Cherry Crest Adventure Farm
150 Cherry Hill Road Ronks, PA
There are farms, there are fall festivals, and then there’s Cherry Crest Adventure Farm.
In a league of its own – the Disney world of farm fun! 🙌🏻
We started coming to Cherry Crest farm over 20 years ago – but this is the first time we were able to visit where my girls were old enough to really experience it. They loved it SO much! It’s just under 2 hours from where we live but 10000% worth the drive – I promise it is unlike any other farm in our area.
💰Admission is $18-$25/person depending on day/time of year – see website for details!
📆 Dates/Hours: Cherry Crest is not just a fall activity, though we like to visit in the fall due to the cooler temps. It is open Memorial Day weekend through November 6th. During the fall, their hours are: Thursdays 10-5, Fridays and Saturdays 10-10. Cherry Crest is always closed on Sundays. Click here to view their calendar.
About Cherry Crest
Something that makes Cherry Crest Farm unique is that it is located along the Strasburg Railroad – the tracks literally run right through the property. You will see huge historic steam trains run through the farm multiple times during your visit. My kids loved this! If you’d like, you can even ride the train TO Cherry Crest farm, by getting off the train at Groff’s Picnic Grove (I will do a separate post with more info on the Strasburg railroad!)
We have been visiting Cherry Crest since their opened in 1996 – growing up we would go every fall! It has changed and expanded SO much since then.
Award-Winning Corn Maze
The centerpiece of Cherry Crest is their award-winning corn maze. I’ve done many corn mazes and I have never seen anything quite like Cherry Crest.
Each year, the corn maze design has a theme. This year it was “Thank You Hometown Heroes” honoring essential workers. You can see photos of all the previews year’s designs here.
Within the 5 acre corn maze, there are play areas with zip lines, slides, climbers, etc. Porta-potties, water stations, candy vending machines and a full service restaurant (though this was closed when we were there on a Thursday).
At the start of the maze, you are handed a blank map with a grid of 15 squares. Throughout the maze there are 15 hidden mailboxes. In each mailbox is a piece of the map – find the piece, match it to its number on the grid and tape it into the correct spot. Once you’ve found all 15 pieces, you use the map to find your way out of the maze.
The maze is designed with 3 levels of difficulty – so you can choose what is right for your group. (level descriptions below found on on their website)
- EASY: For a quick trip around the maze, follow the yellow trailer markers. You’ll go around the outside edge of the maze, past some of the activities and mailboxes. This challenge takes approximately 20 minutes
- INTERMEDIATE: If you want to spend a bit more time exploring the maze, use the orange clues to help keep you on track! This challenge involves more problem-solving and takes approximately 45 minutes
- DIFFICULT: If your goal is to complete the ultimate challenge of finding all the map pieces and all the Kernels of Knowledge, then you’re on your own! But keep an eye out for the red signs of encouragement along the way. This challenge can take up to two hours or more… it’s up to you!
In previous years we have always chose to do the difficult challenge and it has taken us about an hour and 15 minutes. The last time we were here the twins were 9 months old and it took us about that long while we each wore one in a baby carrier 🙂 This year, my husband has a broken foot so my dad and I took the girls in the maze. We opted for the intermediate challenge because we knew they would loved collecting the puzzle pieces from each mailbox and putting their map together. They were SO much more into it than I expected which made it SO much fun! They squealed with excitement every time we found a mailbox and took a lot of pride in building their map. It took us about 30-40 minutes to get to the exit. At the end if you haven’t found all the map pieces, they provide the remaining pieces so you can complete your map. (pieces provided in the maze are blue, while pieces added at the end are red – so no cheating and adding all the pieces at the end if you are trying to complete the “difficult” challenge!)
Other things that make this corn maze unique:
- At the start of the maze you “clock in” by stamping your map with the start time. You clock out at exit and can compare you time to the leader board at the exit of the maze.
- This maze is designed by GPS. They plant the corn super densely, then go around and pluck the young plants to create the maze paths. Most mazes I have been to simply plant a field of corn, then cut down the full grown corn to create a path. This results in bumpy paths with lots of trip hazards from the stalks. The way Cherry Crest creates their maze makes it truly stroller friendly and wheelchair accessible. Plus its much easier for toddlers to navigate without tripping!
- Typically other corn mazes are tricky to navigate even when a map is provided. Cherry Crest makes this easier by color coding certain areas of the maze. They use colored tape to designate what part of the maze you are in – for example, black tape for the letters, red tape for the fire fighter symbol, etc. This helps you keep your bearings so you know exactly where you are.
- The interactive nature of this maze is truly what makes it stand out. Aside from building the map, there are tons of play structures, trivia tid-bits, photo ops and hidden surprises located throughout the maze.
- Fun for all ages! Because of the varying level of difficulties, this maze is fun for all ages. My husband and I used to come on our own pre-kids just to do this maze. They even have a flash light maze on Fridays and Saturdays in the fall!
Animals
Cherry Crest features a variety of animals for kids to visit and pet! Their Farm Animals and Experience Center includes an elevated goat walk where goats walk on a bridge overhead. Kids can feed the goats via a conveyor belt from down below. Inside the Discovery Barn, kids can hold a baby chick, see eggs in an incubator and pet bunnies. In the farmyard area there are also pigs, turkeys, and chickens. They also have a interactive milking cow statue that all the kids loved!
Sproutsville
Sproutsville is a more recent addition to the farm, and honestly I would pay the admission fee JUST to access this area. You could spend all day in here if you have toddlers! Sproutsville is a pretend neighborhood featuring just about every imaginative play scenario you can think of – firehouse, ice cream shop, auto repair shop, police station, post office, grocery store, diner, farm, theater, etc. Each individual building is incredibly detailed and stocked with dress up items, props and toys related to each location (ex. police costume in police station, grocery store stocked with food, etc). Each building was SO adorable, the pictures truly don’t do it justice. The level of detail and thought they put into this area is amazing. For example – in the farm building, it is not just a barn to play in. There are eggs for the chickens and a sorting area that encourages kids to sort the eggs by color – then you can use the pully systen to raise the eggs up to the second level of the barn. It really is the quality of a children’s museum like Port Discovery, but tucked into a huge adventure farm.
Convenience Features
There are multiple, super clean, permanent bathroom buildings. In all the years we’ve come to Cherry Crest. this is something that has always stood out to me. They really keep the bathrooms clean and encourage you to report if you find otherwise.
They also have two “baby care barns” 🍼 TWO baby care barns with feeding rooms and changing tables stocked with diapers.
Other Farm Activities
🌽 2 giant jump pillows with shade coverings
🌽 A wagon train ride – super cute ride through the corn and kids can search for 8 hidden animals while they ride. We did this several times. (I even rode this ride almost 20 years ago!)
🌽 GIANT slides down the hillside (3 different types of slides!)
🌽 Pedal Carts and country road carts
🌽 PYO Pumpkins, sunflowers and zinnias
🌽 Huge obstacle course
🌽Tons of food options (including cider donuts, hot cider, cider slushies, etc. as well as full lunch options like BBQ and pizza) and places to sit and relax. There are picnic tables everywhere including tucked in between activities so you can sit and eat while your kids play. Picnic tables are covered with plastic table clothes and they are sanitizing between use as soon as you get up!
Some tips:
⭐️ Bring a stroller even for kiddos who don’t typically need one anymore. This place is huge and I wish we had brought the stroller for the twins (3.5) too instead of just one for the baby.
⭐️ Do some other activities before visiting Sproutsville otherwise your toddler may not want to do anything else 🙂
⭐️ Only open Thurs-Sat. – Closed Sundays!
⭐️ If you live close enough (even an hour away) – I highly recommend considering a membership. Especially since this is open from May-November
⭐️ I am working on a blog post about Lancaster/Strasburg, PA – this will include nearby places to stay and other activities in the area. I will link it here when it’s complete!
⭐️Almost everything is included in the admission fee except for some of the shooting activities (apple blasters, paintball, etc), gem mining, battle zone, rope making and campfire rentals.
Cherry Crest has a great website to help you plan your trip – including a super detailed map that I found really helpful when trying to navigate the farm. Highly recommend browsing their website and planning a trip ASAP! They are open through November 6th.
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