Holiday Lights in Rockford: Is it Worth the Drive?
Who would have thought Rockford IL would have lots of holiday light displays to choose from? Between Illuminated at the Anderson Gardens, All Alglow at the Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens, Festival of Lights at Sinnissippi Park and the City Christmas Tree in downtown Rockford, there is plenty to see and do as a day trip. But the question is….. is it worth it?
Rockford is a 1.5hr drive from where we live. It’s not a super long drive, but it’s also not an easy drive— especially with 4 young kids, on a weeknight, after a long day at work / school / daycare. So which displays can you take it or leave it?
Illuminated at the Anderson Japanese Gardens: Leave it.
Beautiful lighted landscape, food and drink options available, live music & caroling… yet, it just didn’t quite hit the mark for us.
When first arriving at the Anderson Japanese Gardens, make your way to the building entrance of the visitor’s center and buy your tickets at the front desk. The ambiance of the whole atrium was pretty and they had a large dining area with live music and a warm & cozy fire.
In addition to a rotating food truck, every evening they’re open, they also have made-to-order woodfire pizza. For this, you also order it right at the front desk. The options for toppings sounded pretty delicious, but the average cost for each [what looked like an 11”] pizza was $17. We decided to just order 3 pizzas that could be shared amongst the 6 of us, but the cost for all of it ended up costing more than our actual admission into the gardens. The person taking the orders then asked if we would want it ready in 45 mins or 1hr… which I thought was kind of a strange choice to give someone. Nevertheless, at this point it was 630p and we knew we were on borrowed time with the kids, so we figured we’d just put our order in for 45 mins, head outside to walk the trails and look at the lights, and by the time we would be done, our pizza should be ready.
Walking out into the gardens, you can immediately see how beautiful the grounds are. I didn’t realize however that it was a static display, so I was a bit surprised that there was no music or synchronized light show. Definitely not an issue, I just didn’t know [I think in my head, I kept comparing it to Illumination: Tree Lights at the Morton Arboretum].
We walked around the main path that goes around the pond, stopped to take a few photos and to marvel at the pretty lights. We made our way around the loop and back at the start, looked at the clock and…. it had only been 15 mins. FIFTEEN MINUTES. Did our whole stroll through the lighted gardens seriously only take 15 minutes? We still had a half hour to kill before our pizza would be ready, so now what?
We decided to set back out on the trail and weave through some of the other paths that branched out from the main loop. That bought us another 10-15 mins. So at that point, we decided to take one last very slowwwww stroll along the main path again. When we finished that walk, it had been a total of about 45 mins, so we finally went back indoors to see if our pizza was ready.
It was not.
As part of your admission into the Gardens, they did have coloring books that the kids could take home with them. We figured it would be a good idea to grab some, find a table and the kids could occupy themselves with the coloring books while we wait for our food; so that’s what we did. But turns out the coloring books did not come with crayons— understandable, since they were meant to be taken home, but at this point, it was now 715p, my kids were hungry and bored, and a pack of crayons would have gone a long way!
One good thing about our wait, is that there was a bar serving some pretty good drinks. It cost us another $10 per drink, but at least they were delicious!
But now it was 730p and still no pizza. Surprisingly, our kids were still holding up ok, but you could tell we were on the brink to where if they didn’t get food soon, it was going to be meltdown city. My husband went to the counter to ask if they knew how much longer it would take…. they told him 20 minutes. TWENTY MINUTES! That would have been a total of 1hr and 20 mins from the time we first ordered! No way could we sit around waiting for another 20 minutes— it took a few back-and-forth, but they finally agreed to cancel our order and refund our money back to us.
I am extremely disappointed with the overall experience we had at Illuminated at the Anderson Gardens. I don’t want to completely write it off because I’m sure if you are a couple or family that has time to spare, it could be a very joyous visit. But I couldn’t believe we spent almost an hour and a half there when the walk itself could have been done in 15-20 minutes. It would have been great to move on to the next light display that Rockford has to offer, but instead we spent over an hour stretching out a short walk to buy time for pizza that we never got. I’m just thankful that we got our money back and I’m hoping that this detailed review of our experience could help other families plan accordingly.
👎🏼 $37 admission for a 15-20 mins stroll
👎🏼 $60 for 3 personal-size pizzas
👎🏼 Over an hour wait for said pizza
👎🏼 $20 for 2 drinks
I hate to say it, but Illuminated at the Anderson Gardens is not worth the 1.5hrs drive to go see. Even if you planned to do other experiences while in town, the price of admission and food & drinks isn’t worth it, especially when there are many other FREE light display options in Rockford, as well as light displays in Chicagoland that is much closer than 1.5hrs away. For what they charge to see the lights, I had hoped there would be more to it. If anything, if you do go, do not plan to eat there…. but plan for something, so you’re not last minute going through the McDonald’s drive-thru like we did.
Festival of Lights, Sinnissippi Park: Can either Take it or Leave it.
A true community drive-thru light display, the Festival of Lights at Sinnissippi Park in Rockford, started in 1989 with just 11 displays and has grown to over 85 today! The beautiful displays are either rented from the Festival of Lights Committee or built and installed by local individuals, community organizations or businesses, and is completely FREE to the public. The website cautions that their busy times are usually between 5 and 8p, but they are open until 11p. When we got there, it was 815p, and while there were quite a few cars ahead of us, there was no waiting to get in and the line was continuing to move forward.
Two things really stood out to me as we drove through this drive-thru event. One, it was amazing to see how each light display was sponsored by someone in the community - it really did give a great feeling that all these organizations and individuals came together to build this display of lights. The second thing that stood out to me was how large the drive-thru was. I had never been to Sinnissippi Park, so I didn’t realize how big the whole area was; it took about 15 mins to drive through it all.
I would say, the only thing I was a little disappointed about, was that there was no music personalized to the drive. Instead, the music was just from the local radio station that plays holiday music, so at one point there was at least 5 minutes of the drive, where we were listening to radio commercials. I’m not suggesting they synchronize to music (although, that would be cool!), but even just having their own radio airwave with no commercials, could go a long way.
Overall, I would say that as a FREE event, it was a nice drive-thru show. I think, even if there was small admission fee (less than $10 per car), I’d still say it would be worth going to. However, I would not make the trip to Rockford, solely based on it.
All Aglow at Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens: TAKE IT!
Our evening in Rockford may have had a rocky start, but if anything was going to turn it all around, it was 100% this FREE walk-thru light display! Located at the Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens (and across the road from the Festival of Lights), All Aglow has 300,000 lights, all hand-made by Conservatory staff! Illuminated stars, 50 jumbo candy canes, light-wrapped trees & shrubs, are just some of the beautiful lights on display.
I’m not sure if it gets busy on the weekends, but when we were there (830p on a Thursday evening), the crowds were small and easy to maneuver. Parking did fill up pretty quickly, but a lot of guests were in and out, so cars were leaving as often as more were coming in. Once you park, just make your way to the start of the path and head out on the beautiful stroll. The walk takes you down one side of the walkway for about 15 mins and at the end, you can turn around and walk back through the light displays or take the path that’s behind the lights for a quieter stroll. The entire experience took about 30 minutes and held the attention of all my kids. Even with how tired they were at this point, they really enjoyed this walk-thru light display.
So would I take the 1.5hr drive again to Rockford for All Aglow? I think I would need to have at least one or two more events nearby to draw me back. Don’t get me wrong, I *highly* recommend All Aglow, but we also have a lot of amazing walk-thru light displays in Chicagoland, which of course is much easier for me to travel to. But if you are already in the Rockford area during the holiday season, absolutely visit All Aglow!
So, is Rockford worth the drive?
Although I was disappointed by Illuminated at the Anderson Gardens, I don’t regret our decision to head out to Rockford to experience the different light displays. Would I go back? Probably not. But again, if I were to already be in Rockford during the holiday season, then I would definitely swing by All Aglow and check out Festival of Lights again if there wasn’t a long line. Would I recommend that you make the trip? Just figure out your dinner plans beforehand and you should hopefully be good to go!
*All opinions in this blog post are my own and I received no incentive*