Winterfest Festivities: Delights of Christmas at Carowinds

On a fall flight, Kim (K) flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, in the early morning.  Upon landing, she admired the lights glowing at Carowinds Amusement Park below, thankful that they had left the pretty lights on.  A little website wandering later, and she realizes Carowinds is hosting a holiday celebration called Winterfest, debuting in 2017.  Our family typically travels to Williamsburg, Virginia, for part of Christmas, taking in Christmas Town at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  Christmas Town, however, has become exceptionally crowded, including during the "off days" of the week between Christmas and New Years.  Looking for something that was a little less overrun, we were very pleased to find Winterfest.  It was simply magical.

The park was bedecked in lights and had several festive zones, including a Dickens Christmas Carol display and a Peanuts land J found especially delightful.  Visiting was a lot about admiring the lights and enjoying experiences like strolling carolers, photo ops, and a nativity petting zoo.  We took in a fun Charlie Brown show and especially appreciated the references to the nature of the season, including a gorgeous display of Holy Family figures and a lighted Hanukkiah.  Rides were understandably limited by the season, but we immensely enjoyed ourselves on J's new favorite ride, Snoopy's Pirate Ship, and others.  This was our first visit to Carowinds, and we were extremely impressed with the friendliness of the staff, their engagement with visitors, and the fun they were sincerely having.  We hope to return--E was especially intrigued by the roller coasters (mainly closed for the season) and the planned expansion of Camp Snoopy looks like a ton of fun.

If you go, arrive at opening and plan to stay til closing.  The parking process is easy, but you want as much time as possible in the park. Look into preschool passes for anyone qualified in your party in advance, and enjoy the relatively flat landscape of the Carolinas, another difference from Williamsburg.  While in town, we also visited the awesome holiday display at Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens, IKEA, Charlotte Premium Outlets, and SouthPark's American Girl and Lego stores.  Hotels catering to business travelers were well-priced for the season.  We'll always recommend to you that you "holiday" during Christmastide, so see what you can do between December 25 and early January.  Virginians, get ready:  Cedar Fair Parks Kings Dominion is also hosting Winterfest in 2018!

If you are looking for really detailed pictures and videos of 2017 Winterfest, try the Coaster101 blog.

Simple and Delightful: Holiday Lights at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden

If you follow this blog, you know Kim and E, age 8, traveled south in the early fall to see the Great American Eclipse.  On our way, we saw signs for the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden.  Kim checked them out online and decided having a membership would inspire a few trips to the Charlotte, North Carolina, area over the course of the year.  The rest is history.

This winter, we took a trip to Holidays at the Garden, an enchanting Christmas light display with fun features like model trains.  Lights can be enjoyed by walking about as well as by taking a short tram ride for a different view.  Kids can move station-to-station enjoying simple activities that further engage them--at one stop, we played color bells; at another, we learned about the seasons of the year, for instance.  The orchid building at the holidays is a little oasis complete with an imaginative fairy village also featuring model trains.  Don't miss the gloaming--arrive early and enjoy watching the lights come alive.  You'll get improved parking this way, too.  We've enjoyed similar enchantment at these gardens at their Chinese lantern display earlier in the fall.

If you go, consider getting tickets for the week between Christmas and New Years. Everyone is still in a festive mood, and crowds aren't too large.  Dress in layers for the weather and bring your camera--there will be outstanding photo ops, even for unskilled photographers like me.  Food and drink is available for purchase, although our traveling family also found nearby fast food and a relatively close supermarket for snacks.  It's a perfectly "sized" adventure for an evening out with the family in the Charlotte area, and for us, it paired very well for a trip to Winterfest at Carowinds.  And by the way, we are pretty pleased with Kim's membership--member guests receive discounts, so even given that visitors pay for some special events like the Holidays, the value is solid when you consider reciprocity to other gardens including the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Virginia--it's on the to-visit list.

Based on recommendations from a colleague, we drove about 20 minutes to McAdenville (say Mc-Add-enville) after our visit to enjoy this town's delightful light displays.  Almost every home and business is decorated with particularly beautiful lights in trees and festive set ups of carolers, nativities, and the like at homes and churches.  We visited on a cold night, so we drove instead of parking and walking, but walking the town is an option and will afford you some nifty photo ops.  There's no charge and the atmosphere is very community and family oriented (picture kids riding hayride style, passengers making videos from their sunroofs, etc.).  We had a relatively long wait in our car, so have a full tank of gas for your own peace of mind. By 9ish, crowds were dying down, so perhaps time your visit for later as well. Check the dates and times at the website--we caught the lights on December 26, which may have been the last "official" night!  How fortunate.

One of Our Favorite Traditions: Williamsburg for Christmastide

We're so glad we've learned over the years that Williamsburg, Virginia, is a wonderful place for Christmastide.  Colonial Williamsburg follows a traditional "12 Days of Christmas" calendar, drawing the celebration through to Epiphany on January 6, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg's ChristmasTown lasts until December 31.  From this has evolved several great years of "after" Christmas celebration for our family, a group of notorious holiday people.  It's a simple enough trip to arrange: we hit Hotwire for a hotel, spend an afternoon and evening in ChristmasTown, and spend a day walking Colonial Williamsburg.

We were truly blessed at this year's ChristmasTown.  The weather was so warm that Gwen took her coat off without our protest and everyone else, including the employees, seemed to think major rainstorms were imminent, resulting in the park operating with about 10% of the visitors it can handle.  Keeping in mind that ChristmasTown, like Howl-o-Scream in the fall, sometimes closes due to capacity, this made for an amazingly low-crowd trip.  If you go, we'd share these tips:

* Visit the penguins close to park close when the lines and crowds are the most limited.
* One coaster is usually running, weather permitting.  If you really want to ride, ride early--if the temperature dips below a certain point, staff do not run the coaster.
* Yes, you can take your own pictures with Santa (see above).
* Holiday Hills in the Festa Italia section of the park is far and away our favorite area.  As our late Granny Helen wonderfully put it, "It looks like it is really Christmas."  There are lots of blow mold Christmas decorations, colorful lights, and retro Coca-Cola ads--what a nostalgic 1950s atmosphere. Holiday Hills is also a great place to eat dinner--Rudolph's Diner is a buffet and one of the best deals in the park.
* We hear great things about all the shows, but usually, we just do the show in the Globe Theatre as we enter the park and spend the evening enjoying the outdoor lights.  This year welcomed Scrooge No More!, a succinctly-adapted version of the Dickens classic.  Justin is a Christmas Carol expert, and he approved.
* Elijah recommends the sky cars Flight of Lights, what he formerly called "the buckets."  Gwen recommends the kiddie hot air balloon ride.

Our vote is that Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas is well-enjoyed simply walking through it, especially if you do not have time for a multi-day visit.  Justin and Kim have enjoyed their "holiday package" of admission, accommodations, and decoration walking tour before, and we'd recommend it to couples.  The decorations tour nicely explains Christmas traditions in Williamsburg historically and in today's Colonial Williamsburg, giving you tips you can use for years to come in scouting out your favorite decorations.  Don't forget to also walk the village at night--and walk in to the Williamsburg Inn if you can--and stop in Bruton Parish Episcopal Church to smell the wonderful greenery.  A few of our favorite decorations from this year appear below.  Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Williamsburg!

By far, one of the most beautiful Christmas sites in Virginia is Williamsburg. Colonial Williamsburg's creative decorations demonstrate ingenuity in as much as they are attractive. A walk through the colonial area (which does not require a visitor's pass) is an inexpensive delight that lasts long into the season, as Williamsburg marks Christmas through Epiphany (January 6). The tours offered by the Foundation help one to appreciate the "how" of the decorating--and encourage walks off the beaten path--and are valuable if time permits. If you have visitor's passes, visit the Rockefeller home sporting its 1950s Christmas decor, too!

Now, Christmas visits are also possible at gorgeous Busch Gardens Williamsburg, a real festival of Christmas lights in Christmas Town. The park, which is open in the late-day/evening seasonally, impressed us with a twinkling Peace on Earth display and a skycar ride over above thousands of holiday lights. Elijah enjoyed the Christmas on Sesame Street show, a perfect length for a toddler's attention span. We hit a small artic animal exhibit called Polar Pathway right before park close, resulting in sharply-reduced wait times and good "look time" for a young child. Know that Christmas Town is a time for taking in shows and decor more than rides.

If you go, know that you will also encounter outlet shopping in the Williamsburg area, adding to the holiday potential of such a trip. Merchants' Square in the colonial area boasts specialty store shopping including an upscale toy store and the Peanut Shop of Williamsburg, a great place to snack on samples and buy stocking stuffers. Additionally, there's excellent Christmas ornament shopping at Bassett's and Christmas Mouse. As frequent visitors to the area, we recommend eating at Food for Thought, a unique American restaurant, and Milano's, a quiet Italian place, both on Richmond Road. For lodging, try Colonial Williamsburg's Woodlands (nice walk to the historic area), the economical Governor's Inn (quick walk to Merchants' Square), or Embassy Suites Williamsburg (for a less-pricey suite-style room).

Relevant Links:
Colonial Williamsburg
Busch Gardens Williamsburg