Pumpkin Patch at Irvine Park Railroad

My daughter actually had a break from her choir rehearsal one Saturday morning, so we decided to check out the Pumpkin Patch at Irvine Park Railroad.

The event itself was free, but certain activities at the Pumpkin Patch required tickets, which could be purchased for $6 each at the gate.  Being on a budget, I told my daughter she could have 4 tickets to use for any of these activities in the park.

The website advised going in the morning to avoid weekend park entrance and parking delays, and crowds.  So we went at around 9:30am.  We breezed through the Irvine Regional Park entrance because we paid the $5.00 vehicle parking fee with cash instead of a credit card.  Then we drove over to the Railroad Park for the Pumpkin Patch.  The parking lot is not very big, but there were still at least two rows of parking space available when we arrived.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere!

Pumpkins, and the yellow carts to haul them

This Pumpkin Patch was brimming with pumpkins; everywhere we stepped there were pumpkins.  There were also big yellow pumpkin carts throughout the park, in case you wanted to purchase pumpkins on your way out and take them to your car.  (It's really tempting for kids to want a joy ride in these carts, but there are signs on the carts warning that they are only for pumpkins, not kids.)  We opted not to buy any pumpkins, since they were out of my price range.  I prefer to buy less expensive pumpkins at Aldi closer to Halloween.

Photo Ops

There are plenty of photo ops all around the park, including nice scenery, Halloween-themed sets, Picture Stands, and Face-In-Hole boards.  These are a few of the photo ops we took:

• Scenery 
  
  
  
  
• Halloween sets 
  
  
  
  
• Picture Stands 
  
  
  
  
• Face-In-Hole 
  
  
  
  

The Great Pumpkins

One photo op that had to be seen to be believed were the winners of the Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off that took place in September.  The winner weighed in at over 1,700 lbs!  That's a lot of pumpkin pies...

Free Activities

There are three free activities in the park: the Hay Maze, the Haunted House, and the Hay Pyramid.  We did two out of the three.

Hay Maze

We generally aren't fans of mazes because of that I-might-be-trapped-and-never-get-out! feeling.  But this maze was not at all intimidating.  It was just the right size and complexity for little kids to go through with their parents and still have fun.

Our daughter is around somewhere...

Haunted House

Not-so-haunted house

This Haunted House was not designed to scare.  I would call it small and cute, to be honest: there were only three scenes to browse through.  Unless you're a scaredy-cat terrified of low lights, it's at least worth a look-see.

Hay Pyramid

The Hay Pyramid was not high enough to present a fun or challenging climb.  In fact, it was so low, that people just sat on it because they just thought it was a place to sit.  I couldn't even take a picture because it was filled with people parked on it, just looking at their phones!

Ticketed Activities

The Pumpkin Patch website lists 11 activities requiring tickets.  In my opinion, when I consider the cost of the ticket for each activity (with the exception of the train and possibly the hay ride) I would consider these activities a bit overpriced (might have to do with supply-and-demand, considering the crowds).  But I wanted to let my daughter have fun without breaking my bank, so she chose to do the following with our limited funds:

Cookie Decorating

We started with this one in the morning, so there was no wait.  My daughter got a cookie and small cup of base frosting in the color of her choice, purple.  At the station were several kinds of sprinkles and frosting she could pipe onto her cookie.  Although there were bags and foil available to take the cookie home, my daughter chose to eat hers right away.

Carnival Games

The Carnival Games are two different types of bean bag toss: one through holes in a pumpkin cutout, and one through holes in a spiderweb backdrop.  She chose to do the pumpkin toss twice and won an inflatable chocolate donut!

Panning for Gold

My daughter was given 5 minutes to pan and found herself a little "gold."

Afterwards, we had a little picnic at one of the tables with the lunch I had brought.  By the time we were done with our activities in the morning, the park had gotten quite busy, though not necessarily crowded... yet.

When we got back to the parking lot at around 11:30am to make our exit, it was filled to capacity with cars waiting for parking spots.  As we drove out of the park, there was a looooooooong line of cars waiting to get in.  So if you plan to visit the Pumpkin Patch on a weekend, heed the website's advice: go early!

Want to see more photos?  Check out our 2019 Pumpkin Patch Irvine Railroad photo album!