Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park

We have had guests from Scotland staying for the past few days, with seven of us and six friends (three adults and three kids) it has been a full, raucous and fun house.  It came just as I was wondering what I could do with the kids and meant that they spent the three days sleeping late, having midnight picnics, camping in the living room with their sleeping bag and generally getting up to all sorts of mischief.

Our guests did ask me to join them during the days they were out sightseeing but I declined because it felt challenging with Baby just falling into a good routine with nursing and bottle feeds and with Little Lady having school right up until New Years Eve.

My husband suggested that we visit Winter Wonderland, which is a fair that is set up in Central London's Hyde Park every year.  I had looked at the online reviews of which there were many negative ones and was a bit worried that it would be too crowded, the kids would get shoved about, too expensive and maybe not much fun if you are not spending tons of money on the rides.

To begin with I was shocked that we found parking space underneath the park and that it was fairly reasonable given London's reputation for parking.  The walk across the park was nice with the wonderland fair lights in the distance.

Have heard lots about the Magical Ice Kingdom, but the cost with the number of us there were, meant we gave it a miss.

There were lots of funfair rides, places to eat and stalls.  Lots of people complained that these were a rip off, but I thought that most of the stalls were okay and some of them had really nice handmade things.

We asked the kids to pick a ride and they spent so long squabbling about which one (they wanted scary, I wanted them to pick one less scary).  By the time we agreed on a ride, the rides were closing and the kids accused me of missing their ride aaalll the way back to the car (I pointed out to hubby , how it is always my fault and not both of ours).

Once we were out of the Wonderland and into the park, hubby decided to give the kids a ride and grabbed Gorgeous by the arms and swung him round and round high in the air.  Everyone was in hysterics and all of the kids wanted a turn.

It was nice walking through the park in the dark, it felt safe with so many people and I loved how creepy the trees looked.

In all, I enjoyed the evening there and I don't think it is a complete rip-off or that you have to spend tons of money to have fun.  The atmosphere was lovely and there were lots of opportunities to have fun taking silly pictures for the kids with yeti's, snowmen and pirates.