Our Day at Cherry Crest Adventure Farm (Lancaster, Pennsylvania)

Cherry Crest Adventure Farm is a must visit for family fun in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania! (Includes money saving tips.) 

I was provided with complimentary passes to help facilitate this post, but all opinions expressed are 100% my own.

The other Saturday morning my husband and I both woke up feeling worn out and discouraged.  The stress of having a fussy baby who doesn’t typically settle until 1 am., getting our house ready to sell, figuring out homeschooling for the first time and not finding a house to move to in Philly despite aggressively searching for 4 months just kind of caught up with us all at once.  Since we were kind of in a funk and not in the mood to do the things on our to-do list for the day, we made a spur of the moment decision to change our plans and have a little fun instead!

We’ve been talking about taking the family to Cherry Crest Adventure Farm for a long time and decided it was finally time to make it happen.  So we quickly fed the kiddos breakfast, packed everyone up and off we went.  And let me tell you, it was one of the best spur of the moment decisions ever!

Located in beautiful Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Cherry Crest Adventure Farm offers 15 acres of good, clean, interactive family fun and includes over 50 amazing activities!  There is honestly so much to do that no one will get bored even if you spend the whole day there!

Our Day of Family Fun at Cherry Crest Adventure Farm

Our 8 yr. old son spotted the Pedal Kart Tracks while we were waiting to be admitted into the farm and immediately insisted that we make that our first stop.  There are 2 tracks, separated by straw bales- a bigger track for older kids and a smaller track for the littler ones.  I was grateful for the 2 different tracks since the older kids tended to fly around, sometimes driving a little crazily.  🙂

All 3 children enjoyed this area, although not surprisingly, our son was the biggest fan.  Even after doing a dozen or so laps, he wasn’t ready to leave.  But we convinced him that there were just as many other fun things waiting to be explored in other parts of the farm!

Our children loved looking at and interacting with the animals in the Farm Experience Center.  The girls had fun watching the goats and their crazy antics and our son enjoyed touching the curious llamas.  We didn’t buy any food to feed them, but he’s resourceful and found “leftovers” on the ground and had lots of fun letting them nibble it out of his hands.

Inside the Discovery Barn, the kids got to hold some baby chicks.  They were intrigued with how fluffy and small they were!

Most of the rest of the attractions were up the hill and over the train tracks that are used by Strasburg Railroad.  Here are just a few of our favorites– there were lots more that I didn’t get pictures of!

Jumbo size Lincoln Logs anyone?

We all had fun trying to hit targets with these cool tennis ball slingshots!

This hay tunnel area took me back to my childhood days of playing in our neighbors barn.  We spent hours building tunnels and forts with the straw bales!  It was fun to see my own children enjoy a tiny taste of that.

The bounce pillow area is like playing on a giant trampoline!

And the giant slide?  Fun for all!  We spent close to a half hour here and the kids would have loved to stay even longer.

You can test your strength with the tractor pull and the post pounder.

The Amazing Maize Corn Maze

We ended the day with a trip through the 5 acre Amazing Maize Corn Maze.

There are 3 different challenge levels for the maze.  The easiest takes just around 20 minutes and the longest can take 2 hrs. or longer.  We of course chose the easy challenge since that worked the best with young children.

The easy challenge basically tells you where to go, but there were various activities to do and interesting things to read along the way, so it still was fun for all of us.

Frugal Tips for Cherry Crest Adventure Farm

Admission for Cherry Crest Adventure Farm is free for kids 2 and under, otherwise, tickets are $17 or $20 per person (kids and adults).  While the cost of admission is maybe a bit pricey, in my humble, frugal opinion, you definitely get your money’s worth of fun!

But since I’m all about making the most of your money, here are a few tips to do that when you visit Cherry Crest.

1.  Pack a lunch/drink
Cherry Crest does have a food court, but the food is pretty expensive.  However, there are lots of picnic tables throughout the farm and you are more than welcome to take your own food.

2.  Plan to go for the whole day
There is plenty to do, so why not get your money’s worth, right?  The farm is open 10 am. to 5 pm. most days, although some Fridays and Saturdays they are open until 7 pm. or 10 pm.  We were there for a little over 5 hours and could have easily spent more time there without any of us getting tired of it.

3.  Skip the “pay to do” attractions
There are a handful of attractions that aren’t included in the cost of admission (panning for diamonds, pony ride etc.).  While I wish that these attractions were simply included in the price of admission, you really don’t need to do them to have a great time.  There are so many other attractions that you won’t even feel like you are missing out by skipping the few that cost extra.

4.  Take your own stroller or wagon
You can opt to rent a wagon at Cherry Crest for about $20, but if you at all can, just take your own.

5.  Consider season passes
If you live nearby, it may be worth checking into season passes.  We have friends that have done this and according to them they were able to save even more money than usual by snagging them during Cherry Crest’s March Madness sale.

Cherry Crest Adventure Farm provided us with lots of great family fun and was definitely just what we needed to de-stress a bit!  If you get the chance, check it out for yourself.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!