Date Night at Windsor Great Park Illuminated Light Trail

[Ad- gifted experience] After visiting Windsor Great Park Illuminated last year with our children, we were kindly invited to come up again for one of their press viewings! Dann and I went together as a sort of date night, to see how the light trail changed over the last year and have some time to ourselves. Don’t worry though, we have plenty of light trails planned for the whole family, which we will be writing about as well.

Illuminated, this specific light trail, is at a few different locations – but our favorite is Windsor Great Park. This park starts off with a fun fair and a bunch of food stalls, which you can actually visit without a ticket. They have a few rides; a giant slide, a ferris wheel and a carousel, all of which are pay to ride, using tokens. There are a bunch of different food stalls around here – we ended up getting a classic smoked sausage plate, with roasted potatoes and sauerkraut. There were pizza options, chicken, and classic burgers. These areas also had a bar and a marshmallow roasting point, along with some fires that you could stand around.

From here, we started walking down the entrance, which has you walk through a little castle-like wall, before seeing the giant, light up word WINDSOR, with two massive deer on either side. This is a fantastic opening to the trail! Then, there is colored walks around the massive pond, which has a bunch of lights on it as well. These are what I find most impressive. The first bit of lights looked like a bonfire, which felt really captivating. It’s on a path that has snow raining from lights, creating magical photographing moments. There are several points when you can stop along the trail to take photos. One has you sitting in slay, another has you sitting on a carriage. These were quite bright and beautiful!

Back to the water though – our favorite bit is the giant water show, with lights reflecting off the water and fountains dancing to the music. Windsor Great Park Illuminated is the only winter trail that we’ve been on that has this sort of water element to it. It’s extremely captivating and fun to watch. About midway through the walk, there is an elf disco area where your children can dance while you wait in line for a hot drink, and then before the end there are more food stalls, a puppy heart you can take a picture in with your dog, and some drink stands. We got a warm spiced apple rum drink and a cold rum drink, both of which were fantastic.

Windsor Great Park Illuminated has a good mix of trails through the forest, that feel quite magical, and trails around the water. It’s one long walk, but feels like there is such a good variety and a lot of different aspects to take pictures of and really enjoy. At the end, there is a talking tree that makes references to the different things you would have seen along the trail.Last year, it did feel like the trail had a bit more going on, but we chalked that up to the fact that we’ve had massive wind storms lately. When it comes to logistics, Windsor Great Park Illuminated does have plenty of parking that you can pre-book. It’s a little hard to find the entrance, as you need to stumble upon the yellow signs in your car, then follow them instead of your GPS. This light trail is dog friendly though, and has good access for those who are disabled, with clearly marked paths that are fine for wheelchair users.

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