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For a city that gets zero snowfall and relies on malls for its Christmas light displays, Miami sure does love the holiday season. Case in point: Santa’s Enchanted Forest, the world’s largest holiday theme park (at least that’s according to its website), returns for its 39th season of shimmering lights, carnival rides and only-in-Miami experiences.
The long-running county-fair-meets-winter-wonderland got its start at Tropical Park, where it spent 36 years before its move to Hialeah Park last fall. Now, it’s decamping to a third location and spreading out bigger than ever before. On November 9, Santa’s Enchanted Forest opens at the border of Doral and Medley, settling into a vacant lot owned by the Dunn family, one of Doral’s wealthiest landowners, reports the Miami Herald.
Organizers for the theme park cite lot size as the reason for the move. The Doral location clocks in at about 40 acres, which is larger than both Hialeah Park and Tropical Park, and ostensibly provides more room for the annual amusement rides, carnival games and photo ops with the North Pole’s most famous residents. It’s also going to allow for more parking spaces—a major complaint from patrons in years past.
As for whether this move is permanent or another temporary solution, organizers won’t say. They’re also staying tight-lipped about new rides, themed decorations or anything else we can expect from this year’s Santa’s Enchanted Forest. Either way, brace for the likely sighting of a Santa in swim trunks. This is Miami, after all.
