When is Hyde Park Winter Wonderland this year?
The huge funfair and festival in Hyde Park opens its gates for the Christmas 2025 season on 14 November 2025, running until 1 January 2026.
It's open every day except 18, 24 and 25 November and Christmas Day. Unlike previous years, the opening hours vary on different days, opening at either 10am, 11am or 12pm and remaining open until 10pm — full details on Winter Wonderland opening hours here. We've known it to close slightly early on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve in the past — fair enough, as the staff have places to be.
How to get to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
The Winter Wonderland site (and it's a MASSIVE site) is located in the south-east corner of Hyde Park — just head for the flashing funfair lights and big wheel. The nearest Tube stations are Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch, Green Park and Knightsbridge, though those first two in particular tend to get very busy. If you have accessibility requirements or are travelling with children, Green Park is your best bet as it has step-free access.
There are multiple entrances to Winter Wonderland, although not all are open at all times. Plenty of signs and stewards will help you find your nearest entrance. The Winter Wonderland accessibilty guide tells you which gates (and Tube stations) are closest to each attraction.
Do you need to pay for a ticket to get into Hyde Park Winter Wonderland?
If you went to Winter Wonderland during the Covid period, you may remember that things changed significantly compared to previous years, so that crowd sizes could be managed.
Those changes look to be permanent, as they have stayed in place for the 2025-26 season. Once again you need to book a ticket for everyone in your party to enter the Winter Wonderland site, regardless of which activities you're doing once inside. This is where things get slightly confusing, because your entry fee depends on when you're visiting:
- If you're visiting Off-Peak (generally, that's weekday mornings up until mid-December), entry is free (plus a £1 booking fee...), but you still need to book. Attractions also offer off-peak pricing during these slots
- If visiting in Standard times (generally weekend mornings, weekday afternoons), entry is from £5 per person
- In Peak times (weekend afternoons/evenings, and weekday evenings closer to Christmas), it's from £7.50 per person. December weekends tend to sell out way in advance, so get in quick if you're planning a visit.
If you're thinking that entry + ice skating + food + a ride or two for the whole family is starting to sound spendy, there's a way around this. Entry tickets are free at any time, if you spend £25 or more on attractions or advance food and drink packages.
A limited number of fast-track tickets are once again available for selected rides this year, helping you to skip the queues once you're in. Keen to ride the biggest rides? The Five Peaks Pass gives fast-track access to the five biggest rides at Winter Wonderland. Alternatively, the Santa Land Unlimited Pass gives unlimited turns on 12 rides within Santa Land for the kids.
For 2025, Winter Wonderland introduces four new ticket packages, all of which include free entry to the site and fast-track upgrades:
- The Arctic Adventure: Includes a session on the ice rink, a visit to the Magical Ice Kingdom, and a turn on the Real Ice Slide;
- The Festive Favourites: Includes a turn on the Giant Wheel, cocktails in Bar Ice and a session on the ice rink;
- The Show Town Spectacular: Performance of both Zippos Christmas Circus or Cirque Berserk: Ignite;
- The Taste of Bavaria: All about the food and drink? This one includes credit to line your stomach in the Bavarian Village.
Is Winter Wonderland child-friendly?
Winter Wonderland has plenty for children to do, including mini fairground rides, an ice rink, and Santa Land, where you can meet the man himself for free (though be prepared to queue...) or watch Santa's Parade on selected dates. Santa Land has had a revamp for Christmas 2025, with a new interactive Elves Workshop, with Mrs. Claus dropping by for special visits. The Jingle Bell Bistro claims to be the world's first street food market just for kids, offering a menu designed for young tastebuds.
And that's barely scratching the surface. The bright lights and colours, Christmas decorations and myriad sweet stalls make it something of a child's paradise.
The Santa Land Unlimited Pass is back again this year, giving children unlimited access to 12 family-friendly rides in Santa Land for £35 — so you can ride as many times are you like without the bill going up and up.
Beyond the entertainment, the Winter Wonderland organisers put in a solid effort at making the whole experience as child-friendly as possible, with plenty of baby changing facilities. If it all gets too much, there's a covered chill/quiet area at the north of site near the family entrance, where younger visitors can have some downtime away from the bright lights and excitement of it all. It's music-free, with neutral lighting.
A buggy park is provided outside the circus show as buggies aren't allowed inside the dome for fire-safety reasons, but there are no other official pram parks at Winter Wonderland.
Kiddie skates and skate aids are available on the ice rink, and the Zippo's Christmas Circus show is 45 minutes long, ideal for kids' attention spans.
So yes, it's child-friendly, BUT keeping the little ones happy has the potential to make quite a dent in parents' wallets. You've been warned.
Is Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park accessible and wheelchair-friendly?
While the organisers have made Winter Wonderland as accessible as possible, do bear in mind that once you're inside the site, the pathways are temporary, usually made from plastic matting on the grass. The majority of attractions are accessible to wheelchair users, but organisers recommend contacting them in advance so they can accommodate you.
Other useful information for visiting Winter Wonderland with accessibility requirements:
- Disabled visitors will need to be registered with Nimbus Disability to book Essential Companion tickets this year
- The ice rink is accessible for both manual and electric wheelchair users, with a maximum of five per session — but the motor must be switched off on the latter.
- Accessible toilets are available at most (though not all) toilet blocks at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, accessed using a radar key.
Find out more about accessibility at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, including specifics of each of the attractions, before you go.
What's on at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland?
What's not on at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland? The huge festival site encompasses a Christmas market, funfair rides, bars, food and drink stalls, a circus, an ice rink, and more. Here are the main highlights:
New for 2025 at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Get snap-happy at Luminarie Lane, a large-scale lighting installation at the entrance to Winter Wonderland in the form of a glittering canopy.
Ice rink at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Apparently the biggest open-air ice rink in the UK, Winter Wonderland's skating area is rather picturesque, centred around the park's bandstand, and often with live acoustic music to accompany your figure-of-eights. It's at its best at night, when a canopy of lights hangs overhead. Book ahead, especially at busy times, or check out your other winter ice skating options in London.
Christmas market at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
The Christmas market once again centres around a Scandinavian-themed Market Square with brightly coloured Danish-style chalets selling artisanal crafts. It's also home to the Star Bar, offering live music and Scandinavian-themed food.
Theatre shows at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
You've got Zippo's Christmas Circus and Cirque Berserk to choose from again this year. Zippo's Christmas Circus is a family-friendly production starring clowns and acrobatics, while the death-defying, motorcycle stunts of Cirque Berserk are perhaps best left to a more mature audience. Book ahead for all shows.
Ice Kingdom at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
If walking in a Winter Wonderland isn't festive enough for you, how about walking in an ice kingdom in a Winter Wonderland? This year, the Magical Ice Kingdom has A Mystical Mythical Fantasy World theme, taking you through the Four Realms of Earth, Fire, Air and Water. It's made from over 500 tonnes of ice and snow, sculpted into giant trolls, a 5m high Griffin, and plenty of impressive shapes. Dress warm — the sculptures are kept at a chilly -10°c. Book ahead for this one, too.
Funfair at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Even if you've never been to Winter Wonderland, you've probably seen its rollercoasters protruding into London's winter sky. Dozens of rides and games pepper the Hyde Park site, ranging from a traditional funfair for kids and tamer adults, to wild loop-the-loop rollercoasters and waltzers. For us, it's all about the huge observation wheel — it's 70m high (the tallest transportable wheel in the world, natch), and offers views over the fun below, and the skyline beyond. The real ice slide is always popular with thrill-seekers too.
Food and drink at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Whether you're after a warming hot chocolate or mulled wine, or a slap-up meal for all the family, Winter Wonderland has plenty of eating and drinking options — though bear in mind that it may not be your cheapest refuelling option. Seating can be limited (/non-existent) at busy times, but thankfully, some of the following venues do take advance bookings.
For bars and watering holes, Bar Ice (18+, book ahead) serves alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails in -10°c surroundings, with tables, chairs and glasses sculpted from ice. The open-air Fire Pit bar has a rustic vibe, with live music sets, and cocktails. A carousel bar (18+, hard work after a couple of pints) and Arctic Lodge (18+) are just some of your other options for liquid refreshment... and that's before we get to the beer-based options of the Bavarian Village.
To soak it all up, you've got (deep breath): street food, crepes, waffles, churros, sweet stalls, barbecue pits, hog roasts, fish and chips, bratwursts and a whole host of sit-down restaurants in the aforementioned Bavarian Village. And as mentioned above, Santa Land has a new, kiddo-friendly food market for 2025. Just don't go chowing it all down at once, especially if you're planning a post-lunch whirl on the waltzers.
Free things to do at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
As we've said, entry to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is free if you can go off-peak, but things get pricey once you're inside. That doesn't mean you can't do it on the cheap though.
Visit Santa at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Winter Wonderland's Father Christmas is free to visit* — a rare thing in a city of grottos where you usually fork out for a face-to-face with Santa — and there's even a gift included for children who've been good. That said, you can't book for your freebie rendezvous with the man in red, and queues have been known to be several hours long in past years. 2025 opening hours TBC.
*excluding the Winter Wonderland admission price.
Best time to visit Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Want to visit Winter Wonderland without the crowds? Good luck with that — it's a very popular attraction, with a rumoured 2.5 million people visiting during its six-week run every year, though of course, that ticketing system has helped to ease crowding a bit in the last couple of years
As you'd expect, weekends and evenings are the most popular times — and Saturday evenings can be the most... 'vibrant' — so visit on a week day if possible. If that doesn't fit into your schedule, try to visit earlier in the run — the weeks closest to Christmas tend to be busy all day, every day. Weekday mornings are the best, if you're fully flexible, and are ideal for visiting with pre-school age children.
Tips for visiting Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Meeting people at Winter Wonderland
If you're meeting up with family or friends for a trip to Winter Wonderland, we recommend meeting outside the Hyde Park attraction, and heading through the gates together. Not only do the crowds make it hard to find people inside, but we've known it to be so rammed that getting phone signal is impossible, too.
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland 2025, 14 November 2025-1 January 2026.
