Land of Lights at Gulliver’s Land – Light Trail with Lanterns

We are always looking for more light trails in England, and with the sad closing of Lightopia, it’s a bit challenging to find a light trail that has lantern-styled lights. Many light trails have fantastic, large lights and lasers, but there is something magical about the massive lanterns! I was delighted to find that Land of Lights at Gulliver’s Land had a bunch of the lanterns from Lightopia, as well as completely new ones to create a wonderful light trail.

Gulliver’s Land, if you aren’t aware, is a theme park aimed at younger kids (possibly toddlers). It starts off taking you through a land with moving dinosaurs, into a farm-themed area with a real petting zoo, then to a construction zone. These areas are closed off primarily during the Land of Lights event, however some of the statues are actually sort of used within the displays. We entered through the massive light area, which had terracotta soldiers and tons of pillars, giving a good nod to Chinese culture. This then went to a perfect photo point, before starting on our walk.

The dinosaur area is the most integrated into the lanterns, and that’s what you end up walking through first! We saw lots of moving dinosaurs, though their sound is turned off, in between lanterns of various animals and large plants. There are rhinos, hippos, lemures, and massive bits of green. We walked up a path that took us above a lot of the lanterns, all lit up, with birds on each side! Amelia said this was her favorite bit of the walk, as the birds were flying around with her.

From there, we moved towards the large flowers and spiders, which were really eye catching. The flowers looked like ones you’d find deep in the jungle – unlike anything we’d seen before. This was the 1/3rd of the way point, where there was food trucks; loaded fries, hot chocolate, and a German sausage one. We had dinner before we went, so skipped this bit and continued forward. There were giant pandas, large moving ants (which are normally apart of Gulliver’s Land) and mythical creatures before we entered the petting zoo. Robin was really interested in the petting zoo, which doesn’t have any lights within it, beyond a few strings in the ceiling giving the room a small glow. They had donkeys, bunnies, sheep, pigs, a turkey, and guineapigs. We got to pet a few of the animals before exiting the area into the mythical part of Land of Lights.

This area had a lot of mythical creatures and big sculptures. It was myself and Kai’s favorite area, seeing all of these creatures that we could never see in real life. This walk lead to a small toasting marshmallow area. We ended up getting some marshmallows, though they only came in packs of 30, so we had plenty for the rest of the week! The sticks to toast are a bit too small to actually get close to the fire and toast them, but if an adult helps, you can get them toasted up. There isn’t a drinks area here, but they could use one.

Land of Lights continued into a more Christmas themed area, with huge ornaments to stand in and a Merry Christmas tree. We soon found a drinks place through this, where Kai got the most over the top hot chocolate I have ever seen. We went through an ocean walk, which had tons of really beautiful ocean creatures, before seeing the massive swans! This was the big show stopper at the end. After that, there were a few more smaller animal lanterns, and then we were back at the start.

Land of Lights is a fantastic light trail if you like the bigger sculptures. There is a good variety and the place is much bigger than it seems at first. We all had a fantastic time walking around and it wasn’t too busy, even on a Saturday evening, which is always a plus at these sorts of events.

Check out our list of the best Wintertime Lights Trails in England