Irvine Park Railroad has become a favorite destination for families from across Southern California, takes passengers on a 12-minute ride through scenic Irvine Regional Park. The engineer narrates the ride pointing out all of the history inside of the park which is over 100 years old. It’s one of our family’s favorite places to visit.
Whether it’s a visit during their Pumpkin Patch, Santa Train, or Easter Eggstravanaza, our family enjoys all of the seasonal celebrations at Irvine Park Railroad. Another fun time to visit is during their anniversary. This year, Irvine Park Railroad will celebrate its 21st anniversary on Saturday, February 25th and Sunday, February 26th.
The Anniversary Celebration will also feature other $2.00 activities including:
- carnival games
- a bounce house
- panning for gold (requires 2 tickets)
- face painting (requires 2 tickets)
- and more! .
$2 concessions, including hot dogs, sodas, ice creams, and popcorn, will be available for guests. FREE giveaways include Irvine Park Railroad balloons (one per child).
Please note: The $2 tickets are valid during the Anniversary Celebration weekend only. Coupons, discounts and/or any other promotions are not valid on the anniversary celebration dates.
In honor of their Anniversary Celebration, Irvine Park Railroad will host raffles on both Saturday and Sunday, every hour from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Winners will receive Irvine Park Railroad prizes ranging in value from $60.00 to $300.00. To add even more fun for visitors, a live band will play on both days from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.
While you’re visiting Irvine Park Railroad inside Irvine Regional Park, be sure to visit the park’s other activities including Wheel Fun Rentals® at Irvine Park bike and paddle boat rentals, pony rides and the Orange County Zoo.
The Irvine Regional Park entrance fee is $5.00 per vehicle. Irvine Park Railroad opens daily at 10:00 AM.
Irvine Park Railroad is located inside of Irvine Regional Park at:
1 Irvine Park Road
Orange, CA 92869.
I’m also hosting a giveaway for my readers. Irvine Park Railroad is going to provide 8 activity tickets and 1 Wheel Fun Rentals Double Surrey Bike Rental at Irvine Park package for one of my lucky readers! Enter below on the Rafflecopter. Good luck everyone!
For more information, visit http://www.irvineparkrailroad.com. Connect with Irvine Park Railroad on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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All throughout the Park, there are wonderful, festive decorations, special shows, tasty treats, and the usual thrilling attractions for guests to enjoy. As you stroll through Calico Ghost Town, you’ll literally feel like you’ve stepped back in time and right into the town’s old-fashioned Christmas celebration, “Christmas in Calico“.
For the first time ever, the bustling streets of Calico are overflowing with seasonal joy as its gleeful citizens, from 
New this year, Calico’s Town Hall offers plenty of holiday activities for all to enjoy.New this year, Calico’s Town Hall offers plenty of holiday activities for all to enjoy. Little ones can pen Christmas letters to jolly ol’ Santa Claus or gather round for a special reading of the holiday classic the Night before Christmas by the Calico citizens. 
Everyone can also lend a hand around town by delivering gifts to some of the folks in Calico. Just outside Town Hall, cheerful Calico Carolers roam the festive streets sharing the sounds of the season though songs and hand bell chimes. 
Also in Ghost Town, be sure to save time to watch a performance of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”and O. Henry’s “A Gift of the Magi” brought-to-life at the Birdcage Theatre.
You can also find the toe tappin’, hand clappin’, comedy and bluegrass of Krazy Kirk and the Hillbillies in the Birdcage Theatre. They’re always a lot of fun to watch!
During Knott’s Merry Farm, the Wilderness Dance Hall in Ghost Town is transformed into Santa’s Christmas Cabin for the holiday season. This is where you’ll find the jolly fellow himself.
Santa is sure to delight the young and young at heart. Send your season greetings to family and loved ones with special picture of the occasion, pictures can be purchased onsite.
You’ll also want to indulge in one-of-kind seasonal treats like Santa’s freshly-baked cookies, mouthwatering pastries, exquisite chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick, seasonal craft beers, gourmet hot chocolate with marshmallows and hot spiced holiday wine, plus much more.
Knott’s world-famous holiday treats can also be found all throughout Ghost Town, including fresh poured-to-order maple lollipops at the Gold Trails Hotel, delectable homemade holiday churros from the Churro Factory and extra creamy Santa’s Milk and Cookie shakes from Coasters.
Returning this year, the PEANUTS® gang, and a cast of world class ice skaters perform in the breathtaking ice show, “Merry Christmas, Snoopy!” in the 2,100 seat Charles M. Schulz Theatre. 
In this whimsical show, Snoopy enjoys all of the best parts of the season, including trimming the Christmas tree, awaiting Santa’s arrival, and attending the Christmas Ball! This ice show is a must-see and is my absolute favorite thing to go watch at Knott’s Merry Farm every year! 
The annual Christmas Crafts village includes artistic craft holiday shops featuring power chainsaw sculpting and elegant glass blowing demonstrations. Entrance to the Knott’s Christmas Crafts Village is free Monday through Thursday, November 21 –December 8, and is included with theme park admission every day.
You’ll also want to make sure to check out what’s new for this year at Knott’s Merry Farm:
Starting November 26 and running through January 1, Great Wolf Lodge will have a limited number of Snowland Suites available, so book yours 
Spectacular decorations throughout the lodge
North Pole University activities
As you can see, there’s a lot going on over at Great Wolf Lodge during Snowland. It’s the chance to create some new holiday memories with your family and you won’t want to miss out!
The Shops at Mission Viejo will offer the following special Festive Hours: 
While you’re there, don’t forget to stop by to see Santa! He’s waiting for you in the Lower Level near Nordstrom! Catch a visit with him before he leaves back to The North Pole on December 24! 
Connect with The Shops at Mission Viejo on 
One of our favorite annual traditions this time of year is to visit Irvine Park Railroad for their Christmas Train! Have you been before? It’s open 7 days a week from December 1-December 23rd and it’s a family event that’s not to be missed! It’s also so popular that it sells out very quickly! (Tickets for the Christmas Train may only be purchased in advance, online and are $12.00 per person. Children 24 months and younger are free. Click 
Irvine Park Railroad’s Christmas train will take you on an enchanting night ride through the historic Irvine Regional Park to meet Santa Claus. The train departs from the brightly-lit train station and drops passengers off at the North Pole. 
Children can share their wish list with Santa (print out a free wish list to fill out and bring to Santa 
In addition to an option to purchase a Santa photo taken by Irvine Park Railroad, you may also take pictures with your own personal camera.
After visiting with Santa, you’ll hop back aboard the train and enjoy the colorful Christmas lights and decorations, as well as the magical “Tunnel of Lights”, on the ride back to Santa’s Village.
Santa’s Village is a fun area that includes a variety of festive activities, some require tickets, while others are free.
Santa’s Village Activities include:
Irvine Park Railroad is located inside of Irvine Regional Park, which has a fee to enter. Prices are as follows:
This year, Knott’s Spooky Farm is a limited-time weekend event perfect for families and is open on weekend days during October, as well as Halloween day. All of the fun included in the price of a regular park ticket. (pumpkin and cookie decorating are available for a nominal fee.) Whether they choose to wear a costume or not, guests visiting the park are welcome to join in on all the fun Halloween activities. 
Here are the fun experiences you won’t want to miss out on this year:
Linus’ Great Pumpkin Patch
This year at Knott’s Spooky Farm, you’ll find
There are some fun activities to do inside like Peanuts coloring, games, decorating your very own pumpkin
Also, don’t forget to catch a performance of “Monsters Are Coming Charlie Brown!” in the Camp “Spooky” Theater, while you’re in Camp Snoopy. 
For only $31.99 (plus tax) you can enjoy up to seven different dining locations 
Don’t miss out on all the daytime family friendly fun at Knott’s Spooky Farm this year! You won’t find any tricks, just treats!
Residents of Rancho Mission Viejo are lucky to be the first in the area to have access to Cox’s G1GABLAST service, which is 100 times faster than the average U.S. Internet service! Since 
Getting back to the Smart Home though…it was beyond cool to see the demonstrations they had going on, showcasing the capability of the home’s high speed internet and how it can handle more than 10 interactive, visually stimulating demonstrations at once.Some of what was going on included a Wi-Fi cooking with a food blogger, telehealthy sessions with CHOC Childrens (via InTouch mobile robot), online music lessons that were streaming, a Wi-Fi pet and Wi-Fi pet feeder, virtual educational instruction, and more! With everything happening at once in the home, the heavy bandwidth was really put to the test! 
Here are some of my favorite features from that day: 
For someone who relies on the internet for her job, having super fast speeds and capabilities within her home is essential. Whitney also showed us how she controls the slow cooker from her smart phone using the free WeMo app, even when away from home.
This could be a game changer for a working mom like me who spends time driving to and from sports practices, but somehow needs to prepare a meal that’s ready immediately after practice, when I have a starving kid! Having the ability to adjust cooking time and temperature from the and and a smart device delivers the ultimate convenience and peace of mind.
Dr. Winkle was speaking from the In-Touch Express Robot because he was off-site at the time.. The capabilities of telemedicine are amazing, allowing the doctor-patient connection at any time to be possible. It’s basically going to be the house calls of the future! 
His student was actually in Canada and Jason explained that he relies on Cox G1GABLAST to provide him with the necessary bandwidth to stream while he’s working.
My experience inside the Cox Smart Home was nothing short of amazing! To learn more about Cox Communications and the services it offers, visit 
This year they’ll host their 11th annual Pumpkin Patch, which will be open beginning September 17th! The family friendly event, located just inside of Irvine Regional Park, includes fun activities for all ages. 
The Pumpkin Patch is located in Locomotive Loop and Miner’s Meadow just behind the train station. Thousands of pumpkins, in all shapes and sizes, fill the areas behind the train station. All visitors are sure to find the perfect pumpkin! 
This year’s Pumpkin Patch activities will include:
Admission into the Pumpkin Patch is free. Prices for all other activities vary; please visit 
The Irvine Park Railroad Pumpkin Patch is open daily from September 17th through October 31st.
Visit Irvine Regional Park’s other activities including Wheel Fun Rentals® at Irvine Park — fun and unique bike rentals that can be enjoyed by single riders or an entire family — paddle boat rentals, the Orange County Zoo and pony rides. Bike and paddle boat rentals are open daily at 10:00 am.
I’m excited to announce that Irvine Park Railroad is providing a prize package for one of my readers! The package includes 6 activity tickets, 1 Wheel Fun Rentals at Irvine Park Bike Double Surrey Rental, and 1 Paddle boat rental. To enter, go to the Rafflecopter below. Good luck and thanks for reading!
What to expect as a new member
As a new member in a network, health care can sometimes seem hard to navigate, especially when it’s new-to-you health care. There are often different offices or labs to visit. Even having to drive to a pharmacy after an appointment can be another task. Did you know that most Kaiser Permanente Orange County locations include a pharmacy, a lab, X-ray services and more? During my visit, they literally walked me through everything and were so happy to answer any questions I had.
I was quickly checked in at the main desk but I also learned you can access all of it on their app as well. (continue reading to learn more about their app) After I was called into the office, I first sat to chat with the nurse while she took my vitals. They take the utmost precautions to preserve patient confidentiality. I like that you’re not just sitting out in the open, answering private questions about your healthy history, for all to hear.
Once I was placed in the room, my doctor came in promptly and introduced herself. As a new patient, this first visit is done with the doctor that’s going to be your primary care doctor. I loved how thorough my doctor she was and I never felt rushed during my visit.
Did you know that at Kaiser Permanente Orange County, you can actually choose your own doctor? I think sometimes people have the wrong perception and think that you must stay with the primary care doctor they’re assigned to initially, but that’s not true. You can go to KP.org and search the doctors according to their personality and experience to find the best fit for you.