Enchant Christmas Light Spectacular

Being non-mobile, sensitive to weather conditions, and deaf blind makes attending holiday events for our daughter Maddie pretty lame since she is unable to interact or engage. This year I made it a point to find one event that our entire family would be able to enjoy. While reading the December issue of Parent Map magazine during an inpatient stay at Seattle Children’s Hospital I came across an ad for Enchant Christmas. This event is held in three locations around the country from November 22 to December 29th. Their website boasts a larger than life Christmas light maze, ice skating walkway, and holiday market. There is nearly 100,000 square feet of lights in the maze and the gigantic Christmas tree in the center is over 100’ tall, which is larger than the tree in Rockefeller center in New York City!

I suggest buying your tickets ahead of time since they are typically sold out the day of the event and you will save money by pre-paying for your parking. While I did think the online price of $12 for parking was a bit steep, I saw upon arrival that the exact same lot was selling parking on the day of the event for $20. The tickets range in price from $14.99 to $32.99 per person but they also offer various discounts like the family 4 pack which gives you 20% off your tickets and is the package we decided to take advantage of. 

The maze itself is absolutely breathtaking. There are all kinds of lights and larger than life statues of presents, trees, hedges, and an ice skating walkway. While approaching the entry you are greeted by nutcrackers who offer you a scratch off treasure hunt inside the maze. There are 8 total presents hidden in plain sight throughout the maze. The deal is if the kids find all of the presents in the maze, they get a surprise (gold chocolate token) at the end as well as having an opportunity to mail a letter to Santa. Chad and I are both great puzzle solvers, so it took us about an hour to find all of the gifts and along the way we were blown away. It truly was a winter wonderland and had all of us in awe of the beautiful designs and artistry. I don’t want to spoil all of the fun surprises throughout but the tunnel of dangling lights and touch activated light up floor surrounding the 100’ foot tall tree had our entire family laughing, dancing and having fun. There are also a couple of staged photo opportunity areas that offer a push button to turn on professional lights for a quick photo. With a little courage to ask a stranger “Will you take a picture of us please?” these are also awesome places for pictures. 

After the maze we traveled upstairs to the market which is filled with various food, gift, souvenir vendors, and Santa! The Santa photos cost money and the event offers many packages. With an upcoming inpatient we didn’t let Maddie meet Santa, but we did let our youngest meet Santa. We did not purchase any photos so we can’t comment on their pricing or quality. We did stop by the Enchant souvenir shop and purchased one of the gold enchant coins, exactly like the ones used in the maze to scratch your card, for our tree to remember the experience. These coins are only $20 and a great gift idea as well to surprise the kids with on Christmas. 

This was an incredible experience our family is now looking forward to doing for many years to come. We had no problems navigating with Madeline’s wheelchair and the entire staff was extremely accommodating even reassuring us that while the stadium was not fully operational, they did have medical personnel on sight. To say that both my children, chad, and I all loved an experience is rare. This is the type of event that can also help other people connect with your child. So often we find ourselves explaining over and over that Maddie is like any other kid and this kind of event really shows that no matter how old, young, or abled, we all believe in the magic of the holidays.