Gravenstein Apple Fair — Local services in Sebastopol

I was really looking forward as I'm a huge Gravenstein fan, but will not be back. Not senior friendly. Had my kids and parents with me. No load/unload zone to drop off and pick up seniors / little kids near the entrance. We stopped at an empty vendor drop off, asked guy to unload parents, he ok'd but was rushing us all the time they were getting out of the car. Fair layout is not intuitive and somewhat very narrow. You need to offer or post a map as it took us time to figure where the food was, where kids zone was, etc. We haven't found any animals or old engines, as other reviewers were mentioning, or maybe we got disappointed and turned back before we found them. Be ready for heat and mile long lines. When we finally approached the pie booth cashier after 20 min in line, we learned they only sell by piece, not a full pie, when advertisement on a booth was only picturing full pies. Many people were turning away disappointed after standing in a long line in the sun. While we were getting baked in a pie line, the only other pie vendor ran out of apple pies. So we left with no pie. Also, make sure you know that you can't take food or alcohol outside even if it's canned cider. There are no signs or verbal warnings. Wanted to get some canned cider to take home, but they won't give it to me unopened, so just lost money. The only nice and considerate gesture was a free water station. Not worth 2 hours drive for the free water though. P.S. On the way back, we stopped at Whole Foods. They had same apples and even pies, and the canned cider - twice and three times cheaper. What can I say. I would rather go to Whole...

I went to the fair today (August 2013) with my family and had a very good time. It's a cozy and down home sort of fair. The fairgrounds are not particularly big, but they aren't too small, either. It's a family friendly environment with plenty for little children (mine are almost 5 and almost 3) to do. My guess is a family with teen-agers wouldn't consider it quite as much fun as we did, but maybe that's because I wasn't looking to see if there were any events appealing to teens.

It pays to get there on the early side because the roads in Sebastopol are narrow and the traffic to the fair's parking lot can become tiresome.

The horse drawn carriage ride is fun enough. It's bumpy because you spend a lot of time on dirt or grass. My boys liked the bumps. I liked the handsome gray draft horses.

My boys loved the tractor and the back hoe loader you can climb on. So did legions of other 2-6 year olds.

We all found the exhibition of antique motors pretty interesting. Boy has the internal combustion engine come a long way in the last century. Bless these old codgers who restore old engines and run them at fairs.

We could have used a few more gluten free options for lunch. There was a grilled cheese place that made us a gluten free grilled cheese. It took them more than 10 minutes to make it -- how is that even possible? -- and the result was a huge disappointment. I didn't believe my boys when they said it was "yucky," but sure enough I spat out the one bite I took.

The live music we heard was fun and family friendly.

We'd...

Hot, boring and expensive money grab.

Not worth $25 + $10 parking.

Same vendors as EVERY fair in Sonoma county. Last fair I went to for $8 had the same vendors. Very commercial vendors as well. Nothing really original or creative. $22 for a tuna melt. Nowhere to sit and eat. All spaces were taken by people needing shade. Places running out of food. Apple pies were sold out by 2:30pm. You could barely tell it had anything to do with apples. The music was awful and didn't match the event.

The organizers saying there's this and that are exaggerating. You can see everything in 10 minutes. They didn't use the space wisely and crammed things together which caused everyone to run into each other.

If it were $10 I still wouldn't have enjoyed it, but at least I wouldn't have felt ripped off. In comparison, the fisherman's fest was cheaper to get in and MUCH better. Better food and better vendors.

I'm assuming people calling it the "best small town fair" and "great" have never been to a fair in the midwest, or other areas of California. I didn't see one kid having a good time there. Most of them walking around complaining about being hot and wanting to go home. A couple of them even mentioned how bored they were.

Me personally, I will never go back to the Gravenstein Apple Fair. My family could have done much better doing something else with the $200 we spent there. A nice lunch and movie would have been better.

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