As we walked around the harbor we stopped to look in Ripley's Believe It or Not and the kids were mesmerized by all the cool things you get to see from the lobby area. There is a motorized statue of the tallest man and the kids loved watching him very slowly stand (to almost 9 ft. tall) and then very slowly sit back down again. They were also intrigued by a faucet that seemed to pouring water from midair...but I think Harper stared at it long enough to realize what was actually going on. We didn't end up giving in and buying tickets to go in that day but I will have to keep it in mind for a potential outing in the future.
Something we have always wanted to do but never have was ride in the peddle boats right there at the harbor. They have regular peddle boats as well as ones shaped like Chessie, a mythical sea monster that lives in the Chesapeake Bay. I think it was $12 for the regular boats and $20 for the monster so we splurged and got ourselves a purple sea monster boat. That day there were also little motorized boats on the water in celebration of Fleet week but we didn't see them until we were already out on the water peddling our little butts off. Oh well.
After our boat ride we decided to walk over to where the festival was going to be and were a little surprised to see a VERY long line waiting for the gates to open. We were a few minutes early but since it was a ticketed (sold out) event we didn't think there'd be such a long line at opening time. As soon as they opened the gates the line moved very fast but then realized that all the taco stands would only accept pre-purchased taco tickets which meant we had to get in that line first...but only to find out that they'd ONLY accept cash which meant a wait in line at the ATM first.
It ended up being like that the whole time we were there. A line for the ATM led to the line for the taco tickets which led to the food line where we waited upwards of 20 minutes for a single taco. When we'd entered the gate we had all been handed a free drink ticket but the whole time we were there we were never able to locate where to redeem our free drink ticket and ended up buying bottles of water at a truck.
One of the reasons we thought this would be a good idea was because it was promoted as a "family friendly" event but I'm not so sure it should have called itself that. I mean, there were three, very small, lousy bounce houses that kids of all ages were practically killing each other in and a face painter with a very long line. Yes, there was kid friendly food, like tacos but no place to sit and eat them. Adults can handle carrying around a small food container with a taco and eat while standing/walking/drinking, but kids, not so much. The tacos were hot (which is typically a good thing) and falling apart and just an all out mess. It was hard for me to help the kids eat theirs while I was still trying to hold my own and it just made it all very stressful instead of fun.
The majority of the crowd was mid-twenties and childless which was fine but just not really a family event. It would have been fine if it'd just been myself and Tony but with the kids it was just too much. Too much standing in line, too many drunks, too many kids in a pitiful play area.
We ended up leaving after just over an hour and a half because the lines were so long and I just wasn't in the mood to wait in them for food. We'd had our fill more or less anyways so we made our way out and back home. So, my personal rating of the taco festival would be about a 3 out of 10 stars. They could do much better and since they sold out this year I imagine they should think bigger. I think they should find a much larger space, find more vendors, find a way to allow people to purchase taco/drink tickets prior to arrival and amp up the kids play area if they want to call it "family friendly".
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