The Drive In Experience in Ottawa has been organized so many extraordinary events for the city. Their latest one is Enchanted Holiday Drive, a drive-thru holiday light show. Occurring at Karters Korner in Stittsville, it was one of the magical holiday events happening that you could enjoy from your car (the others are Magic Of Lights and A Country Christmas).
Launching in 2020, it was the most expensive of the three options, priced $40 per vehicle. At nearly double the price of the other two, I was curious if it was worth it.
Like A Country Christmas, you purchase a ticket for an exact entry time, so you won’t need to wait over an hour as I did at the Magic Of Lights.
Inside the route, there were eight scenes, including a tunnel of purple LED lights, snow globs, an enchanted forest, a holiday village, snowman alley, the toy shop, candy cane lane, and Santa’s area.
The quality of the areas varied wildly. The snow globe area has inflatable domes, some with people dancing inside, which was rather impressive. Likewise, the screens that showed snowmen were equally dazzling.
Yet the holiday village looked dreadful. It was merely some plywood structures with quickly hung lights; I found it rather eerie. Nothing about that area was remarkable at all.
The main difference from this drive thru compared to the competition is there are actors inside to entertain children. There were people playing characters from Frozen, the Grinch, elves, and Santa and Mrs. Claus made an appearance.
As it is the first year, I’m curious to see what next year will bring. One significant change I’d like to see is having the snow globes on both sides of the road. As all the ones with actors were on the opposite side of the street, I couldn’t easily see them. Meanwhile, no one was moving inside when we passed, so our car missed out as the actors were on break.
Also, the tunnel of lights, in the dark shade of purple looked more suitable for Halloween than Christmas. The addition of more colours, or brighter ones would have made that section more impressive. It didn’t live up to the tunnels at Magic Of Lights.
So, $40 later, would I go back? If you have kids, yes they will love it as they can see some waving cartoon characters. But as an adult, I’m hoping next year things get bigger and better. I’ll still return, but I wish for more to leave the adults breathless too.
Get your Enchanted Holiday Drive ticket.