Our Busch Gardens #ChristmasTown Experience

Busch Gardens Tampa opened their doors for the first time ever for a Christmas experience. The park transforms into Christmas Town from 6-11 pm every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening through Dec 23rd.

The nighttime holiday wonderland of wintery surprises and all things Christmas, fills guests’ senses with seasonal sights, sounds and flavors, and creates a beautiful new tradition for families. If you live in Florida, this is a must-see this holiday season!

Busch Gardens is dripping in lights, literally. With over 1 million Christmas lights being used, they are the front-runner for the most decorated Central Florida theme park by a long shot! I really loved the small details including the beautiful candlelit trellis (below left) and ornament donning trees (below right).

Not only does the park turn into a festive wonderland, but many of the theme park rides like Sheikra and Cheetah Hunt remain open. Do you hate fighting crowds for your favorite rides? That won’t be a problem at Christmas Town! For the kids they have the Serengeti railway which becomes a Sing-a-long train donning head to toe Christmas lights. And don’t forget to stop by A Very Furry Christmas with the Sesame Street gang!

You can’t miss Snow World. The only place in Central Florida with a playland filled with 50 tons of real snow!!

You can make snow angels, throw snowballs, and even inner tube down an icy slide!

There’s fun shows created just for the event, like Club Elf, where your little ones can dance along to some entertainment and even play a game.

We had so much fun even though there were many more things we could have done. However we had another full theme park day ahead of us so we called it a night. Busch Gardens Christmas Town was definitely one of our favorites this season. I highly recommend visiting the park for this special event!

By the way it’s one of the less expensive holiday events around! One thing worth mentioning is not to expect seeing any animals. With daylight savings time in full effect, the animal areas are dark and they’ve probably turned in for the night. I assure you though, there is plenty to keep you busy during Christmas Town!

Also worth mentioning, we went on a Friday night (which I hear Saturday is quite busier). And if you are a family traveling with little ones, ask for stroller parking. This gets you steps from the gate and saves you A LOT of time.

Update: To respond to enthusiastic consumer demand, Christmas Town has added an extra night and will now be open on Thursday, December 20 from 6 to 11 p.m.  In addition to the extra night, Christmas Town will remain open until midnight on December 15, 22 and 23.

Disclosure: All opinions are my own and may differ from yours. We were invited for a special media night in exchange for this post. No other compensation was received.