The Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida is ”a living, biblical museum that takes you 7000 miles away and 2000 years back in time to the land of the Bible.” My family and I visited The Holy Land Experience for the first time today (June 21) as we wrapped up several days together in Orlando, FL. Since there are a lot of folks out there looking for reviews of The Holy Land Experience, I thought I’d take a few minutes and provide one myself.

Trinity Broadcasting Network, which owns and operates The Holy Land Experience, deserves great credit for making a worthy effort at recreating Jerusalem at the time of Jesus Christ. Based on that intriguing concept and some terrific reviews from close friends, my wife and I enthusiastically made plans to finish out our Florida vacation with a trip to The Holy Land Experience. While it didn’t quite live up to all our expectations, we’re glad we took it in.  

After purchasing tickets, visitors enter through a recreated “gate” and (sort of) step back in time. I say “sort of,” because the gift shop that more or less greets you immediately reminds you that you haven’t really left the twenty-first century. Not that capitalism wasn’t a part of everyday life in first century Jerusalem, but The Holy Land Experience shopping experience is definitely rooted in this century. Still, I have no problem with a park or attraction making money, and mean no criticism in this. It’s just a little distracting from the first century “feel” that the attraction is trying to generate.

The second thing we noticed is that The Holy Land Experience is oriented around shows and performances, and the times of the shows are not at all conducive to a single day visit. If you and your family wish to see all the shows, you’ll need to set two days aside and possibly three. You won’t be able to get it all into one day. The problem with this is that The Holy Land Experience ain’t Disney World. (My apologies to my former English teachers who might be reading this). It’s one thing to ask families to understand that one day might not be enough if you have a massive amusement park full of exciting options. That is not the case with The Holy Land Experience. Compared to any of the Disney parks or either  Universal Studios park, The Holy Land Experience is small. “Tiny” would, in fact, not be off the mark. And given the small size of the park and the amount of the per person ticket, it’s only fair that visitors should expect to catch virtually all (if not all) of the shows that The Holy Land Experience has to offer. That this is not the case was one of the things most disappointing.

The above disappointment is significant, because The Holy Land Experience is very peformance-oriented. You basically go from show to show. There are no rides. And, for my kids, this was quite a contrast from four straight days of Walt Disney World! While both admitted there were some interesting aspects to the park, they described it overall as “boring.” Had we done The Holy Land Experience before Disney World, their review may have been more positive. Still, I think it’s worth noting that TBN has a ways to go with the teen and older kid market.

My final critique deals with approach. Most evangelical, churchgoing Christians and virtually all viewers of The Trinity Broadcasting Network will find the The Holy Land Experience, with all its evangelistic performances, quite inspirational. The applause and the Amens were a testament to that. However, I’m not sure how the shows might appeal to non-Christians, infrequent churchgoers, or professing Christians from more mainline (non-evangelical) denominations. To me, it didn’t seem that The Holy Land Experience was adopting Paul’s “all things to all men” evangelistic strategy in I Corinthians 9. I certainly understand the rationale of appealing to one’s constituency. Target marketing is the way of business these days. But I still think there’s a place for another biblically themed park in the future that appeals to more mainstream and non-Christian audiences.  

For all its shortcomings, The Holy Land Experience has many positive points going for it. The location is convenient. Parking is free. There are several “photo op” locations throughout the park. The costumed staff are very friendly and do a good job adding to the atmosphere of the attraction. (Though I was disappointed that at least one of the uniformed Roman soldiers clearly wore a cheap, low-budget stage version of a Roman uniform. Why can’t The Holy Land Experience invest the extra dollars and buy high quality Roman uniforms and armor?)  The shows are very interesting and informative. I particularly appreciated the reenactment of the High Priest’s role in the Wilderness Tabernacle during the Old Testament years.

And I absolutely loved the scale model of first century Jerusalem. I was fully impressed by the exquisite detail of the model. And the accompanying presentation was extremely interesting, as the narrator pointed to different spots of the city, telling us where different events from the New Testament took place. Awesome!

Most importantly, The Holy Land Experience is very family friendly and unashamedly Christian. A lot of hard work and great intentions have gone into The Holy Land Experience. And for that, all those who created it and who maintain it deserve our thanks and support. And I’m glad my family and I had the opportunity to visit and enjoy it.  If you and your family visit Orlando and you have an extra day to spare, it is definitely worth checking out.