By Charly SHELTON

Each year, the Queen Mary in Long Beach hosts a Christmas carnival called Chill. It started with carnival rides, overpriced county fair food and some ice sculptures. Then it became more about the ice and wintertime fun. It had walkthrough ice sculpture stories of classic Christmas tales. It brought in better food, a cocktail program, less generic carnival stuff and more unique offerings. And this year it has hit it out of the park as the transition continues into one of the best winter events around. If only Chill’s managers could keep up with the changes, it would be fantastic.

The event overall is really cool, no pun intended. It is a wintery trip around the world, visiting snowy places and experiencing some of the best that cold weather has to offer. For Californians, this is a rare occurrence but even for visitors who have frozen lakes at home this is an experience done right. I was amused just to see a frozen rink and get to ice skate. But to make it even better, it has built a skate-up bar with Sugar Plum Martinis and performing aerialist dancers on an ice track that winds around the event between other attractions to enable skate sightseeing. There are bumper boats on ice, an ice slide, ice bikes (tricycles with ice-gripping wheels), a zip line, stocking making, gingerbread house building, an all-you-can-eat waffle buffet, a Chinese tea house, a 4D theater show and more international foods than an airport food court. It’s a great time and something not found anywhere else in LA.

The only problem is that none of the workers seem to know what they’re doing. I was welcomed at the opening night press event last week when I was given two of its inclusive experiences – the Drink Passport and the Ultimate Expedition. I spent two hours at the event trying to talk to managers and staff members about what the tickets and passport were good for. Everywhere I went, I was told that they weren’t part of the drink passport or Ultimate Expedition. I rode the ice bikes and was able to tender my ticket there, but everywhere else the vendors said no, they don’t accept the passports. So I talked to everyone I could find and the consensus I got was that it was never discussed with those who worked the floor.

I finally tracked down a manager who didn’t know what all the attractions were, let alone what the tickets were for. I ended up leaving without trying any of the drinks or food because by the time I got to the skate-up bar that was honoring the passport, it was out of everything needed to make the martini. The same thing happened at the hot chocolate booth.

In short, this event could be really fun and hopefully by week two or three all the kinks can get worked out. I recommend not springing for the $40 Drink Passport or the $45 Ultimate Expedition tickets because it’s easier to just go buy the wanted stuff piecemeal. At least you’ll get something.

Based on the merits of event offerings alone, it is a good time and definitely something you’ll want to see this year.

Chill at Queen Mary in Long Beach runs daily now through Jan. 7.

  Charly Shelton