Blessington Farms — Attraction in Brookshire

If you are into the sort of place where your kids have a blast, but you and your spouse pray for rain so the experience can end prematurely, then this is the place for you! Family of 5, with one under 2, $40 for entry. Luckily, some kind soul of a man who was escaping Blessington Farms randomly handed me a wristband, so $30 for us.

I get it, it's a cheap alternative to expensive theme parks because your average 5 year old is not going to have any more fun on a $20M roller coaster than he/she would on poorly made attractions made from material bought from the Tractor Supply place. The kids really eat that stuff up.

The problem is that there wasn't enough order. I never got the feeling that anyone was really....running the place. Granted it was Good Friday, school was out, shame on us for trying to cooperate with such a mass of people. Prime example here:

There's a knoll with a series of slides made from industrial materials. Picture a flat, 8 foot wide sheet of thick plastic running down a hill as one of them. No rails, nothing designating a queue, no employee up top ensuring any sort of organization. We walk up to this hill see a swarm of kids and adults scattering like ants, people running in every direction, as far as the eye could see. I tell the wife, "this is a lawsuit waiting to happen". We cross our fingers and turn our kids loose....gotta let them learn. The kids played briefly, then I walk our 18 month old up to the top to hold her in my lap as we slide down the sheet of death. After being that grumpy guy that barks at unwatched kids for cutting in front of others who are trying their best to make a line, I get into position with my baby. A kind stranger asks if I need help, I look down and say, "no, but that little girl who just walked onto the bottom of the slide might". We helplessly watch as the soon to be victim stood there, oblivious to the missile-like kids streaking past her on the slide, bumbling around. Sure enough, we see what looked to be an 8 year old taking direct aim for her. It was one of those scenes where her legs were taken out from under her, she went end over end, violently smacking her head on the slide. My wife got to her first...no sign of this girl's parent. She was out of breath, went into one of those crying spells where nothing comes out. My wife's holding this kid and out of nowhere a mother appears. Rather than thanking my wife for helping her little girl or consoling her injured daughter, she immediately goes into a tirade at the girl's older sister who was supposed to have been watching her. Since ya know, 6 year olds generally make the best parents for 3 year olds. I really just wanted to leave...there were a lot of scenes like this at Blessington Farms that day.

Other highlights: The mentally handicapped kid who was punching a chicken (unsupervised) Picking strawberries...I mean, we didn't pick strawberries but the people that got there as soon as it opened may have picked strawberries. $5/lb apparently. So we're clear, I can have other people pick my strawberries for me and bring them to HEB for $3/lb. There is a dirt track with these pedal powered go-carts. It's a great learning experience for your kids when you wait in something that resembled a line and have to explain to them how many parents allow their kids to be complete jerks...they'd just run onto the track from nowhere to claim a recently abandoned cart. "I know son...I know I told you to run and get that cart since it's, ya know, our TURN and all, but that kid doesn't have to follow rules". When we left Blessington Farms

I imagine this was a really cool place when no one had heard of it a few years ago. The owners probably had and have good intentions, but they need to put a leash on this place.

2/5 - would...

👎👎👎 Don’t go to this farm. I don’t even want to give 1 ⭐️ to this place. Me and my family had really bad experience last Sunday. We planned to go there for picking the strawberries. This is our first time to this place. When we got there around 12:40 pm and went inside the farm. We didn’t see anything yet, and especially the ones at the front desk didn’t asked or checked on us. So we got inside and looked around to see where is the place for picking the strawberries? Then my son saw the barrel train ride. He wanted to have a ride. I came over and asked the driver how much for the ticket? He said it’s free, then he said if I had the wristband, it’s free. He did show me where to get. Then me and my family went back to the main entrance and the owner came by and asked us do we have a wristband? I told her we don’t, because we didn’t know that we need to buy those wristbands at the front. One of her staff came to us and told us that: “I need to pay $20 for each person. Even though we didn’t play any activities yet or get on the ride. If we don’t want it, just get out of here!”. Instead of asking me or guide me where is the right direction. He just wanted us to pay, we have been trying to explain to him and asked him the discount; and we will leave right away. That was so rude and so aggressive of him. By the time we got to the parking lot, then 2 staffs followed us and asked us to pay $75. But when we came to the admission desk, he asked me the credit card to pay $140 for 7 tickets. One of the man staff also took the picture from us and the license plate from our car and didn’t want us to leave until we pay for them. That’s so ripped off and ridiculous....I asked do they have any discount for the seniors, especially my parents already 69 and 77 years old. What can they play or do over there??? The 2 kids not even 2 years old yet, they can’t be there by themselves. I didn’t see many games or activities that we can be playable with them. The jump pad is outdoor with the temperature 85 degrees, it’s been so hot already and there was too much sands on the pad. How can the kids jump on it??? The slide mountain is so high for his age and no staffs around there to watch on them for the safety. I really don’t want to put the kids under that high risk! The man staff told me they don’t care about it. The way the staffs talked and treated us seemed like they are money hungers. Being the owner or the staffs are working there, should talk nicely or explain clearly to the customers, especially for whoever never been there before or first time there. We drove 1 hr to get there and got that kind of services???? Don’t waste your time and money to go to this farm! The owner also told us: “We better do a research before we come here!”. The owner and the staffs were very rude to us! I felt like there is a discrimination. This is first and also our last time to go to this farm. If one day this farm will offer for free. I don’t even care or want to come back there anymore. So...

Strawberry Picking Experience Only - I would not recommend their strawberry picking. This review is solely based on our strawberry picking experience, I'm sure the other kid activity area is lovely. We went on a colder day, it was high 50's low 60's. First the staff seemed quite sharp with us. We explained it was our first time and I felt the eye rolls and "duh" look when we didn't know the rules and they had to explain them to us. When I asked if we could use our own containers the staff member said we could not and had to buy a basket for $1.50 and we HAD to cut the strawberries with a scissors otherwise they won't grow back. (I've been strawberry picking since I was a kid and we grew them in our backyard growing up and I have never heard that rule. It seemed weird to me and disappointing that my toddler couldn't pick them.) But these were stacked strawberries grown in tall pots and I figured, fine, it's their rules let's go ahead and do this. THEN I see a big sign that says do not eat the strawberries (once again I've never seen that on any farm I've ever been to, which is half the fun!) It was tricky with a toddler wanting to pull the strawberries and towards the end I tried one (I'm a rebel I know, but I was curious on the sweetness factor and how many we should actually pick). They were NOT sweet, and didn't taste like strawberries, it basically tasted like water. Many were rotten or rotting so it was tricky going around them. So I cut our losses short and checked out. It was nice they allowed credit cards and the gal put our basket in a plastic bag. (Why waste plastic especially when we have a basket already?) I asked her if we could skip the plastic bag and she said no problem. So on our way out, we were stopped by the parking lot ladies and they told us that the plastic bag was proof that we paid and we don't have one so we must not have paid. I dug out my receipt and sweetly showed them and they seemed annoyed. I would personally pass on the berry picking experience here, I cannot speak for the kid area as it was too drizzly and windy to...