Chinese Lantern Festival at Huntsville Botanical Garden
We have been members at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens for a little over a year now. We have visited every season so far, and we have no attended two paid events there. One of those was this spring, and it was unique. We visited during the day using our normal membership, and then we paid to go again at night. It is the Chinese Lantern Festival. It is a traveling festival that has numerous lanterns that are lit up at night and throughout the Garden. I believe the path is a little over a mile long. Follow along for both of my experiences.
Day
Melody and I visited the Festival during the day first. We went one day after dance class. She wasn’t too excited to be doing the Festival instead the children’s area, but I let her do some of the children’s gardens when we were done to make up for it.
Below are all of the pictures throughout the day. I followed the path all the way until the end. The marketplace and shows did not take place during the day, but all of the lanterns were out. A lot of them were made to look natural and part of the scenery already there (even though they are very oversized).
Night
So at night you had to pay to attend. As members we did get a discount, and we also went on a non-peak day which was cheaper too. It opened at 5:30, I believe, but we did not arrive until close to 6:15. We knew we wanted to see as much as we could at dark but we also didn’t want to stay out too late with the girlies. Oh, we went with our friends Emily, Justin, and Lydia. We ate before going too. We heard there would be food trucks, but we were not sure of their location and what food they would be serving. Parking was a breeze, and we walked right in without issue. We bought our tickets online, so they scanned them and off to explore. They did provide a QR Code for a Digital map, but I didn’t download it. I took a picture, but since I had already been through during the day, I figured it wasn’t necessary.
So below is the nearly same things I took pictures of above during the day. You can really see the difference the lighting makes when viewing. It was really gorgeous the darker it got.
We did let the girls stop at various moments. We even let them play on the playground, but that turned disaterous when we had to leave.
Half way there were restrooms and picnic tables. There was also alcohol booths setup (they served other drinks too), and a cupcake stand.
We did get to go through the Marketplace. It was neat, but we didn’t really stop and look because there were too many breakables for the girls. They also have a muppet show that they do at different times.
After going through the Marketplace, the girls got to ride Dinosaurs. This portion also wasn’t open during the day.
There was a food truck that served pizza at this point. So I am glad we ate before! We waited a bit and watched the stage show. And at the end, the kids were able to go up on stage. Melody loved it!
Overall the Festival was a lot of fun. At night was more ideal for all the added things you got to do, but the mosquitos were AWFUL!!! I mean we were all being attacked. But it was also neat getting to see them during the day first and having an idea of what to expect.
