dickensian style carolers wandering through Ghost Town.  Speaking of Ghost Town, the area also bustles with crafts people making and selling trinkets, and this year Ghost Town will be dusted with snow during a nightly light show (this is every exciting for most Californians).  The last major special attraction is the transformed “Christmas on Engine 41”, where characters take over the train ride and interact with guests.  Of course, there are also all of the coasters at Knott’s running into the night.  Merry Farm is already in full swing, and continues through the holiday season, although they’re closed on Christmas.  More info on all of the Knott’s attractions can be found on the official site here.


Disneyland and California Adventure were actually covered a few weeks ago when they announced their holiday offerings, you can check out that post here, but the best summary is that, like with anything Disneyland does, there are lot’s of awesome decorations throughout the park, special holiday shows, and special ride theming (like the Jingle Cruise) .  The park is open every day, including Christmas (does anyone know if the park is extra crowded or extra empty on holidays?).

 

Finally, SeaWorld’s Christmas Celebration at Sea World San Diego.  Not surprisingly, the park has several Christmas themed animal shows, including a new Christmas Shamu show, new dolphin show, and sea lion show.  The park features an all new holiday themed area called Santa’s Christmas Village, that features mingling with elves and the Clauses, while snacking on Christmas treats, playing games, and catching live performances.  The highlight of the Christmas Celebration is probably SnowWorld, an area of the park with 6,500 square feet of fresh snow every day, perfect for sledding and snowman building, but definitely not snowball throwing (it’s against the rules…).  Christmas shows have started, and the celebration runs through the end of the year, including on Christmas Day.  More details on SeaWorld’s Chrismas Celebration shows and attractions are at the official site here.

 

Hopefully this gave you all some ideas for how to spend your holidays(or made you jealous enough of California to plan a trip out here)!  I’m planning to go down to Disneyland and California Adventure in early December, so will have much more from those in a couple weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving from Coaster101!

 

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