The Maryland Renaissance Festival: Held in Crownville, Md. Part One

The Maryland Renaissance festival is on Crownsville Road, in Anne Arundel County. This is in Crownsville just outside of Annapolis, Maryland. There is twenty five acres of games, food and fun. From Baltimore the ride is only a half hour. We ran into a bicycle race that slowed down traffic but still the directions we recieved from the site were easy to follow and fast.

This festival is held every year from August 25th to October 21st. They are open every weekend from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can get ticket information as well as other information about the festival at renaissance festival. They will give you great directions as well. I had to print out direction from Baltimore to the festival at the directions got me there in no time at all. Renaissance directions.

We arrived at nine in the morning so that we could get good parking. The parking is nothing but a large field and their are people who guide you in and tell you where to park. They keep adding cars till the field is full. Since we were so early we parked only about a half block from the festival. Very short walk. You will not believe all the people who came in costume of the period. At first I thought they were with the show but they were not.

The tickets are reasonable priced to me. An adult ticket is $18.00 a person, Seniors are $15.00 a person and kids between 7-15 are $8.00. There are discounts for having a CVS card as well as a Giant card. These are your saving club cards from these stores. If you sign up for their emails you will get a brochure in the mail about discounts and special events as well. There are also passes for two days and a pass that will get you in every day of the festival as well. These passes are $28.00. There is also a pass that will get you into the festival every day for $80.00.

They have the open weekend August 25th and 26th: children's weekend. This weekend is for the kids to enjoy the festival at a great price. All children under 11 will get in for free.

The next event is on September 22nd and 23rd: Celtic Celebration. This is the weekend that you will find Celtic music and dance and lots of bagpipes. I loved the bagpipes.

The weekend of October 6th and 7th is the Oktoberfest: which is lots of German food and dance. I love black beer.

The last special event will take place on October 20th and 21st: chivalry weekend. There will be special jousting ornaments. This weekend is dedicated to romance.

I have to say I went to the Celtic festival at the Renaissance faire. I was very impressed with the costumes there. We arrived at the gates and the king arrive about 9:50 for the start of the festivities. There is a short skit with the king being introduced and some of the court as well. The king is looking for his queen to be and it seems that they may have misplaced her. The skit is well done and the performers are great. After the king went into the castle the people were allowed to enter. I took my sixteen year old daughter and her girlfriend and I was not sure they were going to have fun but they did. My daughter was picked out of the crowd to pretend to be princess Anna. She had a lot of fun with this. This was not the first time the audience became part of the show.

We went into the grounds to find a very very large field. The grounds were so big we did not get to do everything in one day. There are eight different stages where you can see many different shows. They have comedy acts as well as musical groups performing. The shows change up about every half hour or so. If there is a show that is a little racy you will be informed at the top of the show so that if you choose you can take the kids away. To me the there was not anything wrong with the shows being racy. What they are calling racy or inappropriate are jokes that can be taken more than one way. I have to admit that I enjoyed all shows. There is one spot where they have cleared out for the jousting arena. This is an oblong arena with stands all around. At this place you will find the jousting and archery contests. This part of the festival is out in the open with no cover to get out of the sun. I must also say that if you have asthma you might want to stand back a little because the horse will kick up dust. I have asthma and I sat in the back and up on the stands and had very little problems. I am glad that I did not miss this part of the festival.

There are all types of food here. I can not begin to count how many places there were. I found a stand that sold steak on a stake. This is a nice big piece of steak on a stick. I can not tell you how good it was because it was great. The steak was very tender and cooked to perfection. My husband had a real German bratwurst on pumpernickel bread. He could not stop talking about how good it was. You can purchase either of these at the same stand for $4.00 each. The price is not bad and the food worth it. There were all types of stands selling pizza, lasagna, hot dogs, roast beef sandwiches, crab cakes, shrimp, oysters and much more. We also bought a peacan tart that was only $4.00. It was great tasting too. I also bought a piece of carrot cake and piece of cake called death by chocolate. These were both $3.00 a peace and well worth the money. There are also many different drinks offered as well. The food booths are all through the fair grounds so whenever you get hungry there is something handy. The same with drinks.

They have a section cornered off for the bathrooms. You will have to use a spot a pot but they clean them on a regular basis. There is also a small clean up area right outside the tents. Here you can wash your hands and dry them. I was surprised at how clean they kept these spot a pots.