Waterman’s Family Farm — Local services in Indianapolis

We have been going to Watermans for eight years. It has turned into a family tradition, especially when we go to the pumpkin patch. The last few years have seemed like they have less available that you're able to enjoy for the price of admission. Everything costs more inside and what you get for admission does not seem that great anymore. The pumpkin patch is still so much fun though!

Unfortunately tonight we had an unpleasant experience. I called ahead to confirm their hours. I was told to arrive and pay for admission by 6 pm because the last hayride would be at 7 pm. I verified everything else would still be open until 8 pm though.

We hurried home to arrive at 6 pm. We spoke with a lady that was working the hayride and made sure if we got on the hayride that everything would be open until 8 pm. My daughter loves the pony ride and my son loves the bigger rides they have available, then we all enjoy feeding the animals together. We shared that with the lady. We got onto the hayride at 6:15 pm and got off at 6:40... after standing in line paying for our pumpkins and taking them to our car, we were ready to enjoy the activities at 6:50 pm. We took our pictures, rode the spinning pumpkin then played a game of bowling. It was now 7:10 pm... so we went to so the corn maze---- and got out of the corn maze at 7:15 pm.....

They were having their employees leave because "some of them were working off the clock" and everything shut down. We couldn't feed the animals. No pony ride. No other ride. No popcorn or drinks open near the hay the kids could jump off of.

We paid $24 for all four of us to enjoy Watermans and confirmed it was going to stay open until 8 pm... no, it closed. It was completely dark. People were in their trailers that were parked on site. We approached the lady at the building when we paid for admission and all she said was sorry, but gave us no reason why everything was shut down 40 minutes before. We explained it was our eighth year, but the two women in the building didn't show much compassion.

After tonight's experience, we will be looking for another pumpkin patch to make family memories. They talk about being so family oriented, but didn't care that we had spent money to enjoy the activities and didn't seem to care they lost a customer they've had for years.

I hope they go back to having more activities instead of charging so much for the things that grab the kid's attention. For example, the new football toss that was built - it's nice but cheap footballs and the hay pile that kids jump off gets smaller. We pay enough to enjoy more and feel like it's money well spent - that's what makes families come back.

If things go back to how they were and they truly stay open for the hours posted, then we will consider coming back. But I truly hope they make changes that allow their actions to speak for themselves instead of just preaching being family oriented when they're going down hill each...

Do not recommend this place. I went with some friends (all between the age of 22-28 years old) and one of our friends have a baby (8 months old). We paid $40 just to get in the door and were told our ticket included everything but the pumpkins and food itself. We went on the hayride and were forced to get off... We waited our turn just like everyone else to go on the hayride. We waited about 10 minutes for the tractor to come pick us up and we were first in line. We found a place to sit and got settled in with the baby. A group of very sweet kids got on with us and we even took a picture for their teacher! There was more than enough room on our cart and, and there was an additional cart as well that could load people. After we took the photo of the group and sat back down a man and woman told us we had to get off. We were confused and asked why. They said they needed another group to take our spot... To clarify, this group was NOT with the group of kids and their teacher, and was NOT in line while we were. I looked at the completely (and I mean totally) empty second car and asked why the kids couldn't take that cart or why we couldn't move to that one. They just said "you gotta go, you can get on the next one." We had already waited 10 minutes, were first in line, we had already settled in with our 8 month old baby, and they made us get off and wanted us to wait another 10 minutes for the next cart?! We ended up leaving because we felt very outcasted after this incident and were thrown off of a hayride that we essentially paid $40 for and did not want to wait an additional 10 minutes (making the whole wait for this hayride almost 30 minutes) with a young baby. I normally go to a different pumpkin patch in Danville and decided to change it up, I learned my lesson... never again!

Also wanted to mention that some attractions they advertise on the website and Facebook are not active. There was no dinosaur attraction and some booths were completely closed off. I would only recommend this place if you're a group of kids because apparently that is all...

we spent over $40 at the Indianapolis Watermans. The only thing that we got that was worth any money was a jug of apple cider which was around $8.00. They had a list of all the free events and items but didn't have copies of these, and it seemed like so many. When we actually went around there were very few items open, and the things that were open you had to pay for. They charged $5 for a small Styrofoam bowl to feed their animals, which was fun but I don't understand why they neglected to feed them in the first place. It seemed cruel, and the goats of all ages and one alpaca seemed to be starving to death, while they could see the lady sitting right next to them slicing up carrots with a machine. They had a booth with an umbrella over it with miniature horses chained up to a series of bars, these horses kept falling asleep and jerking because the bars would not allow them to lay down, the sight of the cruelty of it was almost enough to push me into calling animal cruelty it broke my heart. There was only one concession stand open . The pumpkin eating dragon was broke or at least they said it was. They took us to a rotten pumpkin patch, both of the pumpkins we picked out looked to be the best in there, and were rotten within a week of bringing them home. They coraled us onto an over crowded tractor with 2 trailers there wasn't enough room for everyone to sit, but they had to sit so we were smashed together and I heard they were taking another tractor to the better patch....so they were just basically using us to clean up their field of rotten pumpkins and charging us $5 apiece for them. I will never go there again, so many outside vendors there is their excuse to have abused and neglected live creatures on their property, not a...