5470. See the China Lights at the Botanical Gardens

 Besides Doors Open and a Lakefront Brewery Tour, I told Stacy I had a "weird" request for our girls' weekend. I wanted to the China Lights at the Botanical Gardens. All the pictures of them from previous years, made me want to go. Even though the Botanical Gardens are in Milwaukee, I really hate driving down there just for that and it's not really the hubby's thing. 

China Lights at Boerner Botanical Gardens runs from September 15-October 29 Tuesdays through Sundays 5-10 pm. Tickets are $22/adult during the weekend and $25/adult for Friday and Saturday. If you buy them at the gate are $35/adult. Stacy got us 7 pm tickets. Ticket times were 5, 5:30, 7:00 or 8:30. We could arrive any time between 7-8:30 and stay until it closed at 10. We got there around 7 after snagging the last parking spot in the lot. I am not sure where the overflow lot is. 

The theme this year is Nature's Glow so it featured animals from different biospheres. You start under the sea and ended with the jungle. 

The lights and animation were top notch. Some of the creatures were large enough that you can walk in them. 

The iridescent bubbles were fun. I didn't really catch one but it was fun trying. There were too many people to try to have a dance party this time though.

The Venus Fly Trap was a fun addition as was the volcanic eruption.

There were also fun kids activities. If you ever want to get shot by a cannonball this is your chance

Or dance on a giant keyboard

Or bang on a drum to light up a tree.

So many fun motion generated activities.

The giant dome was not as fun as it looked. It was just hopping from color dot to color dot. 

China Lights is great family fun. However, if you do not like crowds or people, do not go on a Friday or Saturday night. I felt like I was being herded like cattle at times.. You just had to move with the flow of people. If they stopped, you had to stop. You could only go as fast as the crowd. It did thin out at times but it would crowd back up on narrower sections of the gardens. I have to say for the amount of people there, it was not as loud as it could be.

It is definitely worth checking out. It changes from year to year so you can always check it out next year. Maybe one day I will check it out again.