I finally got to experience the water lantern festival✨ The festival was held in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ the weekend of Sept 21st/22nd. I think it will be held again in NYC at Central Park, so keep your eyes out for that if you wish to attend. Buy tickets earlier online to save $$. While I am glad I got to cross this off my bucketlist, I have mixed feelings about the overall experience. I made the mistake of not coming earlier (the gates opened at 4pm, and we got there around 6:30). After checking in, we received a wristband and backpack filled with the lantern kit, marker, playing cards, conversation cards, and a scavenger hunt giveaway card. The backpack came in 3 colors: pink, orange, and green. Make sure you inspect all the contents inside the bag because I realized too late that I was missing a candle!!!! That nearly ruined my night 😠 They don’t use real candles for the lanterns btw; they use flameless tealight candles. I’m not sure why they distributed wristbands because this event did not seem exclusive to ppl who bought tickets. That being said, the lines for the food trucks were reallyy long, and there weren’t as many trucks there as I expected. I wish I had brought my own snacks. I spent so much time on line, that I didn’t have as much time to decorate my lantern. Once we were done decorating the lanterns, we released them on a slide. It was so beautiful seeing all of the lanterns floating away together in the water. It kinda reminded me of that scene from ✨Tangled✨. I loved seeing so many creative lanterns with meaningful messages ❤️