There was so much going on, it is little difficult to decide where to start! So when in doubt, lets go with food. Everybody's gotta eat, right? Food is plentiful and pricey . We saw everything from steak on a stake, kettle corn, apple dumplings and Scottish eggs to red beans and rice, and sausage on a stick. We opted for the turkey leg (tender meaty goodness!),big soft pretzels ( my favourite) from the walking vendors, fried ice cream (gross... we chunked it in the trash) and gyros (interesting). The festival drinks are Dr pepper products and of course Adult drinks. We spent $6 on two 20 oz Dr peppers. Our total cost for food and drinks was about $30. ( We shared everything.)
No food or drink can be taken into the festival, but I did have boxed shelf stable milk, a boxed juice, and fruit snacks tucked in Sassy Diva's bag. Felt kinda bad for taking it in but it was a good thing, because she would not eat any of the festival foods. She did take a few tiny bites of the bread from the gyro, but that was it. Now that we have food, and my rule breaking covered, lets move on to our favourite things.
- I loved people watching! It was awesome to see everyone in costume. Lots of visitors were dressed up as well. I saw Santa Clause (?) a very purple wizard with a person sized stuffed (purple) dragon attached to him, a creepy jester, and mermaids in the mermaid lagoon.
- The large turtles in the petting zoo. I know, I am impressed by odd things.
- The interaction - you will be greeted, possibly mocked, and engaged in conversation, like it or not!
- The Rat Circus show. Yes it was rats, with an awesome handler who put on a great show. Funny!
- Cale, the fire juggler. He loved the part where he breathed fire. It was also pretty neat that he came and talked to us when we first arrived and gave us a run down of the festival and invited us to his show.
- Dragons. We searched out all things dragon related. There was a cool dragon skeleton on top of the monster museum lots of shots with dragon related items.
- The mythical monster museum This was $3 pp and he loved it. Personally, I was not impressed. Think Halloween type setting, with drawings and descriptions of mythical creatures and sculptures.
- The camel and donkey ride. No surprise here, my kids love animal encounters.
- Riding the Llama. I was a proud mama, she did it by herself!
- The petting zoo (the baby chicks, cows, and a guide dog who was checking out the petting zoo himself.
- The drinking fountain in the form of a juggler standing on his head (Pictured). She was fascinated and a little freaked out by it. We hung out by it for a while while Joshua played with new found friends on the play ground.
Good things to know:
- Many of the shops are elevated a bit, and it was a pain to get the stroller up and in. I visited fewer shops than I would have liked because of this.
- They sell nice magazine type programs for $3. We bought one, but other than DB checking it out, we did not use it much. It was to windy to read it. I was going to use it in my travel scrapbook, but there was a juice incident, so that is not going to happen. Next time, we will print out the show schedule from the web site.
- It is big! Plan to walk a lot, but there is plenty of places to sit and rest.
- Lots of shows going on! We saw the rat circus, the belly dancers, the fire juggler, a comedy dude, knife throwing, and more.
- There was a parade of people! This was fun to watch. DB did not enjoy it much.
She did ride the llama, as I mentioned earlier. That was your typical "pony ride" experience. I did not get a photo. I thought I was getting it on video, but I didn't.
My stupid camera battery went dead after 15 photos, so I ended up using my iphone for most of these shots. I am always having some sort of camera issue and I never get all the photos and videos I want!!