I have had a Yelp account for a few years now. This is my first review. This is the first time something has been so horrendously unpleasant that I feel compelled to do my part to warn others to not make the same mistake. I attended the "event" with my loving and beautiful girlfriend who currently lives in Wisconsin and who spent a hefty amount of money on a plane ticket, only to spend one of our limited nights together caught in the jaws of this monstrosity.
First, you will wait for no less than an hour in a gigantic line of cars. Brake, gas, brake, gas. To be honest, the line isn't the problem - but waiting well over an hour for something that's as big of a letdown as the "Rock'N Lights" is, is not fun. Sitting here now I am having PTSD like flashbacks to sitting in the line of cars, each moment I could have used to escape screaming past in my memory. But, alas, I did not know. I was so hopeful! So naive!
Eventually you make it off of the street and into the park - not the display, just another line. Effectively a purgatorial vestibule. At this point, there's literally no escape. Another 40 minutes staring at Christmas light displays of water bottles and traffic cones (yes that is a real thing).
Somewhere between exhaustion, excitement, and the feeling of your leg muscles atrophying, you finally reach the front of the trail. You pay 15 bucks, turn off your headlights, and off you go.
You then drive through over a miles worth of "lights." I can only assume both the effort put forth and the name "Rock'N Lights" are meant sarcastically. The only thing Rock'N was the foundation of my decision making ability which, while staring at poorly designed 2D light displays of Smurfs, I've now called heavily into question.
The lights are terrible. Idk man. I'm from St. Louis originally - not exactly the WinterWonderland capital of the free world but this s*** was terrible. It looked like something that may have been fun in 1983, but it was severely outdated. It is literally 1.5 miles of awful, underwhelming displays. Corny, tacky (and I like tacky!), ugly, boring, depressing light displays.
It takes about 50 minutes to move through the trail from start to finish. The light tunnel at the very end was cool and by far the only thing even remotely modern or worth while. Halfway through our excursion, amidst the mutterings of "this can't really be it...can it?" my girlfriend and I finally looked up reviews of the trail. We should have done that beforehand.
In summary, don't go to this. Maybe if you have kids they'll find it fun (tho I hope even young children would be filled with the proper disgust), but otherwise there is absolutely, absolutely, ABSOLUTELY no reason to spend 2.5 hours working your way through the island of misfit Christmas decorations. This thing was like sarcasm and irony had a baby and that baby grew up to make a shitty Christmas light display.
Don't go. I'm warning you. Don't go. Don't. Go. Or, if you're one of those extreme survivalist types and really want to explore the edges of human sanity and psychological discomfort, go ahead and go. For any other scenario, stay far, far away.
Merry Christmas. read more