Goebbert's Farm - South Barrington — Attraction in Barrington Township

First time experience and mixed feelings. Beautiful farm, lots of things to see. Unfortunately, one specific issue did bother my family and so I’m unsure if we will return in the future.

It was mine and my husbands anniversary, we wanted a fun family day with the kids. We both took work off so we all could do something fun together (we work opposite schedules).

We purchased our tickets online, 3 entry tickets and 1 animal ride ticket. Online, when purchasing the animal ride, it says “children UNDER 2-5 years old must be accompanied by a paying adult”. My child is almost 2, so I assumed she was considered “under 2-5 years old”. We waited in line for over 30 minutes with a very fussy toddler who did her best to wait patiently for her turn, got to the front of the line (literally first person to go on the next ride), no one mentioned anything as we waited for the ride before us to finish and then right before entering, we were asked her age and told she has to be at least 2.

I went to the ticket booth to be refunded the $8 for the animal ride since our toddler was too little to use it and my 11 year old is too big to use it. When I told the lady what happened, she said they used to allow under 2 with an adult but have a new company this year doing the pony rides and now it’s 2 and up. I suggested they make it more clear online because as of yesterday (when we went) it says UNDER 2-5 years need to be accompanied by an adult, and she said “yes we do need to change it”. It is something so minor, but was very upsetting.

Anyone with a toddler waiting over 30 minutes in a line will understand how frustrating this is. We wasted time that could have been spent elsewhere on the farm, enjoying activities. We knew our time was limited as our toddler would need her routine nap, so waiting that long to do nothing, then waiting again in a line to get refunded for a ticket we would have never even bought if it said “2 and up” in the details, was frustrating as at that point at least half our time was wasted. We missed out on other activities, and really just felt like we wasted our money to go here.

Please update your website so other parents in the future do not experience the same confusion, frustration, and heartbreak we had to. It was humiliating walking out of the line, it was frustrating, I was in tears, and it did set the tone for a period of time afterwards. We did our best to make the best of things afterwards, but it could have been a completely different experience if the website had correct and clear...

I will probably never come here again. Last time I was here was 2019 before the wrist band policy. Now they want $22 on weekends for a wrist band and $19 on the weekdays. If you don’t have a wrist band, you can only enter their store but not the farm. They won’t even let you buy food in the cafe. You can only stop at the small cider stand that’s in the store. It was good, but they serve cider too hot and don’t warn you! I burnt my tongue and throat. I arrived at 5:30 close to closing. I just wanted to get something in the cafe after buying apples, apple butter, and other stuff in their store. They told me that I had to have a wrist band to enter the cafe to get food and without the wrist band I could only get something at cider stand. This is ridiculous. They try to say activities are included in price of wrist band. Most of these activities are for children, so it just doesn’t make sense for me. Camel riding is the only activity that interests me, but that is extra money and not included in the wrist band. These prices are crazy, especially for larger families. What does somebody with 5 kids do? People should only have to pay for the activities they want to participate in and nobody should have to spend $22 if they just want to buy something from the cafe. They will lose business. They could have made some extra money from me if they would have let me purchase something in the cafe. I had already bought stuff in their store. Now they will get nothing. Shame on them. It’s a farm in the midwest not an amusement park. Very rude employees too who are checking everybody’s wrist. At first I thought the fees were only weekends, but I asked the ticket woman and she told me I must pay $19 on weekdays. I then remarked it was close to closing and I just wanted to get a snack. She told me if she were me she wouldn’t pay so close to closing too, but couldn’t just let me in. So rude. I didn’t even ask her to let me in for free, but considering I didn’t want to partake in their activities and so close to closing, they should not want to lose business...

When we initially got to Goebbert’s we thought it was great, BUT then we saw the conditions the animals were in and were appalled. This is not an apple orchard; it’s a facility exploiting exotic animals. There are camels, giraffes, kangaroos and more animals that are not in proper living conditions and enclosures. The camel’s hump was hanging down, which is a sign of dehydration and malnourishment. The kangaroos were not hopping around, there were many confined to a small enclosure and they seemed lifeless. The giraffe was not in a large enough space or an enclosure that felt safe for it or the visitors. Instead of a carousel, Goebbert’s opted for live pony rides imitating a carousel where ponies are chained face to butt and have to do rides all day. The farm’s setup seems designed to keep these animals hungry so visitors can feed them carrots & animals were clearly hungry. Not to mentioned these activities were unsupervised by staff which is dangerous for not only the animals but the children & visitors feeding them too. It’s irresponsible at best. After seeing recent docu series like Chimp Crazy and Tiger King my alarm bell were ringing the entire time that there’s something not right going on here- these animals are being neglected and abused. Unfortunately, there are not many protections under the law for them, so please consider not going here or supporting this business to show you do not support their animal enclosures. The business would do just fine without the exotic animals- it’s not an appropriate place for them and there are plenty of other activities there to bring in business. I wish Goebbert’s would consider that & they won’t be getting my business until they rethink their exotic animal enclosures and treatment of animals. That was really...