We had the opportunity to visit the Carolina Renaissance Festival for the first time last weekend and we had an amazing time! In the suburbs of Charlotte, you can be transported back in time to a place where history comes alive.
A big thanks to the Carolina Renaissance Festival for hosting us for this fun, family event. We received complimentary tickets for admission but all of my opinions are honest and my own.
Carolina Renaissance Festival Entertainment
We watched a show with a dancing PIG!! We were lucky enough to snag front row seats to watch Snorkel, along with Rick and Jan, for their sole performance of the day. Let me tell you, Snorkel the pig has some awesome stunts up his sleeve– he was wearing clothes, so I think it’s safe to say “sleeve”. The humor during the show was definitely PG-13 but the jokes went WAY over the heads of our preteens!
Have you ever seen a ToryStellar?? We saw Zilch the ToryStellar and his way with words was ridiculously awesome. Again, the humor was PG-13, but the jokes were completely missed by our under 13 crowd. They were rolling in their seats at his rendition of “Rindercella and the Stwo Tugly Epsisters”!
The kids were most excited to see the jousting since they’ve never seen it before. We got to the arena about half an hour before the show and it was already pretty full— make sure to get there early if you want a shady spot or don’t want to look into the sun! They were shocked and amazed that people actually used to joust, but they all said it looked like fun and wanted to know if they could try it sometime.
Carolina Renaissance Festival Food
The food at the Renaissance Festival was delicious and surprisingly affordable. We’re used to paying Disney prices for food and we were pleasantly surprised. The turkey leg was $9 but had a TON of cooked to perfection, tender meat.
Ellie loved her sausage on a stick, and at $4.50, it was a great value.
The treats didn’t disappoint either— the pecan nut roll covered in chocolate was my favorite.
We had a great time at the Carolina Renaissance Festival and will definitely be adding it to our annual rotation of things to do in the Charlotte area. Even though a lot of the humor in the shows was PG-13 (and some are even R though we didn’t see any of those), we still found it to be a very family friendly option.
Things to Remember When Visiting the Carolina Renaissance Festival
- Check the weather! While they operate rain or shine (barring the one day that they closed this season due to hurricane remnant rain) the walkways are mostly dirt and can get muddy.
- LOTS of people dress up in Renaissance garb (or to coordinate with the theme of the week- Pirate Christmas, Time Traveller, etc) so feel free to dress up in your Renaissance finest!
- If you want to see jousting, get to the arena early. There are a lot of food options right outside the arena so we actually recommend getting your lunch and bringing it into the arena maybe an hour before so that you can eat while you wait for the show.
- We waited in a 40-minute line to see the new Mermaids this year and were completely underwhelmed. Unless you have a die-hard mermaid fan, if the line is more than 10 minutes long, it’s not worth it at all.
- Check for FREE KIDS weekends. The next two weekends are free for kids 5-12 with an adult ticket purchased at the gate- no coupon needed! And kids under 5 are always free!
