Guest post from Kate of Gardening without Skills

Thanks for sharing your trip, Kate!

We live in Central Florida –the #1 family tourist destination in the world and home to Mickey Mouse himself. Many families with young children will make the pilgrimage to this theme park Mecca and will open up their wallets to one of the most expensive and commercial places in the world. When you get here you’ll discover that if you don’t stay on Disney property, you’ll probably end up staying in a nearby town called Kissimmee. There is not much to do in Kissimmee besides sleep, eat and visit outlet malls, but there is a small haven for families that’s buried in a nice little corner of the city that’s well-worth the visit if you want to leave Mickey behind for a day.

Green Meadows Petting Farm is one of Central Florida’s best-kept secrets. I’m not sure if they intend to be a secret, but their lackluster website doesn’t exactly send out an inviting message. When you get there it’s a different story. This 40-acre farm is run with the smooth effortless charm that you’d expect at a major attraction, down to parking attendants who guide you into the next available space. We went there this past weekend with my two and four-year-old sons for a friend’s birthday party.

When you get there you’ll see vintage tractors everywhere for kids to jump on and pose for photos.

As soon as you step inside you’ll see a collection of little red wagons ready for your toddlers to ride in. They are $3 to rent for the day, or you can bring your own. It’s a long walk around the park in the Florida heat and humidity, so it’s worth the $3 to toss a kid and a cooler in for the day.

This petting zoo isn’t like a typical petting zoo. You don’t just go in and walk around from pen to pen. Instead you are assigned to a tour group with a tour guide for a two-hour tour. These small groups are led around the park with constant narration from your tour guide. They’ll tell you interesting facts about each animal, like the fact that only male ducks quack and that their bison was rescued from someone’s basement. This works out great because each group stops at the animal pens at different times, so you don’t have to worry about your child not getting a chance to catch a chicken or feed a goat. Your group gets sole access to a pen and plenty of time for each child and parent to pet the animals.

Dotted throughout the farm are great little playgrounds for the kids who need a break. There are enormous sand pits full of dump trucks, play houses, plastic dinosaurs, shovels and buckets. There are larger play sets for older children and smaller play sets with bucket swings for younger children and babies.

Families are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch. The tour guide will show you to some park benches so you can eat and let the kids play and roll about in the sand. It is hot, so I’d suggest getting there at around 10 a.m. so lunchtime falls at the end of the tour.

Every animal pen has a hand sanitizing station, but a few were empty when we visited this time. I’d advise parents to pack a bottle of hand sanitizer, just incase. The bathrooms are easy to access and are clean and kid-friendly.

They have all the regular petting zoo players like chickens and goats, but also have some unusual animals like a very sweaty water buffalo and a zorse (half zebra/half horse). With over 300 animals, my boys seem to like the baby chicks and ducklings the best. Every animal seemed very well-looked after and the grounds and pens were very clean.

Along with petting the animals your admission price also gets you a fun mini-train ride, the opportunity to milk a cow, ride a pony, and at the end of the tour you get a tractor-pulled hayride. In October every entrant gets to go to the pumpkin patch and get a free pumpkin too, although my friends up north tell me that dumping a few hundred pumpkins on the ground next to some palm trees isn’t what a real up-north pumpkin patch looks like. I guess I’ve lived in Florida so long that I don’t know any better.

When you go check out their website first for a coupon and enjoy your day away from the crowds and lines at the theme parks.

http://www.greenmeadowsfarm.com/

Green Meadows Farm
1368 South Poinciana Blvd.
Kissimmee, FL 34746

Phone: (407) 846-0770

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