The Original Manassero Farms Market - Irvine — Attraction in Irvine

I took my kids to do pick your own strawberries a few weeks ago with a friend and her daughter.

The good: the strawberries were plentiful and delicious, also easier to pick than most places because the beds are raised off the ground so you don't need to bend / crouch all the way down to the ground. They have a play area with toy tractors etc - kids enjoyed.

The bad: not cheap ($7/pound) and not organic.

The ugly: the girl at the tent was staring at us much of the time and at one point shouted towards me, "how many do you have?" I was confused for a moment wondering if she was asking how many strawberries we had picked and she clarified "how many clamshells?" I answered four; she walked away. When we finished picking, another lady came over to us - she said something along the lines of "it's 4:30pm, the fields closed half an hour ago. You spent over an hour picking, usually we allow 15-20 minutes." 1) no one told me the field was closing when I checked in (the girl at the tent could have also given me a heads up before 4pm that they were closing soon) and 2) I was there with 3 young kids ages 2, 4, and 7, we were there to have a fun time - was chatting with our friends, taking photos of the kids, and then helping all of them pick... I'm really expected to be done in 15-20 minutes? Then, as were walking out, I was carrying my two year old in one arm and a tray of four containers in the other arm. The lady looked at my tray (which I had brought myself) and said "we usually don't allow containers from outside." seriously? Its bad enough that they don't supply trays, but they are going to tell me I'm not supposed to bring my own? How am I supposed to carry a young child and four plastic containers of strawberries without a tray or bag?

In summary: This place is five minutes from my house and I am not planning to go back, unfortunately. The fields are overflowing with ripe strawberries, many are rotten and moldy from not being picked. They don't need to be so stingy with their berries (the girl at the tent literally told us we were allowed to taste 2 strawberries). They need more customers. Good customer service would go a long way. I could have brought many other friends there.

My recommendation: Go to The Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano for ORGANIC pick-your-own berries. I took my kids today and we had a wonderful time. The people were friendly, the strawberries were plentiful, beautiful, delicious, giant, and organic. Bit of a drive but...

My review is not about the place itself, it's about the disorganized Christmas event they just held.

We don't live close by, so we had to account for traffic since there is ALWAYS traffic. We checked in about 20 minutes earlier than our scheduled time. While checking we got scolded for showing up early. According to the lady checking people in, we had to be there right at our scheduled time. Not off to a good start. After we checked in, we saw that there was a lot of people there already and just all over the place. There were people waiting to have their photo taken with Santa inside the make shift snow globe.

We then take our little one to the play area they have for kids. In that play area they have tricycles and a play farm stand and a the "Step2" big roller coaster. Tell my why it didn't occur to any staff member to remove the car for that toy. Kids wanted to use it and we're crashing into other adults and kids after rolling down the toy. Needless to say, kids and others were annoyed. And yes, parents should tell their kids not use it in a crowded place, but non the less, it shouldn't have been there to begin with. So after seeing that, we left that area.

Finally, our ticket number was called to take our photos with Santa. Well, it didn't occur that since this globe is made out of plexi glass that there would be a reflection. So our pictures that were taken from outside didn't come out because of the glare and reflection of the snow globe. Luckily, there was a little window so you could put your phone through to take pictures from inside.

The concept of the snow globe for pictures is a great one, but not during the day. It should be used for a night event. Needless to say, it was very disorganized, pictures were not good, and being scolded even though it was packed inside, made it unpleasant. We will not be going back for the...

We’ve been berry picking multiple places in multiple states, this was the worst, least enjoyable of them all in terms of experience and quality of fruit. 2 stars for the neat well kept common area and fun kids play area.

We booked 2 tickets for u-pick online for 10am Monday checked in at 9:20 and was just told to wait at the gate. At 10:07 someone came out to lead us in but when asked about a box she rudely told me to go to the front which I already did 47mims ago and no one said anything to me! The berries on the field were very low quality, lots rotting or soft, Very small nonripe berries. The attendant made the experience so uncomfortable, standing watch the whole time. She rush us to leave bc we only had 15 to pick for each 30min pick time, which no one told us beforehand. On top of that we waited patiently even though she came out at 10:07 for a 10am pick time so that ate into our time. I felt bad for anyone coming in after us, for sure there wasn’t enough good berries for picking even at 10am.

We only went so that our toddlers can experience picking, allotting 15mins to pick is unreasonable. We can buy strawberries inside the stand, everyone does the picking for the experience but being rushed totally negated the point of it all. The time limit doesn’t make sense as you already paid for a box it’s not like it’s all you can pick for 30 mins or that we’re asking to stay for an hr and crowd the field but getting 15min to pick is ridiculous for a family...