Santa's Kingdom, the Christmas-themed family event in Punchestown, Co Kildare, officially opened its doors yesterday amid some confusion about the pricing and availability of tickets.
The event, which runs from Friday, November 28th, until Tuesday, December 23rd, offers a range of attractions to parents and children, including a chocolate factory and a specially-constructed "Snow Zone".
However, it has received some negative publicity in recent weeks over the way it sells tickets, with callers to RTÉ Radio's Liveline claiming the promoter, MCD, had published misleading advertisements.
According to Ms Liz Cooper, a special needs assistant from Dublin, when she tried to book tickets for her students she was informed that tickets for Monday to Thursday were not yet on sale.
This seemed to contradict the advertisements, which stated that tickets would be available both at weekends and for Monday to Friday. As a result she was forced to either buy tickets for a Friday, which did not fit her students' schedule, or to pay for more expensive weekend tickets.
According to the Ticketmaster website, a single ticket on a weekday costs €22.45, while a family ticket for four people costs €75.52.
At the weekend the price of an individual ticket rises to €27.45, and €95.52 for a family ticket. All prices are inclusive of a booking fee. Mr Justin Green of MCD pointed out yesterday that Santa's Kingdom was not usually open between Monday and Thursday.
"We can't open every day," he said. "If the demand was there for people to go during the week, then we would look at opening, but the demand is for the weekend."
Tickets were available for every Friday, and also on certain midweek days which were now explicitly listed in press advertisements for the event, he said.
Santa's Kingdom, he added, had increased capacity at the venue by 20 per cent at the weekend, and had introduced a family ticket.