Christmas at the Eden Project might not be the most obvious December activity but we went before Christmas and absolutely loved it.
Booking to visit Father Christmas (before Christmas) opens earlier for members, but if you're visiting for the lights, which are still on until the 5th January, you just book entry as normal.
If you're reading this for Christmas 2025 and want to see the big guy, assuming they do it the same next year, then you pay for a kid to visit Santa and you get two free adults with each child ticket. If you've got a big family - like we have, with 4 kids, membership is definately worth considering as it works out cheaper to become members for a year than just visiting once. You can then make a point of heading down to Cornwall for their events throughout the year, like at Halloween. In our case for our visit, we actually went with friends who are members so my husband and myself got in for free as their guests, and then the children all got in for free because they have Blue Peter Badges.
We'd booked our visit to see Father Christmas for 3pm, but arrived at the Eden Project at about 10am - and pretty much had the place to ourselves. They've got a small ice skating rink which you pay for separately to your entry fee - I think it was about £9 per child and £12 per adult - and you can book it in advance or on the day if they've got availability.
When it was our turn to see Santa we firstly watched a show with Elves singing and dancing which was really good, followed by sending a "wish" off on a little train. Families then go in one at a time to see Father Christmas whilst the elves keep everyone else entertained. As their gift from Santa - who was very good - they get a ticket for a free ride on the carousel, a bar of chocolate, and a little wooden box that played "We wish you a Merry Christmas" and tied in with the elves' show. I think it worked out about £15 per child to see Santa.
At around 4pm the lights went on - and they were really impressive. There are 2 main biomes at the Eden Project and one of them is all lit up with amazing lights that come all the way down from the top. It's open until 8 pm so if you're local or in the area you could just come in at the end of the day to see it.
The other dome is like a full on disco, with Christmas music - but it's disco Christmas music! It's actually amazing! It's got a really good atmosphere in that one, and they opened up the cafe there for Christmassy hot dogs, gingerbread, mince pies, and lots of different types of hot chocolate. There are lights everywhere - including trees where the steps are, and you can change the color of the lights, It's really impressive. I really enjoyed it and would go again but I'm not sure I'd bother with the Santa visit again - it was good, but the lights are worth going for on their own.
We'd booked a hotel room at the local Premier Inn which was very cheap - £45 for a family room, and £10.95 per adult for a good buffet breakfast whilst the kids eat free. So after a sleep and some food we went for a walk along Pentewan Beach, which is a private beach you can access from the village of Pentewan, and it's brilliant for sea glass.
We then went for a walk around Mevagissey which is a very pretty little coastal village and saw a fantastic big Christmas tree. Another year, I'll try and make sure we head back there of an evening because it'd all look so pretty with the Christmas lights on. On the way back to North Somerset we stopped off at Castle Drogo, which is National Trust and that broke the journey up nicely. And we were back home in time for the Worle VDub procession which is a family tradition - every year we go and watch a huge collection of Volkswagen camper vans all decorated with lights for Christmas!
The thoughts and views expressed in this blog post are the author’s own and not that of Activibees.com or it's operators.
