This past weekend we visited Jungle Island at night for its Chinese Lantern Festival, Luminosa. It was quite a delightful experience with magical lights, creative lanterns, groovy music, fun activities and intoxicating fragrance of corn plant blossoms. The event has an extended end date of Feb 9, 2020. There’s still time to visit!

Get the full visual & sound experience from our vlog and read on for some quick tips.

Even though it’s a popular event, the crowd size was actually not as bad as we had predicted. Parking was plenty when we arrived at 8:00pm (the nightly event is open from 5:00pm – 10:00pm). But if you could, arrive early to watch the Chinese Acrobatic Show at 6:30pm (or 8:00pm) or even earlier to watch the Winged Wonders bird show at 5:30pm.

Tickets are available both at the gate or on Jungle Island’s official website. The list price is $35 per adult, $27 per child or $99 per family of two adults and two children. You get 10% off ticket price if purchasing online but there’s a $3.15 convenience fee for each ticket. So both options are about the same.

Parking is $20 per car — it is a bit expensive but there are no other parking options available around the isolated area (middle of McArthur Causeway between downtown Miami and South Beach).

There are plenty of options/locations for food and drinks around the park. Restrooms are also abundant and easy to find, available at almost every building around the corner.