By Chloe Goebel

What’s a perfect place to visit during the holiday season?  How about a winter wonderland! “Boston Winter” is a new wonderland in Boston’s City Hall Plaza.  It has an ice skating circle and lots of different small shops, also known as chalets, that you can buy food at or sample a variety of services.  

Fortunately, I got the chance to check out this new winter wonderland for myself.  At first sight, it looks like a real life holiday village with live music, lots of people walking around, and it smells of hot chocolate. There are activities such as bikes to ride to power a light up tree and an exhibit where you can learn about the origin of chocolate.

It is a pleasant place to walk around, but if you are there to shop or ice skate you will have to be patient.  The chalets can only fit about 2-3 people at a time, making it difficult to actually look at what’s inside and shop.  Also, the line for ice skating was tremendously long! It was almost the length of the ice rink itself.  Since it wasn’t a very large rink, they could only fit so many people on at once.

I went on a Saturday night, which was most likely part of the reason why it was so busy. I would recommend trying to go during a less busy time, such as during the day on a weekend or possibly on a weeknight. If you do go on a weekend night, plan to just walk around, or plan ahead and be patient while there.

You can buy tickets ahead of time so you can try different things at this wonderland. For example, you can buy chocolate story tickets for adults, for kids, or a family package. These options allow you to taste different chocolates at the chocolate story.

Overall, it was a lovely  place to look around, but it wasn’t the best place to go to skate or shop.