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Santa's Village - It's Not Just for Small Kids Anymore

By Debra Flanagan, Chicago Northside MacaroniKID May 8, 2022

The weather is warming up and Santa's Village & Azoosment has opened for a new season of fun!  You can get your tickets for the 2022 season now and save with this great discount.

Santa's Village Amusement & Water Park 
Valid Any Day of the 2022 Regular Operating Season!

View deal on CertifiKID

Its been a while since we last visited Santa's Village Azoozment Park & Water Park.  In fact, Santa Springs, which is what they call the water park, didn't exist back then. We loved bringing our kids ever since they were toddlers.  We even spent my son's 8th birthday at the park.  They seemed to love the petting zoo aspect the most.  

They are now 13 and 11 and roller coaster junkies, so we decided to go back to Santa's Village with a little hesitation.  Our mission was simply to ride one of their newest ride additions, the Super Cyclone Roller Coaster.  Everything else would be gravy.

We had an absolute blast of a day!

My son, who has ridden every ride at other local amusement parks, is strangely intimidated by the Sea Dragon, otherwise known as the River Rocker, or Pirate Ship at other parks. This is my favorite ride at Santa's Village, and my daughter and I rode it over and over, while my son sat in the shade, where we could see him eating ice cream.

One of the biggest takeaways of the day was that there were no lines for anything!  Granted, it was a Thursday, but we have tried other parks (where we are season pass holders) every day of the week this season and haven't found a non-crowded one yet.  

Next, we made a bee-line for the Super Cyclone.  We walked right on.  It is no "goliath," but it was fun.  Basically an outdoor mousetrap, it is certainly not high on the thrill-o-meter, but we could easily ride it over and over in the front car.  And this chicken of a mom even put her hands in the air!

My kids made it more amusing to themselves by closing their eyes or, on one iteration, turning their heads around during the ride to watch their old mom scream.

Despite my inherent fear of heights, I will ride almost any ride my kids ask of me.  However, I refuse free-falls and rides that hold you upside down, so my kids rode The Blizzard and Xtreme Elevation without me.  Last, we rode Tri-Nado as a family and "drove" the antique cars.  Already, six rides, well-suited for teens and tweens, was more than we expected, and this was completed, including multiple rides, within two hours.

We then headed to the petting zoo and watched a tortoise devour a cucumber, which was crazy to see.  We then fed the assortment of sheep, goats, alpaca, donkeys etc., and watched the wallaby jump around.  My kids thoroughly enjoyed this as much as they ever did.  You probably never really outgrow petting zoos. Note - you need cash for animal feed and carnival games!  

After the petting zoo, we grabbed some lunch and headed over to Santa Springs.  I knew we couldn't go wrong here.  Tons of lawn chairs surrounding one of those water playscapes, called Lighthouse Harbor, with small water slides, and cannons, dumping buckets, hoses, sprinklers, etc., getting you went from all angles.  It is eight inches deep with a zero-depth entry.  What was great about it, was that I wasn't allowed on the slides even if I wanted to, so I had no choice but to sit back and relax and watch the kids be silly.  We all just spent some time lying down in the eight-inch wading pool before braving the two larger water slides, the Caribbean Curl and the Peppermint Twist.

At the end of the day, and a full day it was, I asked my kids if it were something they would want to do again, and they both said yes.  

There are few places that all ages can truly enjoy, and Santa's Village proved to be one of them.

Grab your discount tickets now!


Santa's Village Amusement & Water Park 
Valid Any Day of the 2022 Regular Operating Season!

View deal on CertifiKID