Fall is my favorite season. I love the leaves, the pumpkins, the weather, the smells, the food. For the first day of fall, we decided to head to a place that advertised having most of the things we love about the season– a real autumn whirlwind. Connors Farm in Danvers, MA really lived up to the expectation. There was ample parking across the street, although the place was really busy. You walk into the store to buy the wristbands that gain you entry into the farm. The store’s signage is unclear, so it took awhile before we figured out which line to queue in. The price of the wristband includes most of the carnival rides and the corn maze. It does not include some activities, but included more than enough to keep us busy for the whole day. It was under $40 for me and my two children.
The general store at Connors Farm in Danvers, MA has lots of treats, produce and sells wristbands to the farm.
Upon entering, there are food vendors offering some decent barbecue, really yummy grilled corn on cob and kettle corn. They also offer hamburgers and fried food which looked less appetizing . There are plenty of covered tables for relaxing and enjoying lunch.
Activities
Our kids old and young really enjoyed the Rat Rollers, which were essentially human-sized hamster wheels. I had a ton of fun racing the kids on the tracks. In spite of the crowds, we did not wait longer than 15 minutes for anything. There were also pedal-powered go-karts which the kids spent a lot of time on.
Even the teenager got into the fun at Connors Farm!
Pony swings out over the pond- really fun!
The kids enjoyed the pony swings and I regret not waiting to get on to take a fly over the lake.
By the swings are more food vendors. There is a place to buy decent pizza and huge, tasty nachos. The highlight of my food experience was the Sweet Shop which sold ice cream, apple cider donuts and fudge and one of the best caramel apples I have ever eaten– perfectly sweet, soft caramel and a perfectly juicy and bitter green apple. Heaven.
The kids loved pretending to be a rodeo star riding a bucking bronco. The ride operator did a great job adjusting the ride for toddlers and tweens alike.
The corn maze is advertised as the tenth biggest maze in the country. It is big, but is separated into three sections, so you can feel confident going in with little kids that you won’t get lost. There are trivia questions to lead you through all the mazes and you can get texts if you get too lost and are fortunate enough to get cell service. They do have two look out bridges where you can look out from above the maze to get your bearings. The big maze took us about an hour to navigate through.
There are three ways to get ferried on a tour of the farm. There is a small tractor pulling a cow train, a large train ride or a tractor pulling a larger bucket train.
The kids loved getting covered in corn dust in Connors Farms’ Corn Box.
The activity all the kids spent the most time at was the Corn Box– a huge box full of corn kernels. They jumped in the corn, buried themselves in it and came out smiling and covered in corn dust, even with corn in their ears. Perfect kid fun.
Pig Races
How exciting to root for your favorite cute little piglet to win at Connors Farms’ pig races! We loved rooting for our favorite pig, Philip, to win the pig race. I love pigs– they are so cute and watching them run is the best!
The only two extra-pay activities we did were apple picking and mining. My children love rocks and always choose to do this at any fair. You buy a bag of rocks and sand and use water and a pan to find your rocks. There were not assistants available to help identify rocks, but the kids had fun and did a good job identifying the rocks using only the pamphlet that was given to us. We didn’t enter the part of the farm with the other pay options, but they seemed to involve catapulting things, Nerf guns and paint balls.
My favorite find- my kid’s tell me its a sedimentary rock containing layers of tiger eye and obsidian found in our $7.00 rock bag in Connors Farms’ mining activity.
In the store or at the pizza place you can buy bags for apple picking. The apples were the most expensive thing there. The orchards are beautiful and the apples were really good, but I was disappointed that there were no signs so I could not tell what kind of apples we were picking or if there were other varieties around. Someone gave us a peach, which was one of the best peaches I have eaten, but I could not find where to pick more, so I ended up buying some from the store.
The next day I made a fabulous peach and apple pie with our fruit bonanza. It was a great way to spend our first day of fall. We will definitely return for a big day of fun, but I will probably do my apple picking at another orchard with a more organized layout and clearer signage.