Houston Area Pumpkin Patches

Ever since my first October in 2012 my mommy has brought me to the pumpkin patch at Ganyard Hill Farm in North Carolina. It was our annual family fall outing.

Now that we are in Texas, mommy and I decided to see what Texas pumpkin patches have to offer. We visited three this month: Blessington Farms in Simonton, Texas; Dewberry Farms in Brookshire, Texas; and the Zoo Boo in Houston, Texas. Here is my review on them in the order we visited them:

Blessington Farms
Simonton, Texas
http://www.blessingtonfarms.com

This farm was $10/per person and that included all the rides. The only activity it did not include was fishing which I think was an additional $10/per person. The pumpkins were also additional. I believe the bigger ones are $0.50 per pound. We brought a cooler of snacks and drinks which I recommend. Drinks here were pretty pricey. My mommy said the only reasonable priced beverage or food was the water bottles which were $1.00. Everything else was your typical country fair type food and prices.

This photo op is one of the first things we saw after we paid our admission. My mom likes it because if we make this our yearly pumpkin patch destination we can see how much I've grown with the ruler!

One perk to this pumpkin patch is that they had quite a few hay bales, benches and pumpkin displays set up for mommies and daddies to plop their little ones in front of for cute pictures. Since there were so many to choose from no one had to wait in line forever and get antsy. My mom put me in front of each display to get a photo. Like I said she is over the top. There were about 8 places set up for pumpkin patch photo ops. Thats A LOT of fake smiling!

My favorite part were the slides. There were so many slide options. My friend C and I slid down the slides over and over and over again. It was so much fun! This was my favorite part of Blessington farms.

There was also a train ride that was pretty cool. The driver drove us so so fast and C and I giggled and laughed the whole ride. There is also a more traditional hayride available that takes you throughout the whole farm.

They had a small petting zoo with a ton of goats and lambs. There were even two camels. My mommy was happy that there were hand sanitizer stations at the entrance and exit of the petting zoo.

Some features of this pumpkin patch my mommy didn't get pictures of included the the bike racing track. There was a tandem bike that I rode with my mommy, but she wasn't going fast enough so I ditched her and got on one of the smaller bikes so I could race C around the track. We both kept bumping into the tires though so I guess it's a good thing we aren't allowed to get our drivers license till we turn 16! There was a hay maze, blowup pony rides, steer roping, barrel racing and sand box and more. All in all this was a nice patch with many activities that kept us busy from around 10am to 1pm. During that time I had to potty so I had my first experience with a  port a potty. I didn't like it. It was stinky but I guess it was clean as far as port a potties go....I noticed there were several birthday party tables set up under the trees for shade. This would be a perfect place for an October birthday party or even a school or playgroup field trip!

Dewberry Farms
Brookshire, Texas
http://dewberryfarm.com

Their pricing was a little more complicated than Blessington Farms. There were different packages from $12 to $48. We bought the $20 package. Tokens were an extra $3 each and the attractions were anywhere from 1-3 tokens. Things got pricey very fast. They also don't allow outside food and drinks so we couldn't have a picnic lunch like we did at Blessington Farms.

The biggest downer to our outing to Dewberry Farms was actually getting there. The last 5 miles of the journey took over an hour. It was painful but I then I fell asleep. My mom thought there was a car accident, but no it was just all the traffic from 3 different directions going to the farm on country roads that weren't built to handle all the traffic. It was terribly disorganized. Then when we finally got to the parking lot the line to get tickets was sooooooo long. It took another 30 minutes standing in line just to purchase our wristbands. My mom noticed the line for prepaid tickets was much much shorter so if you plan to come to Dewberry buy your tickets in advance so you can bypass the extremely long lines.

There was only one display of pumpkins meant for photo ops that we could find and to be honest I wasn't impressed. This farm is much bigger and has more attractions than Blessington, but it also had much longer wait times for each ride. I had to wait 10 minutes at the least and 45 minutes at the most for various rides. I got very antsy because I wasn't use to waiting so long for rides. There were so many people and it was extremely busy. It seemed more like a state fair than a pumpkin patch. Can you tell I wasn't a fan?

Pony rides were my favorite attraction

The lone pumpkin patch photo op station

The giant jumping pillow was quite popular

I felt like Jane from Tarzan. Swinging from ropes in a  barn is great fun!

They had actual restrooms so that was a plus since we did not have to use a portapotty like at the other farm. They also charged $0.50 per pound for pumpkins. Does any place in the Houston area come with a pumpkin for admission? It was standard in North Carolina to get one pumpkin with each admission. So we would always come home with a pumpkin for me, one for mommy and one for daddy. I guess this is how things are in the Big City...Dewberry would be amazing except for the traffic and the overwhelming crowds. I much prefer laid back and calm pumpkin patches... We won't be visiting again.

Houston Zoo
Houston, Texas
http://www.houstonzoo.org

The Zoo Boo

My mommy bought a year long family membership for $200 which will quickly pay for itself since we are allowed to bring a group of up to 10 people with us each time we visit. I foresee lots of playdates to the zoo in our future! On Halloween day it rained pretty much all morning so when we got to the zoo in the afternoon it was pretty empty which made for a very enjoyable experience for us! We didn't have to battle the crowds to see the animals and the workers at all the candy stations were literally putting fistfuls of candy in our candy baskets. Pretty much all the kids there were dressed up in the cutest costumes and quite a few adults were in costume too. The actual pumpkin patch was flooded from all the rain earlier in the day so we did not get any pictures in the pumpkin patch, but every child did get a free pumpkin courtesy of Fiesta grocery stores. I will definitely return to the zoo boo in the future.

Posing at the Zoo Boo sign at the entrance of the zoo with my cousins. Two little mermaids and one Evie.

One of the many candy stations. Renting the double stroller at the zoo entrance was one of the best decisions we made during our zoo visit because both mermaids can't walk!