Hollywild Animal Preserve

Have had this on my “must go” list for two years now after hearing from local friends about how awesome it was - finally made it this past weekend and I’m sorry to say it was an enormous disappointment. It appears that what used to be a unique local attraction has been outsourced to some third party to operate and it’s gone majorly downhill in the process. We spent $40 just to drive through the park and see the lights and then an extra $10 to experience the “enchanted deer forest” - most of the light display consisted of these canned sculptures/lighted signs propped up along the side of the road - the kind you can see on display in any number of cities for free. Half of the lights were out across the park - you could see several sculptures and structures that looked like they were maybe supposed to be lit, but the lights weren’t on for whatever reason. The signs at the entrance said to turn your radio to a particular channel (I assume to hear Christmas music) but the station was nothing but white noise. The “enchanted deer forest” was basically a section of open parking lot area with a herd of terrified deer running around trying to escape from cars that were driving around at them like some kind of strange vehicle rodeo. If you wanted to throw food at them, that cost extra $$. Santa’s village was open this year, but whereas that had been free to walk through in prior years, now they charge extra $$ just to enter (and there’s not much in there to see) plus it’s an extra charge if you want to do any of the activities in there ($30 for the “best deal” ticket package to do the 3-4 activities available). Plus it took us over an hour and a half just to get in and drive through the thing, which sounds like it would be great because that’s more time for the money spent right? But because the displays were so lame it just made the entire experience more painful - that’s an hour and a half of my life I can’t get back. So disappointed.