The Little Fun Fest at York Maze

If you're undecided as to whether it's worth going, and you have children under 8 - go.

We really didn't know what to expect and because it was a 150 mile round trip we even built in a visit to see friends, saying that we might be there early. It simply wasn't the case. This festival was fantastic. I'd have happily driven back there again today to try and catch up with everything we didn't manage to do on the first day.

We were met at the gate by a giant sweetcorn, who I presume is 'The Kernel' himself. 

After a trip to the gorgeous and incredibly clean loos (although the sinks are far too high for children!) we saw Hagrid and Harry Potter come on stage. We watched them for 10 minutes and then went around to the Hogwarts area to make our own wands with some tuition from Mrs McGonagall.

We really weren't sure what a 'Finger Maze' was, so we read the instructions and went in search of 5 different coloured paints to dip our fingers into.

 

When we came out of the Finger Maze we could see people hiding in the corn having their photo taken, very sweetly they stopped posing and turned to wave at us. Does anybody recognise these men?

Then some crazy golf - very crazy with a 3 year old...

 Then some Giant Mural painting...

And a few turns on the giant slide inflatable before lunch....

We meant to get money on the way, but forgot, so we found ourselves without lunch or cash and our only option was the Kernel's Coffee Shop which takes payment by card. Usually we'd avoid eating out like this as it's so expensive for our large family, but luckily we only had 4 children with us.

Our bill for 6 came to just under £40, which was a lot, but reasonable as it included drinks and cakes for the grown ups. The quality of the food though was absolutely stupendous. I had a £3.60 ploughman's sandwich which was so fresh and delicious the salad must have been picked that day.

The children's meal was a box meal and you could select 5 items for £3.99. Again, everything was really fresh and healthy, with a much wider than usual selection of items including sliced cucumber, carrot batons, red or green grapes, pom bears, sandwiches, gingerbread men and several different fruit juice drinks. Even the children's sandwiches were made with 'proper' ham and cheese. I'd heartily recommend it (even though the crisps were £1.10 a bag!). 

 After lunch we had a go at some circus skills....

 

And visited the House Of Cornfusion.... This is a fantastic and HUGE version of a fairground House Of Confusion with a hall of mirrors, rooms with sloping floors and walls, an upside down room, a mini maze, and all kinds of wonderful illusions and things to disorientate you. One of the best was the shrinking hallway.

 

The children had a play on the quad bikes and the sand and water play area....

 And then it was time for the meet and greet with the people behind - and in front of - the show.

 

Alex Winters, Mister Maker, Mr Bloom, Snow White

 Then we caught some of That Poetry Bloke's act in the Barn...

We went and had a look at the animals and where they hold the 'pig racing' - pigs running after a man dressed as a chicken! Sadly we'd missed it! 

There was a Crowmania Tractor Ride to help the scarecrow scare away some crows.....and maybe get a bit wet. Did you know scarecrows use water guns to get rid of crows?

Of course we did also manage to see a few acts on the main stage....

Alex Winters opened the show - in disguise!

The Dance-Off - boys v's girls

The gorgeous weather

Mister Maker makes a slice of Watermelon

 Then we saw someone even more familiar on stage....

Our very own girl no.3 went on stage to battle on behalf of the female - and as she managed to pump up the balloon on top of her helmet before the bloke did - she won!

The loser was one of the staff from the York Maze....who donned a pink suit to cover his clothes and took his gunging....

We didn't have time to see half of the shows, or go on fairground rides, play in the Construction Zone or tons of other stuff, there was so much to do it was incredible. The little boys had the best day ever. The fact that everything is included in the price of your entry ticket is brilliant. My little boys are 3 and 4 and it was lovely to just be able to say "of course you can" all day long.

At £68 for a family of four, plus £18 for each additional person this full day out offers excellent value and I'd definitely go again next year. I recommend it to anyone with children between the ages of 2 and 8, although our 13 and 14 year olds also clearly had a brilliant day out!

There were many highlights for all of us, but when I look at the photo's this one in particular stands out for boy no.3....

We were really lucky and won our tickets in a raffle to raise money for CLIC Sargent