We visited Kentucky Kingdom December 28, 2024 for their Christmas at Kentucky Kingdom event. For this event the park operates select rides, has special shows, great decorations and a massive sledding hill. The weather in Northern Kentucky in December can be hit or miss, but we had a perfect weather day. This was our first visit to the park and we found Kentucky Kingdom to be full of charm, but with a few quirks that didn’t necessarily detract from the experience, but instead were quite unique.

The park is conveniently located on the south side of Louisville right along the interstate adjacent to the Kentucky Exposition Center and the Louisville airport. The airport is the first quirk, in that you’ll get to see and hear planes all day, somewhat similar LegoLand Billund. For the second quirk you’ll actually use the exposition center parking to access Kentucky Kingdom, so don’t be discouraged if you see lots of cars as it may be for an event at the Kentucky Exposition Center. The third park quirk is that it is very unique in that it spans two sides of a busy road with elevated bridges and even a crossing guard to help you transition from one side of the park to the other.

Kentucky is a park with a lot of history for its relatively short 37 year life. After opening in 1987 as a Kentucky State Fair board it went bankrupt after only one season and had all its rides sold! It was then bought by a local businessman Ed Hart, then Six Flags, then Ed Hart again and now finally by Herschend Family Entertainment (with lots of plot twists along that journey). In the last couple of years the Herschend impact has become obvious with the different Holiday events and now an $11 million expansion.

We were able to use our Wild Adventures season passes (also owned by Herschend) for a 50% discount. Not all the rides, especially the roller coasters, were running during the event, but there was still tons to do. Some of the closures we were told were due to temperature restrictions and some were due to operating in a lower off-season capacity mode, but there were several “new” Christmas only attractions such as a massive sledding hill, s’mores and Christmas themed games. The park also looked great with the Christmas lights and decorations.

Many of the extra unique Christmas attractions were operating in the water park area of the park, which makes sense since these obviously wouldn’t be operating. It was interesting to see how the water rides were just incorporated into the general flow of the back end of the park though rather than being in their own separate area capable of being completely closed off and isolated. As you entered this area the big and obvious attraction was the sledding hill. This thing was HUGE and they made real snow to put on it for you to sled down. As a child of Wisconsin this felt like real sledding on a real hill with real speed and may have been the best thrill attraction operating at the park that day.

Only a couple of the other attractions in this back half of the park were operating for Christmas including the Kentucky Flyer Roller Coaster and the park’s 130 foot Sky Catcher swing ride. These were probably the best rides operating at the park for the event and the Kentucky Flyer is a great little coaster with fantastic theming and a fun, but short ride. The park also had a bunch of flat rides, it’s 5D theater and its drop tower operating.

We also saw the Christmas show, “Spirit of the Season”. It had a small cast of 4, but you could tell they were putting their heart and soul into the performance. It felt a bit “high school musical” and had a couple of audio issues, but the energy of the performers still made it a great performance. There were also smaller acts like a piano show near the sledding area that added great atmosphere.

The food was your typical theme park fare with only select restaurants operating. The decorations and little touches were great in the main open restaurant, Bayou Cafe. There were also special funnel cakes, hot chocolate and other seasonal items.

When the sun went down and the lights came on is when the park really shined. The lights looked great and there were decorations everywhere as opposed to just one section being highly decorated and sparse elsewhere. There was a giant tree at the entrance with a park photographer, but they would also take pictures with your phone with zero complaints. There were lights on buildings, trees, a nativity and a bunch of great picture spots.

Overall this was a great first experience of Kentucky Kingdom. I definitely look to return to enjoy the many coasters that weren’t operating, but this wasn’t too bothersome considering all the additions like sledding and a lower ticket price. This park is getting some major investments which is great and it will probably parts may be somewhat unrecognizable on my next visit. We’ll be counting down the days until we can return to Kentucky Kingdom.