Up until a few years ago, Carowinds shut down for the season after SCarowinds ended on Halloween. But in 2017, the theme park introduced a new holiday event, WinterFest. Open on weekends and select evenings between Thanksgiving and New Years, WinterFest offers holiday decorations, entertainment, activities, rides, and more.
When my kids were younger, the SCarowinds decorations terrified them, even during the day. But even as I was ushering them quickly through the scary sections to get to the Peanuts’ Great Pumpkin Fest, I recognized that Carowinds did an amazing (albeit scary) job with their decorations. I was excited to see what they would do with a winter theme.
And just as I expected, they do a fantastic job. The Carowinds crew starts stringing lights before SCarowinds is even over, and after SCarowinds closes for the season, they have 12 days to turn the park from “scary to merry”, as they say on their website. The lights alone – more than 5 million of them! – create a magical feeling in the park.
In addition to the lights, they have great holiday and winter themed decorations throughout the park. From giant Christmas trees, to giant snowmen to a giant Santa Claus, nothing about the decorations is subtle, but it is all tastefully done. Jolly elves and penguins dot the landscape and numerous photo ops are setup around the park. It was really fun to walk around and take it all in.
As much fun as just walking around was, there were activities, entertainment, and rides to enjoy as well. We loved listening to the holiday bands and carolers that were performing throughout the park. There were lots of activities geared towards younger kids, from writing letters to Santa to decorating cookies with Mrs. Claus. We really just scratched the surface on our visit, missing out on a few of the bigger activities, like the nightly tree lighting ceremony, the parade and the ice skating rink.
But of course the kids were most interested in rides! A lot of the rides in Camp Snoopy were open, as well as a handful of thrill rides as well. We took a quick twirl on the carousel before heading to Copperhead Strike. That ride probably had the longest wait – about 20-25 minutes. It was worth it though – the ride is amazing and it was definitely a unique experience to ride a roller coaster with a winter coat and hat on! And it was strange to be chilly in line instead of sweating!
All in all, we had a fun evening at Carowinds’ WinterFest. The decorations were great, the entertainment was fun, and riding a roller coaster in the winter was extra thrilling. I’d like to go back next year and take in more of the entertainment and some of the activities that we missed. But I will say that as much as we enjoyed the event, if we were not season ticket holders, we would not pay to go to this more than once. Yes it was fun and festive and a unique experience. But it costs roughly $150 for a family of four just for admission and parking. Yikes! We bought season tickets in the fall that gave us access for the rest of 2021 and all of 2022 so I suspect we will go again next year. But due to the high cost for non-season ticket holders, we will only attend WinterFest in years that we have season passes.
