Santa land - Earls Court London in December

black-saturn

Thanks for the warning. I was thinking of taking my children there this weekend but I dont think I will now.

narry

I went to Santaland with my wife and 3 yr old on Sunday 4th and after reading Abena's thoughts have pretty much the same impression.

After paying about £65 for the tickets I was expecting a lot lot more entertainment and as I quote from the website ..... ' the ultimate Christmas fantasy, which will excite, entertain, engage and amaze - an experience that families will never forget!'

The one things that is true is the fact that I will never forget the experience.

From the experience on Sunday I can't work out how it took 2 yrs to plan and what the 3 million pounds was spent on.

The first disappointment was Holly, The fairy that the kids had to wake up after entering the first part of SantaLand .... She wasn't even a real fairy but appeared on Flat screen TV's situated around that section. The collecting of the magic ribbons was also explained whilst in this section which made you think that the more ribbons you collected the better the present from Santa would be at the end but at the end the ribbons were just put into a tube and sucked away.

After entering Santaland and having a look around for half hour I was not very impressed. There was meant to be 20 'Amazing' Attractions which I looked for but could not find, I saw about 5 or 6 fairground rides which did not even have much if any christmas decoration on them. The rides had about 30 to 60 mins wait on some of them which did make the day more tiresome. The Christmas tree in middle was big and had the normal white Christmas tree lights and that's all, It must have cost the organisers and least £19.99 to buy those lights.

If any of the organisers are reading this then please make some effort with the Christmas tree and if you need help then give me a call because it was probably the most undecorated Christmas tree I've seen. A little bit of different coloured Tinsel, Different coloured lights and ribbons would be a good start

The Snowman display was ok but small and the train ride was ok but didn't seem like being 600ft long also there wasn't much to see while riding on it.

When we came off the train ride we thought we would stand in line to see Santa and as the train ride finishes near Santa's house we thought it couldn't be a long wait but was we wrong or was we wrong. We starting following the queue to get to the end of it and the queues in the end stretched all the way across the whole of the exhibition hall from Santa's house to where the food. So we queued for almost 90 mins as we were determined for my little boy to see Santa considering the amount of money we had paid for the tickets and the whole idea was for him to meet Santa.

While in the queue we must have talked to a lot of unhappy parents who seems to have the same impression of SantaLand as we did.

My boy finally saw Santa and had a picture taken with him which made him happy and he received a Thomas the Tank pack which contained a few items but again didn't seem value for money.

My Overall Opinion is Santaland is not value for money, The phrase 'ripped off' comes to mind.

The organisers should donate most of the profits they have made from this so called 'extravaganza' to charity as they do not deserve it.

The Santaland website where we booked our tickets should be changed aswell because the experience is definately not the 'ultimate christmas fantasy'. If only we knew someone who had been to it before we went then we wouldn't have bothered going and spent the £65 in Hamleys looking at the Christmas decorations in Oxford Street.

Narry

shykins

oh dear i have already booked and bought my tickets for 23rd... i do hope they get this sorted by then cos i would hate the kids t be disappointed...

if there are only 6 rides instead of the 20 or so promised then they should be refunding or face trading standards

i will reserve judgement as i did go to the one at wembley a couple years ago and eveyone said it was rubbish but we had a good day (maybe they had taken heed of the previous weeks complaints) lets hope this is the same

watch this space

kiwichick

Well my first complaint has gone in via the website personally addressed to Mr Brian Leaker (the organiser). It was strongly worded but not OTT. I will post if/when I recieve a reply.

Boohbah

Narry, did you visit the "theater".
We did, It turned out to be a 10 minute cartoon about a dwarf!!!

susieb

Thanks for your comments, due to my ill health we have just cancelled a weeks trip to lapland and I was hoping to do this instead, but dont think I will bother.
The grotto at the garden centre near here seems a better bet.

black-saturn

Lapland is much better value for money :money:

narry

Hi BoohBah ....

We never actually got round to going into the theatre, We thought we'd do the rides first as there was queue's but after waiting after 45 mins to get on each ride we all got fed up

Alyn_2

Am so glad other parents found this event crap and a waste of money. Does anyone have the address of Brian Leaker so we can all vent and at least get some compensation for a dismal event.

The organisation was appalling, the only way to get on a number of rides was to use the "two parent" trick, where one queues and the other takes the kids on another less loaded ride.

I did the wembly event a couple of years ago and much better.

kiwichick

I've only complained via the website, suprise suprise I've not had a response. A friend so mine is looking up the address of the business as all they have listed is apo box which is rubbish. As soon as I find anything more I'll post it here.