Holiday World: A St. Louisan’s Guide to the Southern Indiana Theme Park

If you live in St. Louis, there’s a chance you’ve seen a billboard ad for Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana. If you thought about it at all, you may have had a few questions, like:

• Where on earth is Santa Claus?
• What is Holiday World?
• Is this some tourist trap thing?

The answers are:

• A few hours east of St. Louis.
• An amusement park in the tradition of Six Flags, Silver Dollar City, or Dollywood.
• Only a little … but really, it’s a serious amusement park that is well worth a visit.

Oh, and…

• Free parking, free soft drinks, and free sunscreen.

More on that in a moment.

Let’s dig in.

Getting There

Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari is located in the tiny town of Santa Claus, Indiana (population 2,500) in southwest Indiana not far from Evansville. It’s about 3 hours (about 200 miles) or so east of St. Louis (Google Maps link). Drivers take Interstate 64 and can either exit at U.S. 231 or, if they are headed straight to Holiday World, Indiana 162.

If you’re used to overtouristed places like, say, Branson or Pigeon Forge, you’ll find Santa Claus to be a refreshing change of pace. The town is positively quiet, and getting from place to place there is as easy as you could ask for. That includes getting to the town and to the theme park.

Hypothetically you could make a day trip out of it, especially if you wanted to keep things cheap. We chose instead to spend a few nights in Santa Claus to get a fuller experience.

There are a handful of places to stay in and around Santa Claus, and more places if you’re willing to stay farther in places like Evansville. Not every place we researched had great reviews, and some places have more amenities than others. We ended up narrowing down our lodging to Santa’s Cottages, which is run by Holiday World, and Lincoln Pines Lakefront Resort. Both had great reviews, were just a few minutes from the park, and had similar amenities. We ended up going with Lincoln Pines because the smallest cottage had 1 1/2 baths to the 1 bathroom in Santa’s Cottages, but both appear to be good options.

Parking

Holiday World has two large parking lots, one north of Christmas Blvd. (yes, you heard that right) and one south. The North Lot is known as the Raven Lot while the South Lot is known as the Legend Lot, both named after wooden coasters in the park. The North Lot is directly adjacent to the park, although both are near to the entrance, as the South Lot is connected to the park entrance by a short walkway under Christmas Blvd. In addition, shuttles run regularly for those who can’t or don’t want to walk from the far end of the lot.

Parking is, as advertised, free.

Costs and Considerations

Holiday World offers both daily tickets as well as season passes. Season passes in 2025 run from $165 to $235. Daily tickets range from $52 to $72 depending on what kind of daily ticket you get and what day it’s good for, while multi-day flex tickets are $87 for two-days and $100, for 3 days. Given that, we tend to think multi-day flex tickets are the best value for an out-of-towner, unless of course you’re looking to do things in one day.

As with most amusement parks nowadays, expect to go through security screening on your way in. If you are bringing in swimwear for Splashin’ Safari that won’t be a problem but there is always a chance they’ll ask to search for your bags.

As for that free soda and free sunscreen? It’s for real. There are soda oasis stations all over the park, and they have a range of soft drinks from Pepsi to Starry to Mug Root Beer. While certain drinks are found in every oasis, like Pepsi, some are only in certain stations, like unsweetened tea. The sunscreen, an SPF 50 variety, can be found in large pump stations throughout the park — one caveat here is that the ones in Splashin’ Safari tended to empty out midday and weren’t always refilled.

Outside the park, Santa Claus is a small town but there are some amenities, including a full-service grocery store a couple of blocks from Holiday World that carries most of what you might need, and whose bag workers will frequently carry your groceries to your car for you.

Things to Do

Confession: when I purchased two day flex tickets, I wasn’t certain we’d have enough to do to fill out two days.

I was wrong.

We stayed from open to close both days and were busy the whole time, and that was riding only a few things more than once. Some of that is that certain lines could be a little long, especially later in the day, but most of it was that there is just a lot to do. We spent our first day in the dry section of the park, and most of our second day in the water park. The two parks, dry and water, have multiple access points between them, so going back and forth isn’t too hard provided you have the right footwear for each.

The dry part of the park is divided up into various holiday themes: Christmas, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. Each of them has their on feel, right down to the soundtrack for each section. The atmosphere is immersive and fun. The coasters have storage bins while you’re on rides, you can tote a small backpack or cross-body bag around the park.

The wet part has a single theme, but it’s cool in its own right. Slides or water shoes are not a bad idea in Splashin’ Safari, as you will be doing a lot of walking on pavement. We also rented a large locker to store our gear.

This park has a lot to do, especially if you’re into rides. There are multiple roller coasters, multiple water coasters (yes, they’re a thing, and they’re awesome), various other rides, along with a scattering of shows and other amusements. We flew upside-down through the air on the slightly terrifying but incredible Thunderbird, roared over a mile along silk-smooth wooden coaster track on The Voyage, and experience a surprisingly intense trip forward and backward on Good Gravy.

We even jetted up hills on a boat in Wildebeast and Cheetah Chase. (One of the best water rides in the park, Mammoth Water Coaster, was down for repair on the days we visited.)

Holiday World has bumper cars, a vertical launch ride, a carousel, spin rides for kids, and Model T cars that even kids can drive. As a lifetime St. Louisan, I was left nostalgic for the days when our local Six Flags had bumper cars or Moon Cars or that spinning ride where you got stuck to the wall, since Holiday World had all of those things.

Our family was divided on which part of the park they liked best, and that goes to show how good both of them are.

We also appreciated the shows. There were just a handful, but they were entertaining. On the days we visited, there was a comedy hypnotist, a stunt show, and a few other singing and dancing acts.

The food, meanwhile, was fine. It was standard theme park fare — burgers, pizza, nachos, etc. — and while it wasn’t amazing, it was good, and the prices were fair. One member of our family was excited to see Dole Whip make an appearance.

Our Thoughts

As a family who has recently been to Disney World and who also has season passes to Six Flags St. Louis, we were admittedly unsure what we would think of Holiday World. It exceeded our expectations. The atmosphere is very good, the rides are smooth and well-constructed, and the freebies are more fun than they should be. It’s nice to need a little jolt of caffeine in the afternoon and grab a small cup of Pepsi or unsweetened tea to help me power through.

It wasn’t the cheapest trip, not with three days in a cabin and two days in the park, but everyone in our party agreed it was well worth it. I suspect we come back again someday.