They do a pretty good job here and it is a great experience. Large open areas with plenty to see…read moreand do. The train ride was a lot of fun, although perhaps a bit over booked on the Disney cars. The entertainment is great, so many options to keep busy and have fun. Santa was a nice visit for our daughter. A good selection of food trucks, although even early on a Friday it was clear they were overwhelmed and had people yelling at them that they had to catch the train. We thankfully got food AFTER our train ride. The vendors were friendly and working their butts off to keep the lines moving. The marketplace was pretty neat, several good options to shop. Overall the Christmas at the Ranch was a good experience, but they still have room to improve like with Exiting the parking lot and capacity for the vendors. We'll probably come back next year.

Great train ride!!! great cookies and lots of fun, loved the conductors. Staff were great and kind…read morewould go again 10/10

What an event! Fantastic afternoons and evenings had experiencing independent films, shorts,…read moredocumentaries. Lots of greats showcasing at SLO's 30th anniversary. We were honored to sponsor Academy Award nominated "NAI NAI & WAI PO" short film/documentary. It did receive an honorable mention :D SLO Independent Film Festival is one for ALL; non-Hollywood alike, families. It's a great event to attend, support and enjoy!

The SLO Film Fest is yet another reason to visit San Luis Obispo, the star of California's central…read morecoast. What you get is a week of independent films (many locally shot & produced), and future box office hits. Major stars make appearances. In 2023 it was Judd Hirsh. There's even an encore virtual festival and live screenings in Paso Robles, another destination-worthy town. Yes, you could watch some of the films online, but then you'd be missing the parties, red carpets, beautiful Fremont & Palm deco theaters, Downtown Centre Cinemas, Sunset Drive-in, live Q&As; not to mention all the excellent hotels, restaurants, shopping, and Avila Beach.

Like someone said, $27 entry fee gets you 5 live bands. You really can't beat that alone…read more Once inside, they had a few food trucks to chose from, pizza, oysters (duh), clothing stands, art. They also had some people in costume on stilts and people dressed in costume with water guns to make things more fun for the fest goers. I didn't like how you HAD to buy a glass in order to drink a beer or wine ($13 for beer with $8 refill). They said they'd give you the glass of the beer you first bought but mine wasn't in that glass. Also, I accidentally dropped my glass in some sand and they would NOT give me a clean glass. All that money and they wouldn't give me a new glass.... All in all, I'd definitely come back. It was a fun day and well organized.

First timer But all the free samples from the tasting…read moretickets are very confusing and not worth the extra price This event needs more entertainment more shade and a tequila bar Maybe next year But this is an Oyster Festival?????

The coastal town of Morro Bay, population a wee under 11,000, has a Maritime Museum. Small but…read moremighty museum that offers free admission. FREE! That's so awesome it's free making learning and history accessible for all. Adding they kindly accept donations though but don't verbalize it at all. No pressure or mentioning the f it by the staff. The museum is unlike any others in the best ways. They have an outdoor display of marine vessels. Real deal retired vessels, not made up arts n crafts models. Each vessel has an info board. And folks that know me, know I luv a good info board. Life long learner here. So learning about the local Morro Bay maritime history was so super neat. The museum building is tiny... one room. But they utilize every inch without the clutter. Organized and nicely displayed items. The room was filled with artifacts and even more history boards. Luv that! The docent was so great! She was engaging without being intrusive considering the small size of the place. Welcoming. Knowledgeable and providing historical local facts. She added to making the my visit just that more enjoyable. Just to note a few items of interest: +1880s whaling try pot. +1927 built tugboat Alma-she helped to rescue the entire 38 man crew of the oil tanker USS Monticello after it was struck by a Japanese submarine launched torpedo and ff the coast in December 1943. +Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle -Avalon built in early 1970s in Sunnyvale, CA, by Lockheed. Public restrooms building is in the parking lot. Gotta give it to Morro Bay in providing access to multiple public restrooms throughout the Embarcadero area.

A very small, but wonderful exhibit/museum for local maritime history. It's free, but please leave…read moresome sort of donation as this is run by volunteers who are extremely friendly and so knowledgeable. We stopped by with our 3 kids (8, 5, and 2) and the gentleman working there gave us basically a VIP tour of all the exhibits. He was friendly with out kids, answering all of their questions and showing them all the little details of all the ships and exhibits we might have missed if we had walked through it on our own. It was just a lovely experience. Honestly, I just wish it was bigger so we could have spent some more time there. I really hope that they get enough donations over the years to expand. Even if it's slightly. This museum is such a hidden gem and if you have kids, you really should take them to see some important ships to the area's history.

Having gone to a fair number of beer festivals I like to think I have a pretty good reference for…read morehow they 'can' be. That being said, this was my first time at the CFoB. I decided to buy both the Friday Connoisseur Tasting and Saturday Grand Tasting. I'll break this down by each day... Friday Connoisseur Tasting: Here is how it is billed on the website.. The "Arts and Drafts" Connoisseur Tasting will feature specially selected Craft beer and local food offerings for guests enjoyment. The intimate tasting format allows the beer "connoisseur" an unique opportunity to converse one-on-one with the brewery reps on hand. This evening will also feature the work of visual artists and musicians local to the California Central Coast. The idea was for this to be a more intimate exclusive event with local artists present, meet and chat with the brewery reps, and taste some special selections. Art... Okay, first off, I am not an art guy so that didn't do anything for me. Art and beer...can they go together? Sure, do they normally? No. But whatever, they were not in the way and some people seemed to like them and bought some stuff. Food... There was Buffalo Wild Wings, Kind bars, a bbq catering company, some meatballs, and some more meatballs. It was all okay, but seemed a bit sad and underwhelming. Everyone was really nice, but really...I came for good food and beer. I didn't get that. The breweries... I visited each, maybe eight, and no more than 10 breweries were there. I me maybe two brewers who knew a lot about the beer, most were just people who poured beer and didn't know anything about it. There were no special beers to taste, each beer served was wholly available in the store, either in a can or bottle. No one offs, no special blends, nothing unique at all. A total sham in my opinion. If someone was there for me to complain to, I would have. A waste of $50. Saturday Grand Tasting: Great location and the setup was spacious enough to allow for plenty of walking without long lines and huge immovable crowds. Almost 50 breweries (counting cideries)! Wow cool! That's what I thought when I showed up. But then I approached the Firestone tent...they were pouring Easy Jack and DBA. Wait..what? I went to Central Coast Brewing and they poured, Montery St., Catch 23, Chai Ale... I went to Barrelhouse, they poured Sunny Daze, IPA, etc. I went to Oscar Blues they were pouring IPA and Mexican Lager... What the heck? Is this just a bunch of breweries serving their normal everyday beers? Not only did each brewery serve their normal everyday bottled beer, but less than 10 had anything special (that 20% new beer). Very very disappointing. No free food, but plenty of food trucks/vendors. The Pairing Knife, What the Truck, and a few others. Good prices, and they all took credit cards which is great. Plenty of shaded seating, as it was hot and sunny all day. Perfect weather, but I can't say the same of the event. The staff were all friendly and the organization was nice. It's just too bad about all of the normal beer. I suppose this is what you get when the event serves to benefit Hospice of SLO and breweries are only donating beer. So...my fault for not picking up on that. Stick with for profit beer festivals for the good stuff. Againg, for $75 I would say I got my money's worth in terms of quantity, but I care more for quality. And no Spike's?! How do you know invite the guys who started the entire festival??? For shame.

Two day drinking festival going towards a good cause -- perfect event for a small college town!…read moreBeer Fest took place at the Madonna Inn with 50+ breweries. First Day -- Connoisseur Pairing is the smaller night event held indoors at the Madonna Expo that features music and art. It's mainly an event catered to people who want to pair different brews with food and cigars. Second Day -- Grand Tasting is the HUGE event that takes place outdoors in the Meadows from 11am - 4pm. There are about 3,000+ people, most of which are local college students. All the breweries come out and the guests can sample alllll the beer they want!! There are usually a few food vendors as well (Spikes, Marston's, Pacifica Catering, Popolo..) They also had a couple of random activities like life size beer pong with big trash bins and a soccer ball. Beer Fest tickets are pretty pricey and run up to around $80 for GA but all the proceeds go to the SLO Hospice Center, an organization that provides support for anyone experiencing life threatening illnesses or grief of a lost one. Definitely one of the biggest events of the year in SLO and always a great time!

I may have romanticized this festival in my head. I imagined buying a strawberry balloon from a…read morestrawberry mascot... grabbing a strawberry infused lunch from a trendy and innovative food truck... eating a homemade (organic and fresh) strawberry shortcake dessert... Ok, I definitely romanticized it. We walked down a street with standard fair-food options (corn dogs, funnel cake, towering fried foods) before deciding to skip out on lunch. I caved and got the kids a snow cone. I didn't want to pump them full of Red 40, but I was committed to the theme and ordered strawberry syrup. They loved it. I passed several shortcake options but the cake portion was the yellow store-bought circle kind and the strawberries were more of a goop. I found a homemade strawberry shortcake from an adorable little downtown store and it was okay. Not bad, not impressive. It was $7 and I ate about $4.25 of it. The area set aside for families and younger kids was a hit with my 2 and 4 year olds. The green tractor racers was a huge hit and the turns were impressively long. It's a busy festival with lots of people but they have set up many side areas/venues so the crowds are dispersed (to take full advantage of his festival download a map and plan out the music or acts you want to see) Beside my disappointment in the level of strawberriness, it was a solid family outing and the weather was perfect. If you don't have other epic plans, I can't think of a good reason NOT to go.

Signed up for the Strawberry Stampede 10k to kick off our first time visiting the Annual Strawberry…read morefestival. Other than the race, I can't believe how big of a dissapointment it was. The festival was more of a small-scale alternative to the mid-state fair including the same fair vendors, fair food, cheap craft booths with clothing and jewelry from national brands and a few from Fresno. The festival closed down about 4 blocks of streets for vendors, entertainment, and a couple for rides and bounce houses/games. There were a few booths from the same company that offered strawberry lemonade, strawberries with whip cream, and strawberries with angelfood cake. There was another booth that had cheesecake on a stick with strawberries. It seriously the strawberries to non-local gimmicky booths was about 25:1. At least there were a few local vendors offering BBQ sandwiches, but event burrito and Greek vendors were from out of town. Here's how you can make it better: get local restaurants to commit to participating and making an amazing strawberry dish! Ex: strawberry glazed meats, strawberry vinegarette, strawberry pie, strawberry sangria, sooo many options! If you could have closer to a 5:1 ratio of random vendors tobstrawberry vendors and get more local input this event could be amazing. Alternative option: don't call it the strawberry festival.. call it the AG Annual Fair Looked like a lot of the kids had a decent time, but talking with other adults in the area who voiced a similar dissapoitment from years past with no plan to return.

We are camping in the area and found the festival on Facebook local events, so we decided to check…read moreit out. First the handicapped parking was not available (my husband is handicapped), as they placed tables and chairs in the handicapped parking. Once parked we went inside to check it all out. There were 2 lines for food, the wait about 30 min + each, so we skipped on food. We then walked over to see what was for sale and they had maybe 3 booths, not impressed. Our next stop was the bar... the drinks were pre-made and not very strong and served in less then 8oz cups, filled with ice and each was $12. Total rip and would not worth it!

It was not planned but we happened to be in town the weekend they had the Greek Festival in San…read moreLuis Obispo. Having just gone to the Oakland one just a few weeks before, we just stopped by this one to check it out vs sampling all the Greek food for sale since we have set spots we always hit while in SLO. One area was dedicated to entrée like items like moussaka, gyros, etc. while another booth had the pastries like my favorite, the galaktobouriko, and a separate booth for the loukoumathes. We did give into temptation and got a small order of their loukoumathes but did feel it was a bit too dense and doughy than what we are used to and had just a few weeks before. Held at the Mission Plaza, understandably it is not as large as the annual Oakland one but there is a certain charm to SLOs. Since it is smaller, there is a definite community feel to it that it probably would not be uncommon to run into your neighbor or friends at this event. Since it is during the weekend before the Cal Poly Commencement, it is geared more towards residents than students who were probably busy cramming for finals.

I'd been looking forward to finally attending this festival... and, although I had a great time, I…read morewas slightly disappointed. There were VERY few items that were actually avocado or avocado based. The margaritas were good and there were a few different options, so that made up for it slightly. On a good note, however, the Avocado Lime Popsicle was, hands down, the very best Popsicle I've ever had in my entire life! So delicious!!! I wanted to buy her out! Someone get this woman and her business into the stores! The high school cheerleaders made amazing guacamole with fantastic chips... we went back for more a couple of times! Thick yummy chips and huge scoops of guac! Thank you!! The "hints" posted on Instagram (upcoming food to get excited about) were nowhere to be found. I searched out 2 items but they were not anywhere. Really a bummer. Lots of vendors and advertisers, which is typical. Fun picture taking spots. Great music and dancing all day long! Super high priced foods and drinks. And Mother Nature made 2019's festival a wonderfully warm and sunny day! I had hoped to make this a tradition, but it bumped down a notch or two when it didn't quite meet my expectations. I'd go again but wouldn't make it a necessity. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Morro Bay and it's festivities... this one just fell short of my expectations. I'll update my review should I attend again. Still a great day, don't get me wrong... just fell short. CHEERS!!!

This is always a fun day in the sun near the sea. The crowds are awesome and the vendors so nice…read more Found some great make ups, ate fantastic guacamole from the MB HS cheerleaders as a fund raiser. Entered the sombrero contest (wore a huge Piñata on my head for hours) didn't win but it was all good fun. Had many good beverages! It's not a huge event but big enough to have a great day and the ticket price to get in is only $5 - listening to good music from the large stage, and yes we sure did dance our butts off - shout out to the Jammies they had that crowd rocking. Ii am such a fan I already bought my tickets to this year's event. Go at least once it's a fun fun day! Some lines but better than prior years! Oh and the addition of seating was a huge plus. Loved the white couch things. It falls on my birthday this year, so it's going to be my party!!