Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, December 2025

Christmas and Boxing Day were done, and we needed a rollercoaster fix, so we booked a night in London so we could see what the hype of Hyde Park Winter Wonderland was about. Once again at the Premier Inn Docklands Excel as our base for a reasonable price of £60 with breakfast included as part of an offer, and free parking. We’d set off early doors and made it to the hotel in good time. From there, we hopped on the tube and headed down to Hyde Park for our entry slot at 1pm.

Entry prices depend on the time you choose to visit. Off peak entry is free, rising to £5 per person in the afternoon, up to £7.50 for late afternoon/evenings and weekends, when it’s at its busiest. You do need to book online regardless of which option you’re going for. You can also pre book your rides, shows and attractions online. Spending £25 on rides or attractions gets 1 free entry ticket, with additional free tickets per additional £25 spends.

Nothing is cheap at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. You can book packages to get the rides cheaper or pay individually per ride, with some offering fast track too. We spent over £100 on 4 of the coasters, with Munich looping alone costing £15 each with a fast track. Rides are £4-£12 across the board, and you’re paying more for ice skating, shows and other experiences. This was only a taster day out to claim a few new coaster creds and experience the event for the first time, so we knew we couldn’t afford to do everything. We did spend more on rides while we were there, so it really can mount up quite quickly, so budget accordingly.

It really is a winter wonderland. The whole park is a sea of fairground rides, market stalls, street food vendors, bars, shows and more, and it looks fantastic. You’ll walk around different themed areas, like Bavarian Village, Thrillville, Arctic Circle and Santa Land, each with a matching selection of activities and stalls. The decoration looks fantastic at night. Lights and festive decorations galore, the entranceways are all illuminated in a different fashion, especially the archways along Luminaire Lane. Stunning.

There was so much to do, and we didn’t have the time or budget to do everything so we just picked some select coasters in advance and then played it by ear on the day.

The highlight of the show. The worlds biggest travelling rollercoaster, Olympia Looping (or Munich Looping when its in the UK) is a coaster with 5 inversions, each coloured like the Olympic rings. It was a really fun ride, smoother than I thought it’d be. We saved our fast pass for a night ride to see it in all it’s glory. Costly at £12 per person per ride.

An indoor coaster themed to ice caves and abominable snowmen, with lights and models inside. It’s an indoor Wild Mouse coaster. Fun, but just a wild mouse. £7 per adult, £5 per child.

The Time Machine is a steampunk themed wild mouse coaster (beginning to see a pattern?). A bit rough, but the harsh, battering corners made us laugh. £7 per adult, £5 per child.

An inverted Wild Mouse coaster. Something different and a bit more enjoyable, but still a wild mouse. £7 per adult, £5 per child.

This was the big coaster we didn’t pre-book, and we eventually decided to skip Wilde Maus XXL this time. We were Wild Moused out at this point, so doing a bigger one wasn’t a fun prospect. Dearer than the others at £9 per adult too.

A VR ride experience that the kids were determined to have a go on. Cost us £35 for the four of us to go on and it was bad. You travel around the ride with a series of ramps and turns, encountering different VR scenes via the headset. If you’re lucky enough to try it after 5pm, it becomes Dr Archibald – Master of Horror. Evan had a VR headset for Christmas which was infinitely better!

There were loads of rides dotted around. Mini coasters, mine trains, drop towers, giant swings, carousels, fun houses, the Christmas tree ride (a little spinning tree ride where you sit in a bauble car – looked fun), star flyers, wave swingers, train rides, ghost trains, big wheels. Plenty to enjoy for all ages. Lots for the thrill seekers and lots for smaller kids, especially in Santa Land. For Santa Land you could buy an unlimited ticket for £25 to get on all the rides.

Not into rides, well there were plenty of upcharged shows and attractions around the event to keep you going. Here’s just a few:

• Magical Ice Kingdom – A show of ice sculptures separated into realms of earth, fire, air and water.
• The Ice Rink – The O2 sponsored open air Ice Rink.
• Bar Ice – An indoor ice bar.
• Justin’s Sing-along – A family show featuring Justin Fletcher of Mr Tumble fame.
• Zippo’s Christmas Circus – A festive show of acrobats and performers.
• Santa’s Grotto – Meet Santa! One for the kids.

Well, you won’t grow hungry of thirsty at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. Across the event there were plenty of bars and food stalls with outdoor and covered seating areas. Noodles, pasta, burgers hot dogs, local and international fare and more besides. The kids were instantly at one of the Bavarian stalls for a bratwurst.

Later on we found the Cheese Wheel for some tasty Alfredo pasta, I found a stall called Bagu, which served awesome sausage and fondue filled baguettes. I tried one with chilli oil and it was great. Later on for some sweet treats we ended up with Churros with Nutella dip. Needless to say we were covered in chocolate by the end.

Prices varied across the board for food and drink. Nothing was particularly cheap as you’re getting some quality street food vendors in the middle of London. Bar prices seemed reasonable for a pint. Jo tried an Amaretto hot chocolate from one stall which was really nice too.

We arrived early afternoon and it was busy, but there were no queues to get in. By the time we left at around 6pm there were massive queues to enter, and it was already overflowing inside. One of our kids struggles with big crowds and even we could see it was too busy in some areas. It was shoulder to shoulder through the paths around Munich Looping and I cant imagine how you’d cope if one of the kids got lost in that chaos.

It’s definitely not the best environment for families later on as it get incredibly busy and loud, but we were only hanging around for a night ride on Munich. We know for next time to get there first thing for some quiet time.

I really liked Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. Yes it was busy. Far too busy at times, but it had a great selection of rides and attractions, food options and more, and catering for all ages and tastes. It is an expensive day out when you have to pay for 4 people, so don’t go mad spending, especially on the run up to Christmas.

If you can catch it on a quiet day it does feel like a ‘magical wonderland’ of festive lights and sounds, especially at night when the rides and trees are all in fill spectacular colour. Brilliant to see.

Visit the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland website for details of future events.