The 2014 Florida Strawberry Festival is behind us once again. My family went again this year; a tradition of sorts for us. As always, there was so much to do, and sometimes you can get lost. I want to take a look back at my time at the fair.
When thinking of the Strawberry Festival you should think about the food. With, of course, a special focus on some of the sweetest, juiciest strawberries Florida has to offer. Most of the time, they are bought directly from the local Plant City farmers, and they are usually the most deliciously ripe strawberry, simply bursting with a sweet nectar that's full of the promise of a leisurely Florida Spring. There is the famous make your own strawberry shortcake booths, with lines going around the building, where you can pick your own strawberries, biscuit or shortcake, and have them make it behind a Subway-esque people line. You pay a premium, but are simply the most amazing things, and well worth the money. Other than that, there are many other delicious strawberry delicacies like fresh made ice cream, pies, cakes, and the like. Then of course youll get fair food: the deep fried bacon, doughnuts, pickles, and the like. No one talks about that though; go for the strawberries, and get the heartburn from eating deep fried stuff.
The next draw for the festival is the RIDES! They have not one but two midways, each with unique things. You have the varied rides from thrill coasters, to ferris wheels, and that type of thing. Nothing much to really bring up in here, except that we brought our kids on their first Ferris Wheel ride, and they loved it. It was a magical thing to have that first at one of our favorite places to go. We did not do any other rides, and did not spend too much time here, because it fills in very quickly, and can get very tight, even in both midways.
The next thing I am going to cover is the shopping. There is a metric ton of vendors, mostly local but with some national booths as well. There is no set group of vendors here, you have everything from homemade soap, to redneck chic farm fashion, to jewelry, to even a massage therapist who will do anything within reason, but has to be above the clothes (shining point of the day.). We did some shopping, picked up some custom signs for our kids, and a few pieces of delicious smelling soaps.
The final thing I want to look at is the activities. This is a farm focused festival, so you have plenty of farm-type things to do. Several petting zoos, barns, farm animal competitions, largest vegetables, and that sort of thing. Our kids LOVE the petting zoo and the pony rides, which we did twice the day that we went.
Of course there are HUNDREDS of things to do at the Florida Strawberry Festival, and we were unable to cover everything, but we go every year, and look forward to going back.
Every year it gets better and better, and we love every minute of our time there.