Oakes Farm — Attraction in Maynardville

My family is new to Knoxville and were looking for a pumpkin patch. This place seemed pretty popular so we decided to give it a try. It's a nice place. We went last weekend and we enjoyed the day but we will look for a different pumpkin patch next year for a few reasons. 1. My family just prefers a simpler experience. While this farm had a lot of activities, it was a bit overwhelming and there were a TON of people. 2. This being our first time here, we expected to take a wagon ride out to a pumpkin patch and pick our own pumpkins off the vine. But when we got there it was just a bunch of pumpkins that had already been picked, laying in a grassy field. Also, the pumpkins are all one price regardless of size ($6 each) but this was not made clear. We paid $13 for a medium sized pumpkin and a very small pumpkin. 3. The sunflower field was pretty but you have to buy a tin bucket (about the size of a large vase) for $18 if you want to pick any at all. We didn't want enough flowers for a huge arrangement, just a couple for our daughters but $18 was entirely too expensive. 4. While there are several locations for purchasing food (BBQ, pretzels, kettle corn, fudge, and more) the place we chose was operated in a very inefficient way. We spent about 30 minutes in line. In fact, the majority of our day was spent standing in line for something. When it was our turn to order it became clear what the problem was.They could only cook a small number of pretzels at a time. While the pretzels were cooking they did not move on to the next person in line, they just waited. So the whole line got held up over pretzels whether you were ordering one or not. There has to be a better way to handle this to keep the line moving more efficiently. I"m not sure what the other food locations were like but the lines for every location were very long. To be fair, there were a ton of people there on the day we visited, but all the more reason to make sure everything is running as efficiently as possible. If you don't mind big crowds and picking your pumping off the vine yourself is not important to you, then you will probably like this place. It was clean, there were plenty of fun activities, and several cute places to take photos. But if you're like us and prefer a simpler, calmer experience, I would...

Came on Thursday. Very disappointing. Food is closed for sick employees. Certain activities are only open on weekends. Talked to the manager dena about coming back on the weekend instead when stuff was supposed to be fixed. She refused. She was very hateful. I've worked in food service, if your employees are sick, you get off your butt and pitch in and work yourself. Waste of time and money when a simple request would have fixed it all. Poor customer service. Kettle korn machine broken, was looking forward to that. No funnel cakes right now either. I specially asked about food when I came in and was assured it was all open. That was a lie. Pretty bad to lie straight to someone's face when they ask about something specific. Go to maple lane farms in greenback, tn instead. I went there last weekend, and it's so much nicer and friendly. Do yourself a favor and pass on this place. Terrible experience made worse by even more terrible customer service. Women's bathroom of 7-8 stalls only had 2 with toilet paper. Guess they do not check that on...

I accompanied my child on her first field trip to Oakes farm. I have been a few times before with my family and always had a great time. Unfortunately today was not so great. Every staff member we encountered seemed bothered by our presence. When we visited the cart track the young attendants were very rude to the parents and especially the kids, throwing their hands up in frustration. They yelled at the children to get off the carts if they couldn’t pedal them. This would be fine if the message were delivered a little nicer. There were a lot of tears for the little kindergarteners. We visited a few other attractions with more grumpy staff members that were clearly not meant to deal with young children. Lastly, there was no soap in the bathrooms or the animal area. When I approached a staff member to tell him, he told me that I was not correct. I found that interesting as I had just attempted to wash my hands maybe 30 seconds prior. I hope that this visit was just a fluke and that it’s a better experience next time. Bring....