The Chicago metropolitan area is filled with family entertainment centers and amusement parks,
but I think the best park for kids is none other than Santa’s Village Azoosment Park
in East Dundee, Illinois. This Christmas themed amusement park closed after the 2006 season, but
it has been reborn over the past decade with new rides, a new water park, and a small zoo. So in
this video, I will be reviewing Santa’s Village. There are several Christmas-themed parks out
there, including a few with the same Santa’s Village name. Although they’re all separate
entities from each other. Being from New England, I grew up visiting Jefferson, New Hampshire’s
Santa’s Village. I love the charm of that park, so it was natural for me to compare the two.
And in many ways, the Illinois location has a similar charm to it. You have snow-capped
buildings, a few lightly themed rides, and a cheery atmosphere propagated by the employees.
I especially love the grand reveal of the park. After passing through a charming ticket booth
area with a giant candy cane, you pass through a tunnel with the man himself- Santa Claus.
You then emerge into the amusement park and it’s impossible to miss the smiles and laughter of
riders on the classic Snowball Ride nearby. And that Snowball ride is one of the few
remaining attractions from the old Santa’s Village. This park originally opened in 1959.
For most of its history, the park has been known as Santa’s Village, but for a short time in the
1970s it was known as Worlds of Fun. However, the owners scrapped that name because they wanted to
avoid confusion with other amusement parks, which I find funny since so many parks share
the Santa’s Village name, but I digress. In the early 2000s, Santa’s Village’s
attendance started dropping. The recently added Typhoon roller coaster was poorly received.
I rode this attraction when it operated at the Washington State Fair as Rainier Rush and
I can confirm it’s one of the roughest and most uncomfortable coasters in the world. Beyond this
abysmal coaster, the park’s customer service and overall aesthetics eroded. These factors caused
a drop in attendance that forced the park to close its gates after the 2006 season.
Many rides were auctioned off, but Santa’s Village reopened in 2011
with a whole new fleet of attractions and a renewed focus on aesthetics and customer service.
And the park has continued to expand over the past decade adding two new roller coasters,
several relocated flat rides, some thrill rides, a zoo, and a brand new Santa’s Springs Water Park
on the site of the former Racing Rapids water park. I never visited the old park, but it’s hard
for me to believe the old park could beat what you can experience today. It has a really diverse
attraction offering for kids and families. In general, this is a nice looking park. I
really love the front half of the park, as it’s more charming with the abundance of trees and
themed buildings. As you make your way down the hill towards the back half of the park,
the rides feel a bit more like carnival rides as many are portable models,
but the rides all sport fresh coats of paint and the two coasters border a small, scenic pond.
One buzzkill I immediately noticed was the park’s music selection. Unlike the Santa’s Village I grew
up with that plays Christmas and holiday music yearround, this Santa’s Village played pop music
throughout the park. It was disappointing they didn’t capitalize on the Christmas theme more,
but the visuals in the front half of the park still give that holiday atmosphere.
The only odd thing about this park is what it borders. As you make your way towards the
beautiful entrance plaza, it’s impossible to miss the gritty paintball complex immediately
to your left. This arena sits on the site of the park’s former Polar Dome ice skating rink.
The paintball facility is quite the contrast from the colorful theme park.
Touching on the entry experience, Santa’s Village is free to park
and is fairly priced given its attraction offerings. As of my visit in 2021,
it cost $28 to enter the park and that included the amusement park, water park, and zoo. Unlike
most parks where you can proceed directly to the gate if you buy your tickets in advance,
you still have to wait in-line at a will call booth when you arrive to pick up a wristband.
Even season pass holders have to wait in this line each visit. I could see this being an annoyance if
this ever backed up, but thankfully it was no more than a 5 minute wait the day I visited.
I was a bit surprised a park with no pay-per-ride structure would force everyone
to wear a wristband, but these wristbands had a really neat feature I wish more parks had.
Each wristband has a spot to write in a contact number if a child gets lost.
I thought that was a brilliant idea to help prevent a parent’s worst nightmare,
losing a kid at a theme park. Crowds do not seem to be an issue at this park.
I visited on what should have been one of the busiest days of the year.
It was a perfectly sunny Friday before a holiday weekend. Despite the parking lot
being fairly full, the longest line I saw was 10 minutes for the Super Cyclone roller coaster.
Most rides were either walk-ons or one cycle waits. Low waits are one of the most important
things for a children’s park in my opinion since kids hate waiting in line even more than adults.
And the midways didn’t feel congested either. The staff working the rides were pretty friendly
and quite efficient. They would waste no time loading the ride
once guests entered their queue line. Moving onto the rides, the park currently
features two roller coasters. The park has cycled through a few different roller coasters
since they reopened including a Schwarzkopf Wildcat and a Wisdom Rides Dragon Coaster,
but now they sport two coasters side-by-side. You have a standard Wacky Worm and then you have
Super Cyclone, which is Interpark’s take on the classic galaxi or zyklon layout.
Super Cyclone isn’t particularly wild. Outside of the first drop in the back car, which does give a
small pop of airtime, the coaster is devoid of airtime or forces. And that fact makes it even
funnier that it features both your standard lap bar and comfort collars. However, it is a
reasonably smooth ride and it was the park’s most popular attraction the day I visited. I do wish
the height requirement was lower than 48”, but it’s a decent “big” coaster for this family park.
Most of the flat rides are suitable for kids of all ages. You have a large cluster of kiddie rides
in the middle of the park plus a few spinning rides. You have a relatively rare Huss Troika
in Tri-Nado and a classic Tilt-a-Whirl that were both relocated from the old Fun Spot in Indiana.
But the most notable spinning ride is easily the aforementioned Snowball Ride.
This is a classic tea cup ride with a wintery flair. These cups were ridiculously easy to spin,
so I got an extremely dizzying ride. That was especially true since the cup abruptly stopped
at the end, whereas most come to a gradual stop, so my equilibrium got thrown way off.
The one downside with these flats is that they all ran really short cycles,
but with the low crowds, it was possible to just get back in line, usually on the very next cycle.
Now there are two rides that I feel are a bit out of place.
Contrasting with the family friendly offering are two bonafide thrill rides in Blizzard
and Xtreme Elevation. Blizzard is the park’s new-for-2021 inverting frisbee from SBF Visa.
It’s currently the park’s only inverting ride and it’s a really disorienting
experience chalk full of hangtime. Immediately next door is Xtreme Elevation,
one of those ARM/Larson drop towers that pack a wallop. This ride stands 15 stories tall
and it’s downright terrifying. You slowly ascend to the top-
getting a great view of the park- before dropping back down to the ground with no warning. The drop
is absolutely gut-wrenching. It left my stomach atop the tower and I floated the whole way down.
This was not only my favorite ride in the park, but it’s one of my favorite drop towers anywhere.
For what is primarily a children’s park, I find Blizzard and Xtreme Elevation
shockingly intense. I think it’s great if you’re a thrill-seeker, but these were probably the two
least popular rides in the park because of their higher height limits and intensity.
These are also two of the park’s newest attractions, so I think it will be interesting if
they continue down the thrill-ride trajectory or shift their focus back on kiddie and family rides.
But if they keep adding thrill rides, it may allow them to pull in a new demographic.
Beyond the flat rides, you also have a few car and train rides.
You have a well-landscaped set of antique cars in the Route 66 Cruisers, but there are
two more notable attraction I want to touch on. SVFD Engine No. 3 is a really unique firefighting
ride. Guests board a small firetruck and are rushed over to a burning building.
Those in the front row are given a hose and instructed to extinguish the fire.
I was surprised this ride had an actual fire and actually equipped guests with a working
fire hose. This ride was a major hit amongst kids and something you don’t find elsewhere.
If you have young kids, make sure they get to ride up front since the back row doesn’t get a hose.
Also, make sure you’re willing to get wet if you ride this attraction. 9 times out of 10,
you’ll come off bone-dry. It’s not designed to get you wet. But the hoses are flexible so if
you have a mischievous kid in front of you, they could turn the hose 180 degrees and spray everyone
on-board, which happened on one of my two rides. Jolly Trolley was a really surprising dark ride.
This was yet another new-for-2021 attraction and it was the most Christmasy attraction in the park.
The queue line ran alongside a trio of singing reindeer and the ride itself was a short journey
past a few iconic scenes from Christmas movies. You pass the famous leg lamp from
A Christmas Story, Cousin Eddy unloading his septic tank from Christmas Vacation, and the
Rube Goldberg traps in Home Alone. Plus you also have energetic Christmas music and some lights.
The ride short- it’s just a smidge over a minute in length- but it’s a quirky ride with a lot of
character. I also found the ride system unique. Instead of having an automatic track-driven
dark ride like most parks, Jolly Trolley was a small train manually driven by an employee.
The Santa Spring Water Park is in the very back of the park and while it’s a small water park,
it’s just what the doctor ordered on a hot day. It has a small pool, a small water play structure,
and two larger water slides on a separate tower. Last but not least, you have the zoo. While this
isn’t a very large zoo, it does contain a diverse mix of animals. You have a lot of barnyard animals
you find at most petting zoos, but you also have some more exotic animals like wallabies
and tortoises. I especially loved the large tortoise exhibit and the adorable baby
tortoise. And you’re able to purchase food to feed a large chunk of these animals as well.
Last but not least, I want to touch on the food. Since I craved authentic deep
dish Chicago pizza, I skipped eating at Santa’s Village. From what I could tell, the food was
average for most parks. It was a lot of your usual junk food and priced like most parks.
So do I recommend Santa’s Village? If you have young kids in the Chicago area,
absolutely. This is a very charming park with more than enough to keep kids busy for a day.
Most rides can comfortably accommodate both kids and adults, and you also have a few rides on the
more extreme end of the spectrum to warm kids up for the nearby Six Flags Great America.
If you’re a coaster enthusiast, Santa’s Village isn’t a must stop,
but it does have two credits and I found it to be a very pleasant park just to walk around.
I expected to be in-and-out of this park in just over an hour, but I spent three
times that enjoying the park’s atmosphere and non-coaster lineup. If you’ve yet to experience
one of those ARM/Larson drop towers, Xtreme Elevation alone is worth a visit in my opinion.
So those are my thoughts on Santa’s Village Azoosment Park, the nice children’s park on
the outskirts of Chicago. Have you been to this park? What do you think of the place?
Definitely let me know if you visited the old Santa’s Village and let me know how the version
today compares. If you enjoyed this review, I’d appreciate it if you gave this video a like
and you considered subscribing since there will be a lot more roller
coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!