PNC Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo

We had so much fun at the PNC Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo. It’s the perfect place to take kids to enjoy the festive holiday lights. Visits with Santa begin at 4 pm and the lights begin at 5 pm. We went last Thursday night and arrived a little late at around 6 pm. I love the fact that it’s open during the week. It was busy but not overly crowded.

We had to park in the overflow parking lot across the street from the main lot. It wasn’t too far away. When we went to the Halloween event we had to park in one of the back lots and walk. We have an annual zoo pass and the Festival of Lights was included. There was no wait to get into the zoo.

There’s a huge tree with two million ornaments as soon as you enter. It’s quite impressive! There was a line on one side to take a picture with a snowman. The girls didn’t want to wait but did want to take a picture with the huge tree.

We really enjoyed the animal light displays. They had a hippo, an elephant, a chameleon, butterflies, flamingos, and more.

They had an area that was set up to look like the Northern Lights. It was really nice. It’s not a concept I had seen before and it was really delightful. It was a fun take on Christmas lights that worked perfectly in the zoo.

The carousel was open and had green and red lights. We went through the rainbow tunnel in the first picture. It is so pretty! We followed the path around and found reindeer. Octavia was so excited!

We walked through the children’s zoo where the nativity scene was set up. The goat petting area was open. The playground was very dark and we chose to skip it.

Next up was Santa. The line was actually pretty short. It was inside a building they use as a gift shop during the summer. You can only enter through one side and exit through the other. This kept the flow going nicely and stopped weird crowding at the exit doors. They had a good Santa. Octavia was nervous and he was very kind. They had a box they pulled out for her to sit on because she didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap.

We left Santa and immediately got in line for the train. It was the longest wait of the evening. We had to wait through 3 train rides before we could get on. It was lots of fun. Octavia (3) was a little scared during the dark areas. There were a couple of light displays that could only be seen well from the train.

We realized while on the train that there was a light show on the lake. We went to see it next. It was set to music including songs from Frozen. Do you wanna build a snowman? We all loved this! It was impossible to capture a decent picture of it. I did take a few videos that were ok.

In the elephant area, they decorated for Frozen 2. Anna was there to meet with the kids. Octavia stood there in complete shock starring at her. There was nobody in this area. I didn’t even know she was there. We actually walked over that way to look at the trees that appeared to have leaves made of light.

The last thing we did was visit Mrs. Claus in the gift shop next to the entrance. The line was very short. It was late and almost closing time so most people had left or were leaving. Mrs. Claus was great! She even got Octavia to talk to her.

The Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo was a great way to spend an evening!