Short answer: <strong>Central Park, Plymouth, Friday 20 November 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027.</strong> Entry is £1 a head, or free if you have pre-booked ice skating. There is a real covered ice rink, a walk-through Santa’s grotto, children’s rides, a music arena, a licensed bar and a food court. Closed Christmas Day. The opening times change four times across the run, so check the table below before you set out.
This is the bit that catches people out. The hours change three times before Christmas and then again almost daily between Christmas and New Year.
Monday to Thursday, 3.30pm to 9pm. Friday and Saturday, 11am to 10pm. Sunday, 11am to 9pm. Note the weekday afternoon start — before 3.30pm on a Monday to Thursday in this period there is nothing open, which is the single most common wasted journey.
Open from 11am every day. Closing at 9pm Monday to Thursday and Sunday, 10pm Friday and Saturday. This is the busiest week of the run.
Christmas Eve, 11am to 7pm. Christmas Day, closed. Boxing Day, 12pm to 7pm. Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 December, 11am to 9pm. New Year’s Eve, 11am to 7pm. New Year’s Day, 12pm to 7pm. Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 January, 11am to 9pm, and then it is over for another year.
The organisers say times are subject to change and to the weather, which for an outdoor site in Plymouth in December is not a formality. Check their Facebook page on the day if the forecast is bad.
Entry to the site is £1 per person, and free if you have pre-booked an ice skating session. Everything inside is paid separately: skating and the grotto are pre-bookable, the rides and games are pay as you go, and so are the food and drink.
The £1 entry is worth understanding properly. A family of four who only want to look at the lights, let the children on two rides and have a hot chocolate gets in for £4. A family who are skating pay nothing at the gate. It is not a £1 attraction, but it is not a gate-price attraction either.
Real ice, under cover, open seven days a week in hourly sessions. Covered matters here: it is the one part of the site that works in rain, and in Plymouth in December that is most evenings. Book ahead for the week before Christmas and for any weekend session — walk-ups are accepted but only subject to availability, and a Saturday afternoon is the first to fill.
A walk-through rather than a queue-and-photo: the North Pole, an Enchanted Forest and the Elves’ Workshop, finishing with Santa. Pre-bookable, and worth pre-booking. If you are comparing it with the others, the Devon Santa trains are a longer and much more expensive day, and this is the cheapest way in Plymouth to do the whole thing in an evening.
A music arena with live performers, children’s rides at a small extra charge, a Winter Wonderland Village of festive props for photographs, a large licensed bar doing festive drinks and hot chocolate, and a food court of local traders.
Central Park, PL2 3DG. It is the biggest park in the city and a walk from the centre rather than in it. Where to park in Plymouth has what each car park costs and which fills first — on a Friday or Saturday evening in December the nearest ones go early.
If you are making an evening of it, where to eat in Plymouth covers what actually stays open in winter, which is a shorter list than in August.
Plymouth at Christmas has the lights switch-on and what stays open once the season turns. The city switch-on is on Thursday 12 November at The Piazza on Armada Way, a week before the Winter Wonderland opens, and it is free.
Boxing Day in Plymouth and New Year’s Day in Plymouth both land inside the Winter Wonderland run, and both are days when the free parking at Devil’s Point is the easier option if you want a walk first.
It is outdoors apart from the rink, so dress for standing about in a park in December rather than for a shopping centre. The weekday 3.30pm opening before 18 December is the thing most people get wrong. And the last three days, 1 to 3 January, are the quietest of the whole run if you would rather not queue.
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