Aurora at Evermore Park: Part 1 – Christmas Magic with Goblins and Dragons

My first visit to Evermore Park during the Aurora season was in December, before Christmas. We went as a family and even though it turned into family fight night, we still had fun. But I think from now on I’ll just go on one-on-one outings with my kids. For those of you who don’t know what Evermore Park is, it’s a theme park with characters to talk to and quests you can go on. There are no rides but the buildings are amazing, the costumes are incredibly detailed, and the decorations are beautiful. They change the characters and decorations each season. For Halloween it was called Lore and you can read my post about it here. They have decorated it for Christmas now and its called Aurora. There are a lot of new characters to talk to as well as a few returning characters. If you’re still confused about what it is, read on to see what we did there and the adventures we had!

We ran into someone named Amelia Price on the new path on the right side of the entrance to the park. Since one of our scavenger hunt items on the paper we got at the entrance was to find out the occupation of three residents, we asked what she did. She said she was a performer, which I wrote down in my little notebook. “And I am determined to join the carolers this time. I will not be denied!” I nodded and added “aspiring” next to my description of her. Haha!

The new path took us straight to the Burrows where the dwarves live. It’s an underground house with round doorways and it reminds me so much of a hobbit house. My first reaction when I walked in was that it wasn’t scary anymore (it had been full of fog and candles during Lore and my kids ran out of it when we visited last time). Turno, the dwarf, replied, “Yes, we got rid of the witch.” I was delighted at that little connection between the Lore season and this new Aurora season. Aerik, the king of Aurora, was also in the burrows. He described his home land to us and explained that he controls the weather there.

Next, we went to the mausoleum where we met Rainer Skare, who is a diplomat. He told us that if we wanted a quest, we could help decorate the Christmas tree.

At this point everyone wanted a snack so we went back to the town square to get some cookies and caramel apples. They were also selling collectible coins and keychains which was new since last season. There were a pile of plastic gems on the counter and my kids asked the concessions lady about them. She said if they sang a song to her she would give them a gem, so they did. I think they sang Jingle Bells.

When I met up with my husband, who went to the other stand to get a meat pie, he asked if I saw the keychains they were selling. Aw man! I forgot about the keychains! I was so distracted by how cute my kids were singing a Christmas song to earn a gem that I forgot to buy one. My husband smiled and pulled one out of his pocket. He had bought me one because he knew I collected them. Aw, how sweet!

We saw Greebly the goblin in the town square after we had finished our snacks. During Lore, he had a cart on his back full of pumpkins. Now he had a sleigh on his back full of Christmas presents and he was wearing a Santa hat. He had the same reaction as he did last time with the pumpkins when you asked him what he was doing with the presents. “Uh……nothing!” We were talking to him about what he likes to eat. He said he likes squirrels and fish but not cooked. He even said, “Give it to us raw.” And I laughed out loud because he sounded just like Gollum. My middle son said to him, “Do you eat children?” To which Greebly replied, “Of course not!” I thought it was a cute question for my son to ask him.

We went to the tavern next. One of the scavenger hunt items was to find out who ran the tavern. To get the conversation started with the guy behind the bar (since I’m kind of shy and awkward), I asked him to sign my notebook. While he was signing it, my kids asked, “Do you know who runs the tavern?” He said, “I do.” And then gave me back my notebook. And then he didn’t say anything else. O….k. I didn’t know what else to say.

The postman came in the tavern and you could send a postcard to anyone in town. How fun! I sent a card to the King asking him to keep the weather nice and that it was nice to meet him.

My kids saw a boy playing a coin toss game with the executioner and they wanted to join in. I only had one piece of gold left over from Lore and you needed gold to play. The boy was kind enough to lend us a penny and the executioner accepted it as a wager to play. “Metal is metal,” he said after thinking about it for a second. They had a lot of fun playing that game and were sad they couldn’t play more. Maybe next time.

We did a few more scavenger hunt items. One was telling Humbug the satyr a joke. Humbug is very grumpy and whenever the carolers came by and sang a song he yelled at them to get out of there and shook his walking stick at them. I love him. My oldest son came up with the joke, but he was too shy to tell it, so my husband did.

“What did one rock say to the other rock?”

Humbug said, “Nothing. Rocks don’t talk.”

My husband fumbled for a second because that was the exact punch line. “Yep. That’s it.”

“That’s it? That’s the joke? That’s the best joke I’ve ever heard! I’ll have to write that one down. It’s my favorite kind. The kind that doesn’t make me laugh at all.” I sure laughed my head off though. He sounded genuine when he said it was his favorite joke ever.

We learned some dragon facts. “Dragons don’t breath fire and they aren’t mean or dangerous. They’re quite lovely.” We got to pet Ildrax who is an ice dragon and a wyvern because he has two legs. Aelin is another dragon and belongs to his daughter, Keida. Aelin is a true dragon because he (she? I forgot to ask) has four legs and two wings.

We met Droch the goblin in the town square. He said he was a high goblin. He asked about my hat, which was a Gryffindor beanie. “Is that the school with the hogs and the warts?” Haha!! I love it when characters ask questions about me. It makes it feel much more interactive. Droch has been walking around our world and he couldn’t stop talking about “the chicka-fill-ay.”

Back at the tavern, the carolers invited us to go caroling with them and then gave us some gold afterwards. I noticed that the characters were much more helpful and welcoming and forthcoming with information than they were during Lore and I really enjoyed it.

We saw a reptile show on the way out. There is a lot of walking at Evermore Park and my kids were exhausted from walking every where and picking fights with each other all night so we left early. We didn’t even get to decorate the Christmas tree! That’s why I went again a few days later. And this time, with just my middle son.

On my second visit, which was earlier in December before Christmas as well, I took my middle son because he really wanted to go ice skating. So that’s the first thing we did when we got there. My son kept wobbling and hanging onto the wall, but when we switched out his skates for smaller ones he got the hang of it. We were able to glide in the center of the rink without falling too much after about an hour. There were characters skating with us and they would stop to say hi. It was so much fun.

I promised my son that if we finished all the scavenger hunt items on the paper that we had started on our last visit, that I would buy him the collectible coin to add to his Evermore treasure. (So far on his visits here he has collected a dragon scale, a key, two coins, a gem and a piece of gold). My kids love collecting Evermore treasure. They keep it in a small, wooden treasure chest at home.

The first scavenger hunt item we did was to get pranked by a light elf. She said, “Put out your hand. I give you garbage.” My son’s hand wobbled at that comment but he left his hand out. “Kidding! It is gold! I love pranking!!” And then she skipped off. That made us smile.

We went to the Burrows and sang songs with the dwarves. We also met Santa but my son said he was too old to sit on his lap (*sniff* They grow up so fast). They had a conversation instead. Santa also came to join us while we were singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with the dwarves.

The dwarves told us that they make the lanterns and by how excited the college students behind us got, I’m guessing it was an item on the story scavenger hunt (which I’m waiting to do with my friends. My son and I are doing the character scavenger hunt).

The dwarves signed my book and they had my very favorite signatures out of any character (see pic above). Turno, the dwarf, also wanted to give us gold for singing with him. “Here’s some gold for you. And did your…mum?…sister?…sing with you?” Haha! I get that a lot. Yes, I’m an adult. In his defense, it’s probably hard to tell when I’m jumping up and down as they sing “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns N’ Roses while wearing a Gryffindor hat. LOL.

We got a treat after lots of dancing and singing with the dwarves. I love all the cookies here. My middle son has celiac so he got a caramel apple. They even changed gloves and washed everything to keep it from cross-contaminating. That was really nice of them. They had keys this time at the concessions stand and she would give you one if you told a joke. My son said, “When does Christmas come before Thanksgiving? In the dictionary!” We got a good laugh out of her with that one. She said it was not what she was expecting.

We saw Mr. Bartley, the town drunk, while we were waiting for the bird show (the bird show is really cool, by the way). I asked him to sign my notebook but he said, “I can’t. It would just be an X because I never learned me letters.” And then he staggered off. Haha! I had seen him earlier that evening at the concession stand. The lady behind the counter told him that he couldn’t just wander in there drunk. He said, “I didn’t wander in here drunk! I came here on purpose drunk!” Oh my heck. So so funny!

Then we went to the tavern. My middle son was determined to beat the executioner at the coin toss game. To my surprise, he pulled out a huge pile of pennies that I didn’t even know he had. He got really good towards the end, and the executioner even complimented him on his skill, but my son never beat him by the time his pennies ran out.

We helped decorate the Christmas tree by asking the goblin about ornaments. He said he gave some shiny pinecones to Faldo who gave us one for a piece of silver. The characters were easier to find this time versus in Lore because they hung out around certain buildings. We gave the pinecone to a townsfolk and they gave us an Aurorean pearl as a reward. I kind of wished we could have hung it on the tree. But it was still fun.

As we left, I bought my middle son his Evermore coin like I promised because we had finished all of the scavenger hunt items. (See pic above for the scavenger hunt list that we finished)

To be continued…..

My Evermore Park adventures will be continued! I also went to their New Year’s Eve party, did code cracking with my oldest son, and had the best girls night ever! Stay tuned for more!

UPDATE–Here all of my Evermore Park recap posts so far in chronological order:

• Lore Part 1
• Lore Part 2
• *This post: Aurora Part 1
• Aurora Part 2
• Aurora Part 3

Photo credit for featured image: Evermore.com (all other photos were taken by me.)