At the weekend, myself and my daughter went to Bournemouth for a look around the shops before hitting the gardens to check out the 2025 Christmas lights.  I must say I have very mixed emotions about this years event as it's quite different to previous years and even my daughter agreed she preferred it before. 

Everywhere looks super Christmassy and there's few big Christmas trees offering a brief walkway in the gardens but one side didn’t have the lights on so that could just be early glitches.  We spotted some big buttons to control the tree lights but us and other families had a go and we couldn’t see any lights change so maybe we were looking in the wrong direction haha!

There’s a few other light installations further down the gardens but I definitely missed seeing the huge walk-through tree.  We saw the Christmas Tree Maze but that was £4pp (under 3's free) and the Christmas Train was also £4pp.  There’s stands to win cuddly toys, plus Festive Mini Golf and the Helter Skelter although I didn’t look to see how much they were.

Santa's Workshop looks nice and bookable activities include biscuit and bauble decorating, and storytelling with Santa.  The Ice Rink this year looks huge but the actual rink isn’t visible from the gardens (from what I could see) which is a shame because I always enjoyed watching the skaters.

If you head towards the Pier then you can go on The Big Wheel which offers great views of the town or have a round of golf at Smugglers Cove Adventure Golf as they are offering twilight putting sessions and I noticed lots of festive lights on the course.

The Market and Alpine Bar looked really lovely and festive but it was very busy so we moved through pretty quickly.  I did however spot some nice gift ideas and delicious food and treat options like hog roast, pasta, loaded fries, roast dinner in a Yorkshire pudding and churros.

We ended the day at Picnic Park Deli and my daughter chose a S'mores Hot Chocolate which was insanely good.  It's lovely and festive there and although it’s still in the gardens, it’s nice to get away from the crowds.

It’s definitely worth visiting central Bournemouth this Christmas but in my opinion it’s not as good as it has been in previous years.  Some advice, the weekends will be busy and you need to be prepared to part with money if you want to do any of the activities.

There’s lots of festive events planned there over the coming weeks which includes character walkabouts, carols and live music in The Square.

For more details about bookable activities, please visit Christmas in Bournemouth.