Connors Farm — Attraction in Danvers

Expiration dates on baked goods are unrealistically long for an open-air environment (days for muffins, a week on pies): They are regularly stale or even moldy (especially in summer). Hamburgers & hotdogs are cooked in advance first thing in the morning, stored outdoors at ambient temperature, then reheated when they are ordered hours later.

When picking your own fruit, you will have to pay for the container itself - which prepays for the fruit. The fields & orchards are small & get picked out quickly (in later years they were ill-kept & produced little): Once there is no fruit left in the field/orchard, the owner has the cashiers keep selling the containers for another 1-2 weeks while telling the customers that the picking is “fair” to “good." When customers return from the field/orchard with no fruit & ask for a refund, the owner tells them that there is a "no refund" policy. Such a policy only can be legally cited when the customer changes his/her mind, not when the owner charges for something that can't be provided - that's fraud. The owner refuses to issue even a partial refund & tells the customers to fill their container from the display of fruit in the stand - which costs less than pick-your-own & deprives the customers of the pick-your-own experience they paid for.

You will have to pay admission to go on the grounds to get to the picking fields, over & above the cost of the fruit. The owner says that charging admission provides "value" because you can go on a hayride, the bounce house, the pedal carts, etc., but most of these things only appeal to children. On weekdays (when the hayrides, etc. are closed and there are only tire swings & slides open), there is still an admission charge, just a little lower. As of 2018, there is a small jumping pillow open on weekdays (the hayrides, pedal carts, etc. still are closed on weekdays). Still, it is only justified to charge for children who are going to use the play area, not to charge for adults to enter the grounds, especially when they are already paying customers.

The corn maze (open since 2008) has increased the volume of business at the farm compared to when it was simply a produce stand. A few years ago, the owner opened a larger portion of one of his fields for use as a parking lot, resulting in a number of customers beyond the feasible capacity of the stand & grounds. It has become an overcrowded place with 2-3 hour lines just to buy tickets. When criticized on this, the owner criticizes the customers for complaining that the place is popular, despite the fact that he lets the place become more crowded than it can handle - & he has reduced his staff at the same time.

The Haunted Cornfield & Woods and Zombie Paintball attractions (Fri & Sat nights in October) are supposed to run until 11 PM, but the owner deliberately oversells tickets to the point that it takes 2-3 hours past the nominal closing time for the employees to get all the customers through the queue line. I've seen employees come into the stand & beg the owner to shut off ticket sales for the night, and he refuses to do so. The owner closes the stand itself at 11 PM, and since that is where the ticket transactions occur, the customers who already bought their tickets (well within the hours of operation) & are left outside in the queue line have no one to ask for a refund. Customers sometimes go into the stand (before 11 PM) and ask for a refund when they realize that they will not get into the attraction before 11 PM: They are told there is a "no refund" policy. The owner charges for something that cannot be provided within anything close to the advertised time frame. The Zombie Paintball attraction closed after 2016 and the owner then increased ticket sales for the Haunted Cornfield & Woods even further beyond its capacity - to the point that even the people inside the attraction itself are packed into one continuous line. Also, the quality of the attraction has decreased: There are few actors, they put little to no effort into their performances, and they wear old clothes & cheap...

Birthday Party Review

We had a decent experience. Lots of things were very unorganized and could've been easily avoided to make the process better. With a 2 hour barn rental, the disorganization played a big part in the overall experience.

It took guests 20 minutes to park, get through the lines to check-in to the party, and make their way to where the barn is. The pizzas we ordered there were 20 minutes late. We waited 15 minutes and had to call to get on the train ride thats supposed to be running through the day. It seems like there is one operator for all of their offerings (hay ride, cow cart ride, and train). It would've been an understandable delay if the other rides weren't vacant. We had to call the front office twice just to get on one of the rides.

Of course, at no fault of Connors farm, it was 90 degrees outside so it was overwhelmingly hot to be outside for a long period of time. I realize there isn't much Connors farm could've done but we even had to bring our own fan in because there was no relief in the designated barn. They're mainly closed in and it was hotter in the barn than outside which led alot of guests to walk out.

We only had 22 guests (25 minimum paid) and the poor party coordinator was overloaded. She was new and I felt bad because she didn't seem to have the support that she needed but thats speculation. I verbalize my concerns through the party to her when she was checking in but I understood that it wasnt anything she could personally help with. I didnt give her a hard time and actually sympathize with her.

The barns for the birthday are right across from the animals so the flies are out of control which doesnt make for a great lunch/party space. I get it- its a farm, but even their food offerings are not within 20 feet of the animals for a reason. Also, you have to be packed away and cleaned up at the end of the 2 hours so plan for 20 minutes of that 2 hour slot being used for clean up and clearing out! There is an awkward time between the renters cleaning up and the guests waiting to continue on through the park which is a good spot for improvement.

Ultimately, the park is great - we love to visit here in the fall (in spite of the ex-cop like apple attendant who is hostile to say the least) and thought it would've been a great birthday party spot. It was a one-time experience for us and all of the families who attended but definitely could've been better with some minor adjustments and better organization.

The cost is reasonable but could be structured differently. In my opinion, it should be set price to reserve the barn for the day instead of just 2 hour spot plus the ticket purchase regardless of how many. The minimum is 25 people which I can understand a minimum, but for groups of 15, its not worth it at all. We had 22 so it was okay but I cant imagine any less. For other birthday parties (I have many kids so I am familiar with the competition) where its geared towards kids, the parents/chaperones do not count in the head count which makes sense but here it does so keep that in mind.

Overall - it was NOT a bad experience but simple things could've made it much better. The delays and organization contributed to the worst of it. Again, 20 minutes for guests to get in on a busy weekend, 20 minute pizza delay, 20 minutes to pack up all incurred during a 2 hour block leaves 1 hour to avtually eat lunch, sing happy birthday, and gather together.

Im hoping they reconstruct their birthday parties so we can try again in...

The Hysteria Haunted Farm groupon brought my friends and I here! We figured we could check out the farm during the day time as well! I had a horrible flash back on our way here when we were on Valley Rd. again the one lane road to the Topsfield fair (now that place I have no nice words to spare, see that review if you're curious). Thankfully it only took about 15 minutes to make our way to the large parking area. It can get muddy when it's raining. We waited for another 5 minutes in the line to buy our tickets and they had a line for cash, which was faster than looping all the way around the store registers if you pay with card. True Rating = 3.5 from the excessive lines and waiting, they could really be better managed.

CONNORS FARM The $14 entrance fee per person is somewhat steep especially as an adult. Many of the activities are geared towards kids such as the pillow bounce, peddle karts etc... We watched the pig races, rode the grain train, rode mechanical bull, rats racing barrels, pumpkin bingo and of course the premiere Corn Maze. It's very cool that they change the theme of the corn maze each year. This year it was Charlie Brown & The Great Pumpkin. I definitely recommend following the question sheet guides or using the text options (however signal is limited). We might have passed a few of the actual phases but we made it through all the way within 40 minutes.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Smokehouse food even though by the time we visited around 5pm they were running out of food. My SO ordered the half rack of ribs for $18 and it seems like they might have given him a full rack (or a very generous size) with potato salad and corn on the cob. We shared his plate.

HYSTERIA HAUNTED FARM I was surprised to learn that the Hysteria is run by a different company than Connor's. They allowed us to redeem our tickets from Groupon around 6PM but they didn't officially open their doors until around 7:15PM. We should have started lining up right away, but by the time we tried to find the location there was already a huge line forming. We got the tickets & VIP bracelets from Groupon, but to be honest they did not really have a distinction between the lines for us to take advantage. We accidentally asserted ourselves to the front near the corn fields and they just let our group through!

Aside from the attraction starting late around 7:30, my friends and I were very impressed with the set up of the Haunted Farm. I won't give too much away but they had tons of spooky props, misty of fog, 70+ actors and a very extensive trail to get through the farm! They even were able to repurpose a school bus. This was infinitely better than the spook walks that we went to at Six Flags. The actors were much more interactive than I expected and they did a great job of scaring everyone in the group not just those in the front or the back. They even followed you around for several paces beyond their mark. We finished the haunted farm trail in about 45 minutes and I would definitely recommend it. Not sure if I would have wanted to wait in the rain though since once we finished we felt the drops of...