Santa's Village AZoosment Park

About Santa's Village AZoosment Park

Santa's Village AZoosment Park, now formally known as Santa's Village Amusement & Water Park, is a theme park in East Dundee, Illinois, roughly 45 miles northwest of Chicago. It was the third of three Santa's Village parks built by Glenn Holland, following earlier locations in Skyforest and Scotts Valley, California, and it was originally intended as the flagship of a chain that never fully materialized — planned parks in Richmond, Virginia, and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, were never built. The Illinois park is the last of Holland's Santa's Villages still operating.

The park combines nearly twenty mechanical rides and attractions with a petting zoo and animal encounters, a pairing reflected in the "AZoosment Park" name adopted after its 2011 reopening because the park's identity had come to rest equally on rides and animals. It also includes a water park, currently operating as Santa Springs, and an ice rink in the restored Polar Dome building.

The park is not AZA accredited and does not publish a formal species count; its own materials describe an animal collection built around farm animals, tortoises, and fish, organized around a barn, a petting area, and a koi pond alongside the rides.

History

The park's origin traces to its founder, Glenn Holland, who grew up in California during the Great Depression and lost both parents by age 18. As an adult, Holland sketched out a Christmas-themed park concept and built it into a company, Santa's Village Corporation, opening the first Santa's Village in Skyforest, California, in 1955 and a second near Scotts Valley in 1957. For a third location, Holland chose a site in Dundee, Illinois, leasing 40 wooded acres in 1958. The Dundee park, built in nine months for about a million dollars, opened on Memorial Day weekend 1959 with a petting zoo, a reindeer sleigh ride, a Mexican burro ride, and Santa's Post Office and Toy Factory among its early attractions.

Expansion followed through the early 1960s under contractor Arrow Development, including the Snowball Ride and a relocated Magic Train. The park's largest early project was the Polar Dome Ice Arena, a 40,000-square-foot air-supported dome that opened in February 1963 and, according to Guinness World Records at the time, was the largest air-supported dome stadium in the world; it hosted the Chicago Black Hawks, national speed skating competitions, and touring shows before a 1966 storm tore open its skin, after which it was rebuilt with a flat roof.

Ownership changed repeatedly over the following decades. Holland sold the park in 1965; the Medina Investors bought it in 1970 and renamed it Worlds of Fun, then the Three Worlds of Santa's Village to avoid a trademark conflict with a Kansas City park of a similar name; the North Pole Corporation took over in 1978 and added the Racing Rapids water park in 1983, one of the first in the Midwest and the largest in Illinois at the time. The park's name shortened back to Santa's Village Theme Park in 2003. At the close of the 2004 season, Sterling Bay Companies bought the underlying land, and the park closed permanently in 2006 after the North Pole Corporation and a prospective buyer, North Pole Village LLC, both lost the property in Kane County circuit court judgments.

The site sat closed for several years, used briefly for flea markets and indoor soccer, until Jason Sierpien, who had worked at Santa's Village in the 1990s and later ran an animal business called A Zoo To You, combined his petting zoo with rides and reopened the park in the fall of 2010 under new management. Part of the original property was leased separately to Paintball Explosion. The rebuilt park has continued adding attractions since, and in January 2025 the historic Polar Dome reopened as an ice rink alongside a bar and restaurant.

Exhibits and habitats

The park's animal area is centered on a barn housing several species of farm animals, which visitors can view and feed with purchased feed cups. A separate walking path lets guests meet and feed a herd of miniature cows, and a koi pond stocked with a variety of koi fish rounds out the animal attractions. The park describes these as hands-on experiences intended for animal lovers of all ages, distinct from its roster of rides and its seasonal water park.

Animal highlights

No formal species or animal count is published for the park's collection. Its own materials describe the animal attractions as farm animals housed in a barn, a herd of miniature cows on a walking path, and koi fish in a dedicated pond — a small, hands-on collection built around feeding and close contact rather than a traditional zoo exhibit lineup.

Planning your visit

Hours were listed as 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. as shown on the park's website, though the operating calendar runs seasonally and specific dates and hours vary — including special events such as the Pumpkin Patch & Fall Fest — so confirm the current schedule before visiting. Ticket pricing was not listed with specific figures in the sources used for this page; the park does note that children under 36 inches tall are admitted free, and an "Ultimate Experience" ticket bundles admission with a lunch voucher, a mining activity, an animal feed cup, and game play.

The park sits off I-90 near Elgin, about two miles north of Exit 56 on Route 25. Dining options span roughly a dozen food and drink stands throughout the park, including pizza, funnel cakes, ice cream, and other fair-style fare, with an allergen note that offerings may contain dairy, eggs, wheat, soy, tree nuts, peanuts, fish, or shellfish. The park requires shirts and shoes throughout, prohibits outside coolers and most outside food (with an accommodation process for guests with food allergies), and screens bags and guests at security checkpoints. A dress code applies in and around the Santa Springs water park, including required swimwear. As always, confirm current hours, ticket pricing, and operating dates on the official website before you go.