Christmas at Bute Park
Christmas at Bute Park Review - A beautiful Light trail in the heart of Cardiff City Centre
(Updated for 2025!)
Is there a better way to spend a festive evening than at a light trail event?! My family and I were invited to Christmas at Bute Park - a beautiful event being held in, you’ve guessed it, Bute Park, Cardiff. It’s such a perfect location given that it’s right in the city centre, and next to other lovely festive events like Winter Wonderland and the Christmas Markets. We had visited last year too (on the weekend of Saturday the 7th of December, but Storm Darragh did his absolute best to ruin our plans that time!). This year there was (thankfully) no red weather warning in place, so our plans went ahead. It was still a bit windy, and it did start to drizzle while we were out, but we wrapped up warm, and wore wellies. It also helped that there was a hot chocolate van a third of the way round, but more about that in a minute!
Where should we park for Christmas at Bute Park?
As the trail is in Bute Park, parking is really easy. The entrance is near the RWCMD building, so we parked near the Museum, on College Road, which was just a 5 minute walk away.
There are also bus stops right outside the entrance, as well as train stations within walking distance of the event.
Is there food at Christmas as Bute Park?
The trail is arranged in a loop, with the start / end at the food court. Super handy for ending or beginning the evening with some food, depending on which time slot you’ve booked. Ours was 5pm, so we decided to do food first. There was a good selection, from burgers to pizza to sandwiches to loaded hash browns and hot dogs, and all priced as you’d expect at a festival.
This year the trail stays well within the park, so all food options are contained within the trail. There’s a hot chocolate van around a third of the way into the trail, which was a welcome sight given that it was so cold! We all had hot chocolates (the children wanted extra cream and marshmallows on theirs!) and we all enjoyed our indulgent warm drinks. The lady serving the drinks was really lovely too and asked if we wanted the children’s drinks cooling slightly before she handed them to us.
What is there to see at Christmas at Bute Park?
I don’t really want to tell you eeeeeeeverything, because it will spoil it for you! So before we went, I didn’t actually look at anything on social media because I wanted to experience it first hand. If you do want to know what’s in store, have a look through the images under this blog for a taster. Please note that the images in this blog are a mixture of the 2024 and 2025 trail, so not everything here will be there on the evening.
There are lots of beautiful installations that have been created by some amazing people. How people are creative enough to think up these things I will never know. They’re not only beautiful to look at, but they also sound amazing.
I know this might sound obvious, but do bear in mind although there are lots of light installations, the park is very dark by the time you go in, and given the amount of people in there, you need to keep tight hold of small children. There is also one section that runs adjacent to the canal.
I was really pleased to see that this year there were far more staff dotted around the trail, so if you did have any issues, it would be easy enough to find someone to help.
What’s the best bit of Christmas at Bute Park?
Although all the lights on the trail were beautiful, I think my favourite part was the Weeping Willows. The thought behind it, the accompanying music, that immersive nature of walking through that installation - wow. The girls loved the colourful cone-shaped tree section with its rainbow vibes and lit up trees.
I also like the fact that the trail is buggy and wheelchair friendly, and that there are some sessions that cater to neurodiverse people by reducing the number of people there and lowering the volume of the audio along the trail. You can take your dogs along, but given that we have a naughty beagle and a nervous ausie, we didn’t think they’d be a welcome addition to the evening (can you imagine if they slipped their leads in the dark?!).
We had a lovely evening and it felt like wholesome family time spent together. Have you been to Christmas at Bute Park this year? Which bits were your favourites? Don’t worry if haven’t been yet, there are still tickets available through their website. Let me know in the comments what you thought!
Clare x
About Me
Hi, I’m Clare, South Wales family photographer who loves working outdoors with natural light (or in this case barely any light at all!). I cover Cardiff and the Vale for maternity, newborn, child and family photoshoots. Get in touch if you’d like to book your family’s photoshoot, I can’t wait to meet you!
