If you told me I was going to go to Santa’s Enchanted Forest in Miami on a Sunday evening in early November, I might have said you were crazy. But Macaroni Mom received some family tickets from Macaroni HQ and MiniMac was over the moon excited to go, so we jumped in the car and embarked on a 2 hour trip south to see what the hype was all about.
To give you a little background, now celebrating it's 35th year, Santa's Enchanted Forest is "the World's Largest Holiday Theme Park." It has over 100 rides for young and old (kiddie rides, family rides and even thrill rides!), big, beautiful holiday themed displays, thousands of lights, "Florida's tallest Christmas tree light show," live shows, carnival games, delicious food and festive holiday music. It is a holiday lovers paradise the whole family is sure to enjoy.
As we approached the entrance to the parking lot, I was surprised to see so many vehicles making their way in and thought we might be in for a wait to park, but we were efficiently guided into stacked parking. Excited to finally be there, we took off across the lot to the entryway of Santa’s Enchanted Forest. The weather wasn't optimal the evening of our arrival, and I thought that the rain might have kept people at home, but I was surprised to see the attraction was busier than I expected. It may have only been 12 days into November, but people were already getting into the holiday spirit!
The first thing that that caught my eye as we made out way into the park was the lights on the giant Ferris wheel. We learned it's a new 2017 attraction and is the largest traveling Ferris wheel in North America. Upon entering the park we passed through hundreds of feet of large trees wrapped almost completely in a multitude of bright Christmas lights - I paused on several occasions trying to imagine the work it must have taken to put them all up. I thought of my mom who, when putting up the Christmas tree each year, always exclaims "more lights!" and felt she would enjoy seeing all these lights!
We followed the path past several animatronic scenes of Santa and found ourselves laughing while taking pictures of each other in a variety of settings. Maybe surfing Santa is your thing? How about alien abduction Santa? Star Wars Santa? Rock and Roll Santa? I even had a glimpse of the real Santa and I could tell from his real beard that he was definitely the real one. We had a blast in multiple settings and probably took 1000 pictures and selfies.
We made our way past every variety of food vendor and the contest booths until we found the rides. The rain didn’t exactly cooperate that night, but we rode everything we could and finally had to pull our 11 year old away towards the car reminding her of the trip home and school commitments the next day.
I reflected on the fun, rainy evening we had experienced and I was glad we had made the trip. Employees at the park had been very friendly and accommodating when we had questions. I remember remarking to my wife that everyone in the park had really been so friendly and courteous.
I wouldn’t have guessed you would find Santa’s Enchanted Forest somewhere slightly south of Miami, but there it is. My wife may have had to initially push me out the door but in the end, the sights, the lights, the rides and the memories we made as a family made it well worth the trip. Click the short, video below to see a little summary of the sites and sounds we enjoyed during our visit. And, to glimpse a little more from our visit, see the Facebook LIVE video we shot as we were first going through the park.
Santa's Enchanted Forest is located at 7900 SW 40th Street, Miami 33155. It is open every day from 5:00 PM to 12:00 AM through January 7, 2018, including Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve (open until 11 PM on NYE) and New Year's Day. For more information, visit www.santasenchantedforest.com.
Our family was hosted for the purpose of this review; however, all opinions expressed herein are our own.
