Website: Fort Hunter
Season: Thanksgiving to Christmas
Cost: Mostly free but see website for details
Expected Length of Visit: 1-3 hours
Recommended Ages: All ages
Their regular Christmas activities are the toy train exhibit, a Kid's Shop (where the kids can buy gifts alone), the Festival of Trees and there is a mansion tour. The mansion tour is open during the week but the rest of these activities are weekends only. There is only a fee for the mansion tour and of course, if your child is shopping in the kid's shop, they will need money.
There are other events scheduled throughout the season too - plant and craft sales, concerts, Victorian teas, cooking demonstrations that you'll need to check the website for dates and fees since they change every year.
Our outing was nice. There was a bit of a crowd, not too crazy, and it took a while to get to the reindeer. You have to bring your own camera. They don't take any pictures - they just provide the photo ops. There was a gentleman at the reindeer who offered to take pictures with your camera if you wanted everyone in the shot.
While we had to wait quite a while to see the reindeer, we practically walked right up to Mrs. Claus. Then we waited again to view the toy train exhibit. We decided to skip the Kids Only Holiday Shop. My son already did that at school, with less expensive options but the sample prices outside didn't look so bad. I believe everything is under $10 in there.
The train display impressed the boys. It's not the Choo Choo Barn, but it had a similar wow factor. It was hard to see the details in the middle of the wide display, but I'm sure taller folks could see a lot more. I think the boys could have spent a lot more time looking at it but there was quite a line so we had to keep moving. It's probably not so busy on weekends when Mrs. Claus and the reindeer aren't there.
I completely forgot about the Festival of Trees this visit. The boys played at the playground for a while and we went home. We spent at total of $1(on a raffle ticket to win a train). There are opportunities to make donations. They lost my donation when they were out of reindeer food. We got there pretty early - the boys were disappointed.
They also sell chocolate bars, chocolate lollipops, hot cocoa, water and possibly other refreshments.
It was very enjoyable for a low-cost event.
Please add your comments regarding this activity or let me know if you have any questions about it that I might be able to answer.
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