This holiday season, I have not had the time to get myself immersed in the holiday spirit. So, when I heard about the Aurora Winter Festival occurring over at Ontario Place (and apparently not in Aurora, Ontario), I thought it would be a great jump-off point for me to experience some holiday cheer and camaraderie with my friends. What I thought would be a whimsical, magical adventure turned out to be an overpriced, low effort dud with few attractions for the steep admission price. Regardless, I will talk about my positives and negatives about this event.
The Aurora Winter Festival had shuttle buses running from the Exhibition GO Station to Ontario Place, so this was definitely a plus. The buses were nothing more than school buses, but I would rather have school buses than no buses at all.
The actual main attraction of the event was the 'Mystical Worlds', where you walk through different 'worlds' filled with unique light sculptures, model dwellings, and other things to check out. I personally liked the large animal light sculptures of the moose and the polar bear, and people can walk under the large sculptures and have their pictures taken. The light tunnel was a nice touch as well, despite the large amount of visitors taking pictures of themselves. My favourite part of the Aurora Winter Festival was the 'Disco Den' where there was a tent with an LED dance floor and some nice bumping groovy tunes. There was also someone dressed up as the Yeti dancing with visitors, which I thought was cool.
The most glaring negative about the Aurora Winter Festival was the pricing. General admission was $20 plus tax for adults and $15 plus tax for children. That would not be so bad if there were many attractions for this festival, except there were only a few attractions. The only attractions that were included in your admission price were the 'Mystical Worlds' and the ice-skating (if you bring your own skates). For the other attractions, you had to pay extra, including the rides (you must pay for tokens to go on the Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Train Ride, and the Tube Slide), skating (if you wish to rent skates), and general food, drinks, and shopping (which was already overpriced). If you drove to this event, parking was another $20 fee, so after adding all these costs, it can turn out to be an expensive night out for a family with not much to show for it. Security was quite lax at the admission gate. I thought the security was going to pat me down for prohibited items, but they just waved me through with no checks. The various shops were huts that could fit maybe three people max. The rides themselves look hastily built and did not look like fun at all.
There were also some things that I noticed while walking through the festival that made me think that the organizers of this event lacked effort in some areas, and sorely needed a quality control department.
This sign spelt 'Arctic' incorrectly as 'Artic' for one of the worlds. Unacceptable!
This sign confused me, as I thought this was somewhere we could charge our phones. To our disappointment, we could not find any wires or outlets. In addition, with these signs, if you scan the QR code, all it does is take you to a Google search of the phrase. That is some serious low effort.
Overall, I would not recommend going to the Aurora Winter Festival, as the admission and extra attraction pricing is ridiculous for an event with a lack of attractions to begin with. The only thing even remotely worthwhile about this event are the light displays and the disco tent, and even with that, you try your best not to remind yourself that you spent $25 on admission just so you can take pictures for your Instagram account. If the organizers want to improve on this event for future years, make the pricing cheaper and have more attractions. How they want to attempt to achieve that is up to them.
More pictures and videos below, so you can pretend that you went to the event as well:
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