Carolina Renaissance Festival — Local services in Huntersville

I hate to give a 1 star review. Every member on the team counts. The Faire was amazing! Royal family was amazing! Everyone at the faire! Amazing and nice! When my brother told me that they were getting married at a Renaissance faire. I was so excited! This was our first experience at a Renaissance festival for my husband and our 3 girls. My 3 little girls (4,6,7 yr olds) were the flower girls!  A magical wedding turned unmagical before even beginning. 2 weeks prior I got a call from my brother and his fiance. Bride crying. A guy named Rufus threatened them that they were kicked from the wedding because they kept calling to see the plans for the wedding. Not Cheap! They had heard nothing! I called to see what was going on to try and elevate their stress before their big day and left a message. Rufus finally got back to them.Wedding back on! My girls and I were on the way to rehearsal. We ended up 4 min late to the rehearsal due to an accident. He glared right at me and my girls as we entered and said we were late and he wasnt going to walk us through or explain anything. Bride had to walk through with the girls herself. She was not even sure what was correct because he had not given them any practice either. They were introducing everyone. Rufus chimed in and said dont forget about me or I will cancel your wedding.-- which would have been funny if he didnt just threaten that 2 weeks prior as an actual threat. He then told us we had to leave at 3:15pm. EVERYONE left super confused. THE BIG DAY had finally arrived!!! We were all so excited! None of us knowing what to do for the actual ceremony. A lovely young lady checked us in and a nice man led us to the wedding area. They were both amazing! Once I entered I saw Rufus pacing and checking his watch.- which he did the entire time we were there. As if he just couldnt wait for the wedding to be done. He didnt try and speak with us. Nothing. NO COMMUNICATION on what to do. The officiant and the harp player showed up and explained things. They were both super nice! My girls started practicing for their big moment. Rufus came up and said that the girls were not allowed to be flower girls. Never said prior or the day before at rehearsal! Ceremony starts, my girls were not really sure what to do!  The ceremony was beautiful. The royal family surprised us and joined our party! They were all so nice and amazing! They spoke with us all. Personable. Dances, mingled, played with the kids. They were all so genuine! Joust was amazing. My brother and his wife up there with the queen and princess!!! So memorable! .It was all such an amazing experience! NO COMMUNICATION. We get back to do cake. Rufus was pacing and looking at his watch. Rufus spoke to my mother, super rude and disrespectful. He then just comes up and takes a piece without even asking and while he thought no one was looking! Mind you I spent over 1k on this cake. If he did a better job we would have offered.1:55pm. He told my grandmother to pick up all the flowers off of the ground. He stated we had 5 minutes to get everything out and no one could get it if it was left.To turn around and see your 70 year old grandma picking up stuff was not okay. I tell you the atmosphere and opportunities were amazing! Everything was so magical! The wedding ceremony was so beautiful! Everyone was so kind and nice. They spent a lot of extra money on this for us to experience this with them. Seeing them go through this. I DO NOT RECCOMEND HAVING A WEDDING IF RUFUS IS YOUR CONTACT. He is disrespectful and very rude. Will ruin the whole experience for everyone. Made their life a living hell on the most special day of their lives. I cannot even imagine what my brother and his wife went through with him leading up to this.  Could have been an...

I used to love the renaissance festival as and kid and growing up. This year I thought I’d take my kids so they could learn to love it too. Unfortunately, that dream quickly shattered when we got to the entrance. I have a baby that’s on special formula due to a dietary issue. This formula (as well as many other formulas) has to be mixed with a certain type of water, as it has minerals in it and mixing it with any water which has minerals can lead to mineral poisoning and make a baby very sick. So I always keep a bottle of purified water on me for this purpose. As we entered the renaissance faire, I had two bottles of purified water in my stroller (one which was opened in the car to make a bottle and another which was entirely sealed) as well as a small holder of powder formula, both simultaneously in sight next to each other in the stroller directly next to the baby so it should have been quite obvious that their intended use was for making formula. A man promptly stopped us at the door and demanded we throw away the bottles next to the baby. I refused explaining my situation and why they were needed. He proceeded to tell me there was water in the faire and I can buy more inside. I proceeded to tell him that in my experience, most of these venues carry spring water which is enriched with a lot of minerals which cannot be mixed into this type of formula and that I specifically needed purified or distilled water. He proceeded to (lie) to me that that WAS the kind of water they had inside (purified). But I had my doubts so I still refused to throw it away. He then told me my water bottles were opened and that’s why they had to be thrown out. I told him I’d be willing to throw out the one opened one but that I had another entirely sealed with the label on it and I would not be willing to throw it away. He proceeded to REACH INTO MY STROLLER to grab the bottles from the baby’s seat without my consent and tossed them into the trash. I rushed over to the drink kiosk in a panic only to find out that, lo and behold, there was only spring water. Thankfully they didn’t throw away the water in my toddler’s cup so I was able to scrounge up enough for a small bottle before we had to leave early and make the long drive home. I contacted management about this and little was done to resolve it. They finally found some water hours later after we’d been long gone. Buying another outside the faire and coming back in seemed fruitless since they obviously aren’t honoring their policy of allowing unopened containers and don’t care whether it’s for a baby so that would have gotten thrown away too. I got an apologetic email from the manager saying they will have to do “retraining,” but how has it not already been deeply instilled into these staff members that you do not take formula, drinks, or foods from babies or people with special needs? How is stealing part of formula from a baby not an obviously wrong thing to do? It is NOT your job to question or disregard the medical needs of people’s children. The fact this wasn’t common knowledge to them to begin with is...

Money hungry penny pinchers. They sell way more tickets than they should and it’s super overcrowded. You will spend most of your day waiting in line for parking, food, drink, events, and ATM. Everything is overpriced. A folding hand fan was $40. Don’t eat the turkey legs they are pork, not turkey. They are serving pig legs. The food is way overpriced for what it is. It has no flavor. Everything comes out of bags the chicken, the mac and cheese, the turkey. Nothing is fresh everything is frozen, not saying that’s unusual for a fair, but the prices are unusual for everything to be frozen. Also NEVER work for food and beverage. Laura and Eli treat you like they own you not like a human being. On a day the festival was not open my kitchen was done with all of our tasks. Everybody was standing around, waiting to go down to the other kitchen to clean it, so I stepped outside to make a call because we had no tasks that needed to be done. I was moved from week and weekend crew to only weekend because of this. They make all 300 something employees stand in line to get their time cards to clock in and to clock out at the end of the night, wasting a lot of time that could be spent working if we got to hold on to our cards. They are super slow to make your work ID if you work during the week, which you need to get in. Make a big stink about letting you in if you don’t have an ID. Will waste your time and have you waiting at the front gate to WORK FOR THEM. Before I had my ID I tried to go to work on a weekend, told the information booth which staffing agency I was with. They proceeded to tell me I had to wait for someone from the agency to walk me in. With the staffing agency I was through, there was no one to walk me in. Only some of the staffing agencies walk their people in. They go through about 3 different staffing agencies to find people for work. So I had to go back up and tell them there’s no one from that agency here to walk me in. Then I had to call Laura to prove I worked there. Come to find out they were supposed to radio Laura with their walkie talkies as soon as I said who I was and where I worked to make sure I could go in. Why didn’t they know how to do their job? That is not a position they give to new people you have to consistently work these festivals. They also will not let workers take home food at the end of the night that is just going to get thrown out anyway. What a waste. This is my first year working here and I WILL NOT be coming back. Also unsanitary, some of the workers do not change their gloves in between touching different things and surfaces and food. People will cough on their gloves touch a cleaning rag then touch your food that you are paying crazy prices for. They make millions but still won’t let anyone get overtime not even the managers can get more than 45 hours a week, workers can only reach 40 hours a week. They won’t even let you do that. They will send you home early. Only letting you get...