Camp Christmas

Expectations blown away!!

We really expected this to be snoozy and a waste of time and it turned out to be absolutely the opposite.

Well thought out!
Amazingly detailed
Fun and engaging
Colorful and Campy
At moments, thought provoking, trying to solve every Christmas tree pun!
Well worth the $20

We went with friends. Had some drinks. Had some laughs and really enjoyed ourselves.

It was busy but not crazy busy so I think their reservation system worked well.

We laughed so hard a couple of times I knew we had come to the right place.

I absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun campy Christmas experience that you could do with friends or family or both!!

Drinks are a tad pricey but definitely stout.

Excellent! Camp Christmas is the perfect way to get into the spirit of the holiday. It's a unique, interactive art exhibit inside the Stanley marketplace.
I recommend buying your tickets in advance because time slots do sell out. If you forget you can get tickets there. We lucked out and got the last two for the 5pm time slot on Black Friday.

Parking is atrocious so if you buy your tickets in advance, I highly recommend getting there earlier just to figure out parking. If you do happen to have extra time, there are plenty of shops and restaurants inside the marketplace to kill time. Budget about 45 minutes to an hour to explore the camp.

Be sure to dress warm as part of the exhibit is outside.

There are two bars inside and I really recommend getting one of their festive cocktails as there are 'toasting' points throughout. There are also punny puzzles to solve, which make for a great laugh. Santa also comes to the camp so if you have little ones it's a good idea to add that in.

Overall this is a super fun activity and I highly recommend it.

This was cute! I don't think I would pay for this holiday event again but it was a good one time visit. There was not a lot of interactive things to do and the drinks were expensive but everything looked nice! I probably would not go again unless I have someone visiting during the holiday season

Camp Christmas is fun. This was our 3rd year visiting, I did enjoy it much more outside in Lakewood vs inside at Stanley. The Stanley location is still fun to explore but definitely go after dark. The exterior section with lights is just not the same experience in the daylight.

What an amazing holiday art installation experience! Had so much photo op fun with friends and enjoyed being immersed in the festive themes of holiday. My marshmallow vodka shot was so cute! I heard that this will be the last year! What?!? No! I just got here! Please do it again!! So fun!!

Camp Christmas was a colorful, glitter explosion of fun. We did the VIP Tour with Drag Artist, Dixie Krystals, who kept the group entertained while being informative about the exhibits. The care and creativity that goes into each exhibit by Lonnie Hanzon and other artists is incredible. Being a bad dad joke lover, I appreciated the Pun Trees that are throughout the exhibit. It's a wonderful feast for your eyes for the most wonderful time of the year.

We had a fun time at Camp Christmas! Pretty and quirky decorations we saw all of it in about 60-90 minutes. There was a bar inside with holiday themed drinks. Fun holiday activity and a great location at Stanley since there are many food, drink, and shopping options.

This was our third annual visit to Camp Christmas-what a delight! This year's version is in a new venue, the Stanley Marketplace, and has the real advantage of being largely indoors. An eclectic mix of holiday schmaltz, puns to solve (so many puns!), and interactive elements that is hard to adequately describe but super fun to experience. Includes a bar with holiday drinks if that's your thing. Great for adults because there's lots of nostalgia and generational inside jokes and really fun way to kick off the holidays for children/families. Take some extra time to experience the shops and restaurants in the marketplace.

My husband and I try to show our support and appreciation for DCPA however we can, so of course we had to check out their Camp Christmas production. Our initial visit was back in 2019 when they held it indoors at Stanley Marketplace, and our second visit was a couple of weeks ago at Belmar Park.

Honestly, I thought it was better a few years ago. The displays were beautiful and offered a lot of trivia about Christmas. Plus, it was warm inside the hangar space!

The current iteration is also beautiful, but the displays were not as interactive as I would have liked. While you could listen to information on the displays via your phone and participate in the pun tree activity, you could only view most of the displays from afar.

The biggest letdown was our visit with Santa. I never felt so rushed, and we paid for tickets for all four of us to meet with him. In addition, my oldest introduced the baby girl as his little sister. Santa incorrectly corrected him, "Little Sister? You mean Little Brother?" And then he kept referring to our baby girl as "Little Brother." That probably gave it away that Santa isn't real, because shouldn't Santa know better? So not worth the $40. I would recommend doing a mall Santa experience instead. Any mall Santa experience. Any other Santa experience except for this one.

We'll likely be back next year. However, I'll make sure to skip the Santa experience so we can focus on the positives.

Such a fun, interesting idea! I found it on a Google search whim and read through the website. I was searching for a fun holiday outing that was potentially geared towards more adult fun. I read multiple bars and drag queen tours - sign me up!

I have to say - I love to research places before I go. Like in-depth stalker level 5. I want to know the vibes, what's in store, and what to expect. I thought I had it down before I got there. Wrong

This was actually a gamified adventure - full of QR codes, badges, and storytelling. A live-action, interactive art installation - giving off amazing and awesome meow wolf vibes. I had no idea until we got there.

Here's why I'm giving this review 4 stars. There is so much opportunity and potential here to make it more user-friendly. Initially on the website - put the paper map on there. Discuss the pun trees (their purpose), and the art installations (are they local artists? from burning man?) Have both the QR codes as an option and signage onsite as an option. It's cold at night and to constantly take our hands out of our gloves and disengage from the art and go into our phones, is a miss. Keep us in the art.

Lastly for the suggestion box - Partner with sweets vendors at each of the candy houses (like the Museum of ice cream does) - while the candy installations were great - a little added candy-coated cheer would make the trek that much "sweeter.'

I'll definitely be going back next year!