I'm back at the park this weekend checking out Holiday in the Park! Before we get to this update, a quick disclaimer: I didn't stay for the lights. It was a Sunday and I wanted to get home at a decent time before work tomorrow. My apologies! If you're curious, check out my coverage from 2020 to see what the lights look like. SFDK always does a great job! But let's get into the coverage!

Table of Contents

• Holiday in the Park
• Closed Ride Updates
• Other Updates

Holiday in the Park

So let's go clockwise through the park and see what the event brings us! Lets start with Twinkling Twee Fowest

As you might expect, this featured plenty of lights on the trees!

And characters!

Continuing around the park, we get to Toy Land which starts around the entrance to DC Universe and continues until around the entrance to Looney Tunes Seaport

As you might expect, get ready for giant toys!

I'm used to seeing these toys in the Medusa Kong plaza!

And we get characters here too!

Next up is Winter Wonderlane near the shark aquarium

Seems like the theme is snowmen and general Christmas trees

Next, we get to Candy Cane Lane which is on the back path. I bet this is pretty at night!

The Holiday Market has set up shop in the landing beneath the old Toyota Stadium. This year it features a food shop...

And an opportunity to take pictures with Santa

The pricing if you're so inclined

And going around to Merry Plaza, we've seen all of the themed areas (minus Celebration Station which has a handful of signs celebrating all of the holidays celebrated around the world)!

A little more from Merry Plaza

As always the stage is set up for the occasion

My personal favorite part of the event is the holiday animal shows! This year brings us "A Very Merry Christmas" at the Sea Lion Stadium that I didn't catch

And "Dolphin Holiday" which I did

I liked this show a lot better than the Halloween one. It had the narrator reading a Christmas story

While the dolphins helped decorate the tree and put ornaments on it!

Similar to Halloween, this year featured some "themed" rides. Monsoon Falls became "Penguin Plunge"

Although I have to ask, who asked for this ride to be open on a cold winter day?? But I actually saw people riding it!

And Thrilla Gorilla became Sugar Plum Spin

With Monkey Business becoming Peppermint Twirl

And both are enclosed with lights and Christmas music which is an extremely cool touch!

The bumper cars have become Reindeer Race

Which is also enclosed

And Wave Swinger became Winter Whirl

I love the park doing these! They don't have to but it's the small little touches like enclosing rides and changing them up just a little bit that give variety to the event!

Finally, wrapping up some small details, the games once again have holiday overlays

The picture opportunity is back at the front of the park. I like it this year!

There's a cookie decorating room and smores firepit taking up Kingdom Traders

And finally, Yuletide Cafe takes up what used to be a Six Below stand and serves soup and desserts

Closed Ride Updates

So Flash still sits with the same sign at its exit

But on the plus side, its cars were in pieces near the ride. Maybe they'll get put together soon? I think best case for this ride is next summer. Allegedly the ride is expensive to operate with its LIMs and before the pandemic it was regularly a walk on even when the rest of the rides in DC had decent waits. I'm hopeful because the ride is such a unique and cool ride!

Over to the old Tazmanian Devil site, we have a couple sections of fence missing where we can see... Dirt!

All jokes aside it was a change from the last time I visited so I report it. I'll keep an eye on it in the future

But the biggest ride related change was definitely Hammerhead

Gone is the metal ride platform and here is blacktop

Along with it, the former queue that was blacktop is now this red concrete

A quick look over the area

A handful of these little funstruction signs are all over the fences

I wonder if the blacktop here will also get the red concrete

But we'll keep you up to date as the ride continues to get redeveloped

Other Updates

The scheduled for 2023 events has dropped. Good to see the park pulling out so many events!

I was walking around taking pictures of menus of the restaurants around the park when I noticed that Chop Six no longer has the TVs used as menus. Not sure how long that's been the case.

Same with Seaside Sandwiches

Throughout the park, there's been a push for upcharge animal tours

Like this one that lets you feed the sharks. Also of minor note is that the Shark Treasures gift shop was closed today. Most likely due to the rain and lack of crowds but it's worth watching

I want to use this picture of Kong to talk about today. So it was a total washout at the beginning of the day. The park was closed yesterday for rain and at opening today, it was pouring and parts of the paths around the park (like in front of Superman) were 3+ inches deep in water and had to be pumped out. But on the plus side, the rain kept guests away and so I was able to walk onto a handful of rides, including Joker!

Interestingly, the Pacific Rim sign was finally removed. I have to assume that's the case since the structure was used for Haunt but I'll keep my eye and see what comes of it

Boomerang still had a tarp over its sign even though it's no longer Double Trouble

The VIP area didn't seem to be used today. In fact, there were tables back there instead of the cushioned chairs from Halloween. HitP mentions a VIP lounge but I wonder if they're using the one near DC

Safari Grill has its sign tarped. It remains closed with the Halloween menu still up

And the Dead Man's Party stage remains up

Tava's Jungleland remains closed

With the store out front closed too

It surprised me to still see Halloween props up

But not just in Tava, also in front of the old St Hades building

Although some are missing. Glad to see the random crib in the old cougar exhibit gone

The tiger sign is down too. The tigers weren't there either. I'll keep my eye out for them in the future

But the lion was out!

I will say that the majority of the Halloween decorations were left up in Tava's Jungleland. I'm curious whether that means it'll just stay closed all year. I hope not but we'll wait and see

Like it does most winters, the butterflies are closed and will reopen in the spring

The former Kickin Chicken location has been made into Seaport Sweets. It serves a good mix of cold sweet treats including plenty of flavors of ice cream

Dole whips have come to SFDK! I love the ones at SFMM and so I'm glad to have it here at Funnel Cake Corner

And that'll finish our update! The park is always a festive and fun place to visit during the holidays and this year is no different. The variety of animal shows with special food, characters and of course the rides make this a must visit event! Make sure to check it out if you can before it ends.