Bayville Winter Wonderland — Local services in Town of Oyster Bay

If it were possible to give this place and event no stars I would. My family and I went to the Shipwreck Tavern to celebrate the New Year’s eve family dinner. We arrived at approximately 6:05 PM where we were led to our table that had our name on a card. On the tables were happy new year paraphernalia and balloons floating in the ceiling. We sat at our table until approximately 6:53 PM before a waiter finally came over to take order. By this time I was fuming mainly because the waiter who serve the food pass by our table several times and finally noticing that we were not served or greeted which customarily happens within the first few minutes of being seated in every restaurant that you go to. He seemed shocked and said OK I’ll take your order now. We graciously invited him to finish what he was doing as he was in the middle of picking up other customers appetizer plates. After placing our entire dinner order, from appetizer to desert, we waited approximately 15 minutes before we actually received our appetizers. We placed our entire order because we had a proximately one hour to eat before the time was up. We verified with the waiter that the event ended at 8 o’clock to which he promptly responded yes. Clearly, there was no consideration of the fact that we waited almost a full hour before we were even greeted by a waiter to take our order. The food at best could be described as bland. Our daughter clearly enjoyed her chicken fingers and fries. I ordered the fish and fries and my wife ordered the chicken Parmesan with pasta. The chicken Parmesan was horrible. You could easily separate the Parmesan cheese from the chicken which my wife eventually did. The fish and fries was at best blind while the tartar sauce had very little or no taste. For our desert, we ordered the cheesecake which had a very funny aftertaste. The cheesecake lacked the creaminess that is customary with cheesecakes that you eat anywhere else. In addition, it had a somewhat bitter aftertaste. Overall, for the money that we paid for this event it was not worth it at all. At no time at all should anyone have to wait almost an hour for a waiter to come over and take your order. We were not the only ones to experience this as another family not sitting far from inquired of the waiter at least three times the status of their main course. In conclusion, I do not recommend this event for New Year’s eve...

My 2 kids and I reserved a 5pm visit to the park on a Saturday. ($156.43) I have also added 2 S’more kits, 2 Arcade cards and a 6pm reservation for Magical Santa Experience. “BUY ONLINE | SAVE TIME | DON'T WAIT IN THE TICKET LINE!” We waited about 45 minutes to get inside the park. We waited about the same amount of time to visit Santa for the Magical Experience. The room smelt like bad body odor. Santa looked very unhappy. He said “Ho Ho Ho!” And “Merry Christmas!” There was no other interaction between Santa and the kids. Why was Santa sitting in the background, behind the sofa? The “Elfs” used an outdated iPad to take the photos, which came out poor quality. Arcade! 75% of the games were not working. There were error messages, or they were completely shut down. The claw on the claw machine was poorly tightened. It was impossible to grab onto any of the toys. Every time we would swipe our cards to play a game, the machine would take points off, but wouldn’t work. We constantly had to go to the front to get our points put back onto the cards. But, a very kind young lady let my girls pick out any toy they wanted at 500 points. Ice Skating. Ice was rough, and skates were extremely dull. Kids were upset to not be able to skate. Both were looking forward to it. The light show were the 15 or so Christmas Trees lit by the ice skating rink. The Arts & Crafts was the craft kit they give you when you go claim your photos with Santa. S’mores set up was very cute! We warmed up at the fire pit. Santa Toy Shop was a mirror maze. It was fun! We attempted to have dinner at the Holiday Tavern. Bartender told us to pick a table and we would eventually be greeted. There were about 15 empty tables. All not cleaned. I asked one of the waiters where we could sit. He didn’t know what to say. Went into the back and came back saying that the kitchen was backed up and they were only taking reservations at the time. He sincerely apologized. All in all, I feel the amount of money spent on our evening at the Park is not worth the overall experience. Maybe other attractions were more...

I tried to visit this place on Dec 28th (a little late posting this) with a friend and my 2 children. It was a misty day, but NO WHERE did it say the park was closed due to weather or anything, so we drive the 55 min drive there from our side of town only to arrive at a pitch black park! I called the phone number on the website, it was an information only line...no one to speak to, leave a message, or anything. My friend went to a pizza parlor next door to the entrance to inquire about hours or info they may know, and was told they do these things often there. They don't open on time some day, so instead of 6 pm, it could be after that; or just not open, like what happened to us. They had patrons come and "wait" at their business to no avail some times. They also asked if we bought tickets in advance because they'd also heard it could be a hassle to get your money back when these things happen. Luckily I didn't buy my tickets in advance because I would have been sincerely upset! Best advice, visit when the holiday season is in full effect...maybe they're more stable before Christmas for the "Christmas Village" experience...even though the event calendar said they'd be open until New Years Day...they weren't. Other people pulled up when we did and experienced the same, are you...