Yesterday was the official opening of Winter Wonderland and I was lucky enough to get tickets when they first went on sale. I ended up passing last night and it wasn’t what I was expecting, mostly in a good way.
I parked a full block down from Winter Wonderland and decided to walk the rest of the way because I was expecting crazy traffic. It was opening day and tickets were sold out so I was pretty surprised when I got to the Winter Wonderland street and realized there wasn’t any traffic and parking was available.
The second surprise was the lack of a queue to get into the park. There were two gates, the first gate checks to see if you have a ticket and for the correct date, then the second gate is a metal detector which once you go through, staff on the other side scan your QR code.
Once inside, the park also felt empty. I was there around 6:30-7:00 PM and it didn’t feel busy at all. I think because the area of the park is huge and the few rides they have are spread out, the place didn’t feel crowded at all. A lot of rides, especially the ones further out from the center were empty while some, mostly the interesting ones had queues. I kinda wish they had squeezed Winter Wonderland into an area half the size so it would feel cozier and busier.
The whole thing was really organized with lots of staff around in case you needed anything as well as lots of cops everywhere (both inside and outside the park). Tickets for December are already sold out so if you’re interested in going, the earliest tickets are for January. Booking is through winterland.kw
18 replies on “Winter Wonderland First Impression”
What is the average price for a ride?
Average would be 1.5 since there r tickets for 1 and tickets for 2
Great news. Most people are afraid that it will be crowded. For me, it sounds nice that it felt empty I hope they keep it as you described for the whole season.
From the overhead pics I was under the impression that the place would be too small
Are there any games? Food stalls? What do they offer?
Yes there are games at winter wonderland as well as food stalls, their website has a map
I think they limited the tickets to deal with the crowd and overcrowded will make it a mess
It is empty, and the wait times were very short for the most crowded things. I kept wondering why aren’t they allowing more ticket sales? It could be a smart strategy to get people to come during the week, and also to keep interest up instead of just facing an initial rush then slump. Or it could be the police (who were there in huge amounts yesterday) that asked for a smaller number, and maybe they will permit more visitors as they become comfortable with crowd management. I had heard that it was the police who asked them to open on a weekday.
Meanwhile the fan zone is an epic disaster in crowd management and I don’t see much help from the cops. I saw someone hit on the road right outside and sadly he looked dead. (This was after the Morocco v Portugal match, if anyone knows more info please let me know. Hope he is ok) No way for people to safely get to their cars on the other side of the road. Its nuts.
what’s the point of a amusement if its not busy and don’t give the vibe of hustle and bustle. They should encourage more crowds. Those days shaab park was crowded but in a good way. and again if the idea was to accommodate limited people on day to day basis. then they should have kept 7 to 10 kd ticket price with free access to all rides.
As a resident on the street they unfortunately built the park on, I have to say the companies lack of concern for the people in the surrounding area is staggering. We were inflicted with building work 24/7 for months and are now in a living hell. There’s literally no respite from the noise. It goes on till midnight, every single night of the week. My husband and I work in education and health care. We have to get up at 5.30am. Previously we slept at 9.00pm, we are now existing on 5 hours sleep a night. Our entire building is considering moving after years in our place. The idea that a company can build an amusement park in a residential area is still a source of utter bemusement.
They opened December dates for booking starting 16 December, except every Monday which is blocked.
🙁
Booked 22 Dec, went through it, but payment won’t get through. Even January open dates (tried 27, 29 and 30 January) showing “fully booked”
They posted in Instagram about adding tickets.
Probably something’s wrong with their website.
Is there anything besides games and food? In London they had ice sculptures, I don’t expect those in Kuwait but maybe something for the adults to visit without the need to acquire calories.
I think probably they gave away 100s of tickets for free to key figures who probably ended up never using them. Hence the low crowds.
Booked tickets on 09/12/2022 to visit on 29th Dec and the booking cost was deducted from account. However, the transaction confirmation page not displayed and finally didnt receive the tickets. 😔
The very same thing happened to me. I booked 6 tickets on Dec 10th for visit on Dec. 19th. I got the debit to my account but never received the tickets. I wrote them a couple of times but received no answer at all. Let me know if you if you got through to them. Thanks!
did you log in to your account and download the tickets?
For last 5 years we breath dust from abandoned area of shaab park. We lost our grocery sultan center and had to go to other groceries in hard Covid time. And now starting the week we are suffering from loud noise of continuous music until 12 midnight. Just I wanna ask if the area was not developed for expats living, will such entertainment facility build? Old shaab park was not so noisy and it had other facilities like nursery, grocery, fast food etc. Now I have to deal with crowded living place in first semester exams of my kids!