From a Christmas train ride to a
magical maze, Lumaze pulled out all the stops to deck the halls at
Pier 91 for a massive indoor light festival.
Lumaze Seattle site coordinator Kristi
Savoy said this is the first light festival the company has held in
the city, but that hasn’t let the organization slack off.
There are more than one million lights
on display at Lumaze Seattle, which took about 25 crew members 10
days to install, she said.
Guests park in a designated area at the
pier, and are then shuttled to the front doors of the venue in little
buses playing Christmas music.
In the center of the main lobby, guests
are treated to a giant light installation in the shape a Christmas
tree, which is flanked by an area for live music and a train-ride
section for children.
“I really love the train, to be
honest with you,” Savoy said. “I just have been seeing how people
are lined up for it, and the kids are really loving it.”
There is also full bar for the adults,
but this little canteen also has a counter for minors, and it sells
light bulb-shaped cups that light up.
A tunnel of twinkle lights lines the
way to a large play space for kids and a food court. There’s an
adjacent section for photos with Santa, who will be on hand until
Christmas Eve.
“There’s vendor-market place,
selling all sorts of Christmas goods,” Savoy said. “There is also
a food court that has nine different food trucks, some of the best
food trucks in the city.”
Angelica Anderson said she brought her
kids to Lumaze because it was something fun to do for the whole
family. She said she decided to come to Lumaze instead of other light
festivals because of all the children’s activities.
The play space includes a castle full
of slides, two lit seesaws, LED swings of changing colors, a pit of
bouncing toy unicorns and a light board.
“My 4-year-old over here is in love
with these swings,” said Mandy Greear said. “They are LED
light-up, color-changing swings – almost looks like a moon. That’s
what she said it was, that she was resting on the moon as she was
swaying back and forth. So, I think she really enjoyed that.”
Greear said the unicorn pit was another
win with her daughter.
“I mean, who doesn’t love unicorns
running wild and little kids playing with them? It’s been pretty
magical.”
All of this just covers Lumaze’s
first-floor offerings.
Upstairs is a sprawling light maze,
Savoy said, full of twinkling installations and roaming holiday
characters. There is even a princess or two gazing out from castles
of lights, or from a carriage drawn by glittering light horses.
For Max, 9, and Landon Carver, 11, this
maze was a definite highlight of the whole experience, because it
provided a quest and holiday prize.
“My favorite part has been the maze
upstairs,” Landon Carver said. “It was really fun because at the
end you got a candy cane. I generally really like candy canes.”
He said the quest was a scavenger hunt
of sorts to help Santa.
“You start at the beginning of the
maze, and they give you instructions on how you are going to go help
Santa save Christmas by finding lost presents,” he said. “You go
through the maze helping Santa to find lost presents from different
people. Like, for example, one of them was from Rudolf. One of them
was from the sugarplum and people like that. If you find all the
presents, you get a prize at the end.”
Max Carver added that “every time you
help Santa find a present you would get this stamp on a piece of
paper.”
After guests collect all six stamps,
each participant is awarded a candy cane.
Lumaze will be open in Seattle until
Jan. 4, ramping up in hours as the holidays approach.
For more information, visit
lumazelights.com and click the “Seattle” option.