Sealights Festival/Chinese lanterns — Attraction in Miramar Beach

The best, and worst, $70 my husband and I have spent on an activity together. First, it's called a "Sealight" festival, and we're in a beach town, so I thought this would be near the water and reflective. But it was just...in a field? Also, one might like to try and get lost in all the pretty lights, but you have to walk on a very narrow path that is an out-and-back (so foot traffic in both directions), and the lanterns are spaced far off the path so that you don't touch them. This was a missed opportunity to make it feel immersive.

A few of the lanterns we're grand, beautiful, and artistic. But when I say a "few", I mean like 3. The other 95% were cartoonish and simplistic, or absolutely bizarre. There were informational signs that explained how clarinets are made, right next to signs about the 'Magical world of mythical snow leopards that are a fusion of wildlife and technology ', and both are presented as though this is factual information you can take to your next trivia night. The figurines and the signs describing them were disorganized and displayed mashups of things that have absolutely nothing to do with each ("Hey, look guys, it's a strawberry that looks like...a goat?"). We overhead more than one family saying something to the effect of "What the F** even is all this?" as they waved their hands around in an exasperated manner, and we couldn't agree more. The whole thing felt like a fever dream, and as we passed by the little bar they had set up, my husband who has been sober for 15 years said he might need to get a drink on the way out just to feel normal again.

But at the same time, we marveled at the utter bizarreness of it all and made each other laugh those deep belly laughs as we tried to come up with the backstories for characters such as the three very real dinosaurs that everyone in the scientific community agrees were once very real - T Rex, Brachiosaurus, and Charzard. It was an experience that we'll have stories about for years to come, and so for that, I guess the exorbitant cost...

It was cute... I guess. I was a little jaded while walking through it trying to understand why this place got such raving reviews and thinking about how much money I spent for 5 tickets.

The site says to expect a 45 minute walk through. We completed it in about 15 minutes even stopping to take a few pictures with the dinosaurs and the African goddess tree. Those parts were honestly neat. The rest of it, while there is some decent craftsmanship and they aren't actually inflatables, is more reminiscent of holiday decorations.

Additionally, we home-school and thought that this might be a great opportunity to learn about Chinese culture. But as eluded to in the previous paragraph, there is a conglomeration of cultural representations from all over the world and it was a little confusing from an educational perspective.

Like I said, it was cute but I just cannot fathom how people said this is worth the money. We are locals, so maybe this is something that is okay to spend decent chunk of change indiscriminately on while you're on vacation but we were terribly...

Definitely not worth it. We had one of these in Reno that was 1/3 of the price and at least 10-12 times the size. There are very few lanterns and all of them are in various states of disrepair. All are positioned really far apart. Realistically, this is a 10 to 15 minute walk through if you stop and examine every single lantern. If the layout were optimized, the entire display could be placed in a good sized backyard with plenty of space for large groups to walk around and observe.

For three of us, it was $90 and my daughter was unimpressed. She's 8. There are some indoor bounce houses for the kids, but those are an additional charge and literally held together with duct tape. Save $30+/person and do something fun. This is a blatant, unapologetic money grab.

I would also like to point out that at least 3 of the 5-star reviews are from employees/owners. If you're going to try to give your own terrible business fake reviews to build up the rating, you probably shouldn't have your picture up. You guys sold us tickets and talked to us at...