Santa's Wonderland Review

This place used to be pretty fun, but it seems every year the prices go up more and the crowds get bigger. I think I'll save my money this year and find something a little more low key.

It's not Xmas yet but you can see and imagine what it will be like in Xmas.

$165 for two adults and two kids. They need to do some work on the sewage system. That's all you can smell from the drop off location until your past the turnstiles. $35 for three slices of pizza and three 20 oz Cokes. After 2 hours of standing in line for pictures with Santa while my son and daughter played with rocks he left to take a 30 minute break. Kids were done and so were we. I guess a Santa body double costs too much to keep on payroll. We didn't bother to wait in line for the hay ride as the other visitors stated that they waited an hour and forty five minutes but that the line looked twice as long. No thanks. For as much as they're charging they should at least set up a wifi network or work some cell boosters onto the property. Most everyone was taking pictures or videos they wanted to share but couldn't. I'll neither be returning nor recommending this to others. Such a disappointment...
Edit 12/04/17
It's nice to see replies from the owner (?) but nothing is going to get me to pay entry fees a second time at this establishment. NOTHING. This park needs a MAJOR overhaul: organized lines, more employees to handle the size of the crowds and cost transparency in their webpage at minimum. $4.50 for a hot dog? $5 to make smores? Don't make me laugh. I will say the lights look nice but that's not worth the drive out there, the smell or the cost of entry. And after reading some of the other reviews I also noticed the snow globes were empty for HOURS. In fact, I didn't see them run ONCE while we were there. Oh well.
Good luck. I sincerely hope this place improves as the idea of a Texas Christmas theme seems nice in theory. Terrible execution in my opinion.

Great place but getting to be way too expensive for the family

After paying $35 per person we went to do the hay ride....and stood in line for 1 1/2 hours. After the wait I just wanted out and to go home. So we go to catch the bus back to the parking lot and had to wait 40 minutes to get to the car. I recommend this experience if you like to pay a lot of money to stand in line. They should at least have the decency to let you know before paying how long the wait is.

Had a great time with my kids! Hayride was amazing. Shops were great. A wonderful experience for kids and adults! We will be coming back for sure.

Great start to the Christmas season. Many things to do. Great for kids.

Our family tradition is to travel every year from DFW to Santaland.

Best place to enjoy Xmas lights with family and friends.

Beautiful place, lighting sets a little disorganized the food area, but overall very good.

First time taking the family here. They have so many things to do fun for the kids.. make sure to wear some comfortable shoes. Lots of walking..

Buy your tickets online to save time and money. Plan to arrive just after dusk and plan on staying a few hours because you will want to. It is a family date that you will enjoy. We bought tickets for Santa's town and the hayride. You will enjoy the lights much more if you go on the hayride as opposed to driving yourself not much difference in price and since they boast 2.5 million lights it takes a while. There is a super fine bubble machine (snow machine) that makes it snow every few minutes near the saloon door entrance to Santa's town. There are a few campfires around to keep warm by, there is a stage and a few stores and a food court. My favorite was the west pole land and cattle (I think) it was west pole something which is where you buy hot dogs and s'mores kits and roast them over the open fire in the courtyard. roast the dog and return it to them and they fix it up for you. There is a petting zoo and a movie theater sized screen playing Christmas vacation and so many other things we didn't have time to do.

Santas wonderland was a thing for me as a kid and i always loved it. I went today for thr first time in probaly 15 years and I was pretty impressed. I have an 18 month old and the trail of lights was super cool and so was the little train rides for kids. The live music is and fire pits and is pretty fun to. I went on a weekday so the waiting in line wasnt so bad for us. May or may not go back next year we will see. Overall a fun experience my family enjoyed. My only complaint is the smell of septic as your leaving the park. I could imagine this being much worse on busy nights but as Santas Wonderland states there "always improving" so maybe this is one of the things they will hopefully improve on.

What a fun birthday gift. My husband and I visited Santa's Wonderland the Wednesday after A&M finals and before public schools were dismissed for the Christmas holidays. We purchased our tickets and parking passes on line therefore we didn't have to wait in a long line to park. We did have to wait in the security line for a few minutes.

Once in the park crowds were fairly light. The wait for the hayride was 15-20 minutes. We recommend doing the hayride the very first thing. Beautiful lights, fun music, cute holiday merchandise for purchase and memories to be made.

It was expensive, crowded, and didnt have very many things to do. I would not recommend wasting your time if you have small children, as there is no where for them to run around. There are many food and gift shops which did not appeal to me, as the tickets were expensive enough. I didnt want to stand in the line that looked like there was around a thousand people corraled between fences like cattle, so i did not get to enjoy the hayride, the only free activity offered. I would only recommend this for older kids and adults who have extra time and money they want to spend on food, gifts, and other charges.

There were a lot of really nice things about our visit. The lights of course were amazing, the central entry area had live music/entertainment which I thoroughly enjoyed with lots of seating and a large fire pit, cozy and inviting and More

Visit sometime not in December. You'll pay over $100 for a family of 3 to basically wait in line. Everything you do will involve a wait in line and if you go in December, each line will be at least 45 minutes long unless you pay extra.

I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND THIS PLACE for elderly or handicapped people. Too crowded! This is a NOT friendly place for elderly or people with limited mobility, lack of staff guidance, the food TERRIBLE. The experience of the lights is great but I wouldn't go back, for the price I was expecting better service. Long lines, long waiting.

I haven t even been there yet and already the place felt like it would be horrible, staff wise. We bought tickets a while back, but things came up and we needed our money back. With more than a months notice that we needed a refund, they still refused to refund us. For a Christmas business it s pretty hypocritical that they care more about money than they do people.

I will find the fire Marshall's contact for your area, completely over sold and overcrowded to a dangerous point. Employees even stated they never stopped admitting customers or closed to compacity. Three hours to ride the hayride with disorderly and unmarked lines with at least five times the line became disjointed and we lost our position to the confusion.
I have been previously but probably will not return. Beware also if you buy tickets online. You have to trade them in at a booth for armbands which are not big enough for average men. They don't say this on the web. All in all a bad place now. I will go to holiday in the park at Sixflags locally.

Great atmosphere but be prepared to spend lots of money.

No social distancing at all. Lines are packed full of folks (most are without masks) and no hand sanitizer generally available. We took one look at the line and chose not to do the hayride even though we drove over 100 miles from home just for that. Signs are posted about social distancing; how can you expect to enforce it when your employees don t lead by example and you don t limit capacity??? Literally 1,000s of guests there last night (Nov 14). If you care about staying safe and healthy, skip going this year!!!

I took my family for the 2017 season and it was good enough to want to go back. So this past weekend, 12-18-18, we took that drive again.....BIG MISTAKE!!!!! Aside from the place being ridiculously overpriced, it was extremely packed. Fine, I knew the price before hand and it is a week before Xmas so I knew what I was getting myself into......so I thought. After being there for all of 15min, THE POWER GOES OUT!!!! So now you have a very large crowd of people in a confined area with no power. People were panicking, and the park had everyone still use the same 2 door exit through the gift shop. Zero crowd control and absolutely no security. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE!!!!!!! On top of the hellish experience I had to put my small children through, they offered no explanations, refunds, or even rain checks. Needless to say I am extremely disappointed in Santas Wonderland.

Me and my family had an AMAZING TIME here. The food and atmosphere was great. The staff are so sweet. The pricing of the food is not badly priced and it tastes amazing! We went on a light and fluffy day and there was no lines for anything. If you go on a weekend expect there to be lines just like every other place. We did the horse and carriage tour and I HIGHLY recommend it! Will definitely be coming back next year!

Love it here only thing i can say is some of the food could be better but besides that the scenery is beautiful and the environment is very friendly.

Amazing lights displays, hayride, sledding, and lots of food. Ran out of handicap parking before they even opened, but ramps were well maintained and the hayride even had a wheelchair lift. A definite must for holiday enthusiasts in the area!

The place is crowded, but from what I've seen, they are incredibly well organized and move people as fast as possible. Its pricey, but what themed attraction isn't these days?

Overall this was an awesome experience and I will definitely be taking the kids back.

Absolute Spectacular PLACE!!! As a child, I always loved Christmas and these folks truly make you feel in your heart the spirit of Christmas. Interact and talk with their staff, they are magnificent folks. Merry Christmas!

Great place for all ages. Food, drinks, snacks, alcoholic beverages and entertainment. My only problem/suggestion the wait for santa is unrealistic for any kid to stand in. My 3 year old was very upset because he couldnt see santa because the wait was over 2 hours to see him. They need more than one santa, the place is huge and there needs to be more opportunities for kids to see santa. If there was one per parking lot areas, that would be awesome. We had family members from 10 months old to 75 years old. Everyone had a wonderful time.

Spectacular attraction! Super friendly staff. Great food options. Live holiday entertainment. Ice skating, snow tubing, hay rides, shopping and more. Truly a wonderful holiday event.

A beautiful and wonderful experience awaits your and your family here. The park grounds are extra cared for and will not let you down. There's plenty of activities for all ages including a hay ride (10/10 btw), petting zoo, jumping zone, and even a sleighing station.
Take your kids. Take you parents. Take your loved ones. They'll all enjoy it.

This is such an amazing place to get into the Christmas spirit. The atmosphere is cheerful and the attractions are great fun.

I love this place , I've never been here ever but I got a great experience working there . I loved seeing the children laugh and smile because they're having a wonderful time there . Now saying that its about the experience right ? so why even complain about the prices sure they were a little high but honestly its worth it , people complaining about how much money your gonna spend.It shouldn't be about the money. I will be working there again I loved my co-workers and managers I saw them as family . so don't let these negative reviews scare you off from coming out and celebrating a Very Merry Texas Christmas with us .

It was my first time going and it was wonderful. Everything is no detailed and the people are so nice. I am definitely going again!

This place is so much fun for the entire family! If you can, buy tickets early. I would save the hay ride trail of lights for last. Our wait was 2.5 hours and by the time we were done, things were closing down. I gave 4 stars because the snow globe pictures were not the best. When we got our photos developed, you can't even tell we are inside of a snow globe. On the left side of the photo, you can see the door and the railings of the entry way. It was probably just a bad camera angle, but with how much we spent, it would be nice to see that we look like we are in a snow globe. It was nothing like I had seen online. That was the only disappointing thing. If you have little ones bring strollers just in case. ESPECIALLY for long wait times.

Oh my gosh if you haven't gone go great place lots of food lots of fun it made snow get to see Santa do the hayride got to race down hills on ice tubing they're sledding snowball fights music make your own s'mores pit shops candy making just go online and look at Santa's world in Bryan college station

Felt nickeled and dimed as everything was a separate charge. $45 a person already seemed high for admission but then $25 for Texas lights photo, $4 a person for petting zoo, $50 for snow globe picture, $50 per person for carriage ride, ect, ect.

Price is a little too high and they charge for everything like the pony ride I feel at least a pony ride should be included in the admission price for the children the lights were beautiful I stayed for about 3 hours

I think parking is a bit expensive, for the time you going to spend there.
Line for the hay ride was too long.
Although lights display are nice, they are the same year after year. Only a few are added here and there.
I have to say that the new BBQ area is very nice, but is lacking tables and chairs to eat, waiting is too long.
I noticed that there were improvements to the park, but with today's rain it was really bad.
The pizza was really delicious. The funnel cake was disappointing, because they have it pre-cooked and under an aluminum foil plus it wasn't cook to perfection, it was soggy.
I like the band, but didn't like the lady singer. All the male singers were great.
They run out of wine for sale around 9:00pm.
The snow slope was more like ice slope.
Prices are Texas size.

We visited Santa s Wonderland for the first time this year. The $45 tickets were very pricey for what you get. The only thing that comes with the ticket is the hayride. (The lights were very impressive though!) You have to pay for every single thing in the park, including petting zoo and snow, so make sure to bring extra cash. Pictures are also $25 each.The store merchandise was all overpriced as well, but there was a great selection of food options available. The lines were long but went very fast. Live music was fun. Overall the experience was good, but definitely not worth the price unless you can get discounted tickets.

Everything was beautiful and the environment was so warm and so fun, and the highlight of the evening
was when I lost my phone on their hayride and the workers were super kind and cool about it and went to get it and when we arrived at the end of the trail and asked about it they already had it in another car and gave it to me when they arrived, I was so grateful and appreciated that they cared and kept an eye out for things that could be on the trail and they returned it to me I will definitely return and appreciate it

It was awesome! Our first time there. The people there really know how to make Christmas, Christmas! Thank you

I put a 5 star because of the lights!! It was just okay.... Really dusty ... Food was basic... The photos we purchased came out very blurry not worth the money... The college student who told us where to park in the Rudolph parking lot should not park vehicles close to others.... he told us we are not responsible if someone hits your doors ..he gave us an "OH WELL" considering he didn't pay 70 k for a truck ...so we moved our truck...due to that issue.... people are careless and children don't know better.....so we should be able to park our cars where we feel comfortable parking especially that the parking lot was not full at all !!!!! Get your tickets online paying there is not worth the money... shop's have reasonble on prices...

Its has alot of attractions and everyone is very friendly. It's all worth it.

It's a great place for families to visit and enjoy themselves.

Well worth the 7 hour drive. Beautiful and massive displays, plus entertainment for everyone.

Santa's Wonderland will definitely put you in the holiday spirit. Go on weekday at night to avoid the traffic. The light show is awesome. Take your camera/phone and charge it up. Bull ride, float slides, train ride, hayride light show, roasting, camp fires, shopping and food. Well worth the trip to College Station.

I have not even been yet and I have a major disagreement with SW. We purchased a groupon that originaly included tonight in the set of dates. The dates somehow changed since we bought it in November. SW had received other calls with the same gripe, so we know that others have experienced the same thing. SW says it's groupon's problem and groupon says it's SW's problem. Either way, me, the consumer, and my family are left getting hosed. I gave SW an opportunity to show great customer service and work with me, but their customer service reps stood on the fact that it's groupon's fault, and I could pay more when I get there. I took off a day of work to spend with my family to cap it all off at SW. The lights may be spectacular, but in the end, I doubt I will ever want to return, or recommend it to a friend. This customer may lose out, but I plan on making up for every dime they make off me tonight, but telling others it's not worth the money.

It's cute

But you have ti lay for everything else, and also the food is not that good

I don't recommend to buy fast pass for hayride

I'm generally not a fan of any amusement-styled parks. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed myself during a visit here with my family. The staff seem genuinely happy to work here and you absolutely must go on the lighted hay ride. Save yourself a few bucks and use the park and ride option; the bus ride to and from the main entrance takes just a few minutes.

It a great place and unforgettable experience!!
The only thing I will suggest is to do like one day discount or like the houston zoo free day for those kids that in this times don't have same fortune to go and visit there.

UPDATED REVIEW
Our first time going was this year. Holy Merry Christmas Batman! Paid parking is smart and in my opinion worth it. Ok onto the park... Buy your tickets online or early it's more at the gate.
The place is big, not Schlitterbahn or Six Flags big but still fairly large, so wear comfortable shoes good for walking. Dress to the weather. It's Texas so it might be spring like weather, or chilly to downright cold. Your going to be there at night. Get a map when you enter. This a Texas Christmas explosion, food is available everywhere, the hot cocoa is exceptionally good, along with traditional fair foods i.e. funnel cakes, roasted corn, etc. Nothing is overpriced, but if you come to eat dinner it could get expensive quick.
The Hayride is a "Must Do"!!! The line is intimidating, but it moves surprisingly quick. We waited about 20 minutes from the ride entry gate until seated on the hay ride. The live music is great.
For us, This will now be a family Christmas tradition every year from now on!

Amazing it has gotten much bigger over the years. Worth every penny for horse and carriage ride

Great for little kids a little pricey for the parents.. A must do for children.

Beautiful lights and fun activities for all ages. Great place to bring the family.

You will not be disappointed! This place is everything I hoped it would be and more. The magic of Christmas in Texas . I visited December 25th and the crowd was not the worst. I had to wait in line like 15 min for the hay ride, so not bad at all. There was live music, food, gift shops, and beautiful lights all around the place. My experience was improved because I paid for the Rudolph VIP parking and I had no trouble at all to park and get in. The other entrances were a bit more congested. I also bought the tickets far in advance online, probably around October and they do have good discounts. It is totally worth it. I hope you go and enjoy it as much as I did.

I decided to wait for my little one to be old enough to enjoy Santa's Wonderland. I thought ok he's 4 and would realise what this experience is all about. I was searching for tickets and ran across the super saver tickets and thought score. So I go through the process and also buy my parking ticket. I wanted to have the best experience with my little one. For my husband and I who work 6 days a week, the 30th would have been the best time for us. We had the whole day planned out and Concord it until we get to the gate. They tell me oh today is not a day that you can use the super saver tickets, but that I could come back tomorrow (today). I said ok well what about the parking that I had also paid for? I was told that I could call the number to see if they would honor my parking , but was not guaranteed. So I bought parking for my car to just sit in your parking lot and my little one cant even enjoy the park? So needless to say that I had to end up paying full price for my tickets and it ruined the whole day. It wasnt the part of having to pay full price, because we were going to take him anyway. It's the part of being blindsided. We went they ruined our whole mood and will not be back.

So much to see and do. Absolutely beautiful light display. Love the Texas theme and scenes reflecting the true meaning of Christmas.

Excellent place very entertaining for young and old

Its a cute play's for a family to have fun with there kids...

Incredible experience with my 1 and 2 year olds. This place is magical for little ones

I paid more than $150 for 5 discounted tickets. The one-star rating is for their nicely decorated town and shops. This was my second year visiting Santa s Wonderland. On both visits, I was unable to get on the hayride to see the holiday lights. Last year we quickly parked and got shuttled to the park. However, there was a huge line for the hayride and we passed on the main attraction. This year we waited 2 hours to move through traffic, leave the car in free parking, and wait in line for shuttle to the park. Once inside, there was a huge wrap around line for the hayride. We were told the wait was about 45 minutes. We proceeded to wait, but left when the line had not moved after waiting 15 minutes. Therefore, I ended up paying for tickets to just walk through their shops. We were very disappointed and will not be returning.

This was our first time to Santa's Wonderland. The lights were really cool and there was good live entertainment. The rides/attractions were ok. Food was really expensive. The lines were long to get in, go on rides and get food/drink. Been there and done that and don't need to return.

Muy bonito lugar !!!
Merry Christmas 2020

This was my first year and I loved it! The lights, shopping and atmosphere was Awesome!

It was beautiful. My first time and I loved it. Staff was very friendly.

This has been a Christmas tradition for my family the past 11 years. Can't believe how much it has grown since we first started going. It definitely gives you the magical Christmas feeling when you are there.

Beautiful as always. We went a little earlier than usual, and people were a bit moody, but our family had a great time.