Cambria Christmas Market — Attraction in Cambria

My wife grabbed tickets ($35/each for the four of us) to attend this Christmas Market (11/25/23) during our stay in Cambria. I was skeptical when she said we'd have to take a bus to get there and park somewhere in town. Well, we got in line at main street west at about 4:30 and made the second little bus of 25. There were easily 100 people in line for the 5:30pm start. We arrived and they made us wait on the bus for other busses to empty. There were a good 200-300 people in line for the ticket booth (remember, we already bought tickets). There were massive tour-style buses that seemed to have brought people from Morro, SLO and other major towns. We got into the "Market" and were starving, and hit the Biergarten first - the wood fired pizza was legit, as was the authentic Bitburger beer (the Budweiser of Germany) and the Gluwine (spelling). We then hit the upper market area - Linn's Fruit Bin (crazy line), and many other Cambria stores had little "sheds" set up for business. Pricing was pretty high for everything we saw...we only bought one thing here the entire night. The lights were pretty spectacular though as well as the little "scenes" of supposed German folklore. The lights went on for a while and it dumped us out toward the Nursery, which was also part of the event. We walked through a massive Christmas themed store (with airport prices on everything) and had to actually make a U turn to get back to the market area. The 4' wide pathway proved to be challenging, just like the 101 freeway during rush hour in Santa Barbara. We made it back and wanted something sweet - and ended up with these "fresh" cinnamon rolls. First - cash is not accepted here (that was a bummer for $10 rolls x 2) and they were honestly disgusting - I had 2 bites of mine as did my daughter. Terrible weird fake butter taste and the icing was anything but sweet. We hopped into line to get the bus back at 7:30, as we were told by the bus driver that lines at the end of the night would be horrendous. To sum it up: Pros - Lights, Pizza, Beer. Cons: Crowds of People (I'd estimate 10-15K people there that night), Price, slightly disorganized, terrible cinnamon rolls. Averages out to 3 stars. We spent $249 between tickets, pizza, couple of drinks, cinnamon rolls and a $25...

I have been attending this function for many years. Missed the last couple of years and came back last night. The parking situation is a bit weird. The elementary school and high school has very little parking and the lots were closing. Not sure what you do if you have a ticket and can't get parking for the shuttle. We parked at the high school but had to walk from past the baseball field to the front of the school. It was really dark. No lights, no signs, no one directing you were to go. I finally asked because I didn't see a shuttle anywhere. The shuttles are really nice and the driver very informative. From leaving our house in Atascadero and getting to the Christmas market took about 1 hour. We started with food. The Deutsche place was very good. We ate in the beer garden and had a beer. They are pouring Barrel House. Finished our food, purchased the Gluhwein with a Brandy topper and off we went to look at the lights. Didn't spend a lot of time in the Christmas market because we thought we would do that on the way back. Lots of photo opportunities that we took advantage of. Love the snow globe photo's. Walked across to the Nursery and strolled through the gardens and Christmas shops. They had some beautifully decorated trees. It was now 8:30 and staff started following us around letting us know they were closing in 9 min, 7 min, 5 min. We were walking through the store to the exit and every 2 min they would approach us and everyone else with the warning. We walked back to the lights to do the other half and in hopes of shopping at the market but when we started back everyone was being ushered out. They blocked of all the areas we hadn't seen such as the Golden Gate bridge and the lower parts toward the exit and made us go back the way we came in. Once we were back at the Christmas market everything was closing up. Closing at 9 is really early. You buy a ticket and can't even have the whole experience. I am sure the staff is just doing what management has instructed so I don't blame them. Overall an OK experience but definitely disappointed that there was no signage displayed on what time they close and how rushed we were. Super disappointed I didn't get to shop in...

This was probably the worst experience I've had in a while. After driving over an hour and a half, we had to spend an additional 45 minutes being directed from place to place trying to find parking because everything was at capacity (we arrived at 5:15, so just a little bit after they opened.) The traffic directors were rude and it was obvious that there was zero communication between them, so they were sending people to other parking lots that were already full to capacity. Eventually we found a spot downtown and began walking toward where the shuttle was. Once we get there, we realize that the line is about a block and a half long. We waited for about 30 minutes before we finally decided that the shuttle wasn't worth it, so we decided to just start walking. After walking another 30 minutes (two miles, with an 18 month old toddler) we got to the world's worst "staircase" which was really just 250 wooden beams place unevenly up a mountain. We eventually got to the top after lugging up our son, his stroller and diaper bad, and my Asthmatic self. Once at the entrance, we were shoved like cattle into wall to wall people. It was all the worst parts of the crowds at Disney World, but with literally none of the joy. At this point, we're just desperate to make our way out of it so we can walk the 2 miles back to our car and go home. We make our way through , me on the verge of an anxiety attack, my son upset that he can't get out and go look at the lights because he would get trampled in about 2.5 seconds, and my husband trying to plan our escape. We spent $20 per ticket and over 5 hours of our time, and we couldn't even enjoy the lights that we did get to see because the overall experience was just absolutely awful. Maybe we chose the wrong night to go, but honestly I doubt it. Definitely not family friendly and we definitely won't be back. The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars is because I eventually was able to get a pretty good cup of coffee, but that was legitimately the...