It was....okay?

On Saturday, we went to the Renaissance Festival.  Dan and I went once before  20 years ago.  TWENTY?! Who's old?  Is it me? 

Anyway, the place has at least doubled in size since we've been there, but I guess that was bound to happen since it had been TWENTY years since we were there last.

My feelings on the whole thing can be summed up in one word:

meh


It was okay.  We were there for 4 hours.  We spent $100 just to get in and then once on the grounds, we bought lunch and dessert which wasn't too expensive but you had to eat it standing up because it was so crowded. 

We saw 4 shows.  One was not so good, one was really good and the other two were pretty good.
 My favorite was the juggling show.  Those guys were good!  And funny but not in a raunchy way.  A lot of the comedy at this place was off color and even marked as parental guidance suggested on the map. 

I also enjoyed the Ancient Art of Falconry show.  They had 4 birds that they told us about and each of these birds was flying around overhead from perch to perch.  I almost got hit in the head by a bird a couple of times.

We also saw a jousting match which was little boring but one of those things you have to do when you are there.  My least favorite show was Barely Balance - Comedy and Acrobats.  They did about 5 cool stunts but the rest of the time they were just making jokes that weren't that funny.

There were lots more shows to see but the grounds are large and each show starts at a certain time and the map told you the name of the show but not what it was about.  I probably should have checked online to see if there was a description of the shows available. Also, there were 12 different stages where performances were going on so it was very spread out.  


Here's a picture of the jousting:

We didn't get there in time to get a seat in the bleachers but we were able to see all the action from where we were standing.

The whole vibe of the festival was...odd.

We got there at 10:30 and people were already drinking.  Ahhhh...to be young again.

A lot of people were dressed in Renaissance clothing but there were even more people dressed as superheroes, robots, spacemen, etc.  There was even an entire family there dressed as the game pieces (cones) from Cones of Dunshire which is the game Ben created on Parks and  Recreation.

We walked around the entire time wondering why everyone was dressed so strangely.  It wasn't until on the way home when I read the map that I discovered they were having a costume contest that day. It was billed as Time Travelers Weekend. Hereos and Villians Costume Contest.  All costumes welcome! So that explained that weirdness.

There were a ton of little shops but we didn't go into many of those.  We aren't really in the market for incense or fairy wings.  Although Peter did convince me to buy him a Viking drinking horn.  He was thrilled about that and would [robably say that was the highlight of the day for him.  I only got him that because it was technically for his birthday. 

Peter had more fun than Sarah and I think Dan and I had more fun than the kids.  I'm glad we went but I'm not sure if we could go back again next year unless we had reduced priced tickets.