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Not many American towns can point to a community celebration that has run since 1902. GeorgeFest has, through wars, depressions and every reason anyone ever had to stop bothering, and it survives because each generation in Eustis decided it was worth handing on. The bandshell at Ferran Park, the State Theatre building, the Bay Street Players — this is a town with a long habit of keeping good things running.
That instinct is rarer than it sounds. Most things that stop simply stay stopped. Somebody has to want them back badly enough to do the unglamorous work of starting again, and the children who benefit are usually the ones born after the gap.
Our farm ran from 1988, closed, and sat closed for seven years before the City of Kissimmee helped bring it back. It is seventy-five minutes southeast of Eustis: cattle over open pasture, alpacas, donkeys, pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits at the rail for the optional feed sold at the gate or online, a Tractor-Drawn Wagon Ride through the trees and a playground under old oaks. Admission runs $18 from age 2, free below, covering everything.
2 people got this going in 1988 — Coni and Bob Keyes, on a shaded piece of ground in Kissimmee. For the best part of three decades it was simply where children in the middle of Florida met livestock for the first time, whether that came by school bus, at a birthday, or on an ordinary Saturday. Then it stopped, and there was nothing much like it for seven years.
It is working again at Lancaster Ranch Park, and the reopening was careful rather than ambitious. Cattle, alpacas, donkeys, pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits are all where a child’s hand can reach. The wagon ride still runs its circuit. The oak canopy still does what oak canopies do. More acreage than before, and nothing else altered.
You will find us at Lancaster Ranch Park, 1881 Jack Calhoun Drive, Kissimmee, FL 34741, roughly fifty-five miles and about seventy-five minutes southeast of Eustis, typically down US-441 and US-27 or by way of Mount Dora and Clermont. It is among the longest runs anyone makes to us, and the page below is honest about what that means.
Start with which day. Our hours are 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday. The gate stops taking arrivals at 1:00 PM Wednesday through Friday and 2:00 PM Saturday and Sunday. Mondays and Tuesdays the gates stay shut. From Eustis, a midweek trip means an hour and a quarter each way for a three-hour window, and we would not recommend it unless the timing genuinely suits. Weekends give four hours. Wednesday is Grandparents Day, one grandparent admitted free with each paid general admission.
Bring the food. There is no cafe on site, only vending machines, and at this range a picnic is not a nicety but the thing that makes the day work. Shaded tables are there for it. Plenty of water, hats, sunscreen and closed shoes, since every part of the visit is out in the open on pasture.
Then come down. Tickets online beforehand or over the counter when you arrive; no reservation needed for general admission. Admission is $18 per head from 2 years, free under, and we take every major card and no cash whatever. Parties of ten to nineteen pay $15 each, twenty or more $12 each on a reservation, plus a free admission for every twenty paid. Animal feed is an optional purchase at the gate, or added to your tickets online, and it is the purchase that matters most.
Plan Your Visit
The Pumpkin Zone opens with the fall and becomes the busiest stretch we have. Worth putting straight: we are not a pumpkin patch, and we grow nothing on this farm. The Zone means every paying guest chooses a pumpkin and carries it home, free with admission. It is open every day we are open through the season rather than on a few weekends. The Halloween Candy Hunt is held on 2 weekends either side of Halloween.
Birthday parties need next to nothing organized. Set the date and time, pay in advance, and your tent is reserved for your celebration. It is $450 for as many as 25 guests, additional guests $15 each, four tents daily on Saturdays and Sundays with tables ready. Everyone invited has the whole farm, so the animals, the wagon ride and the playground take care of the entertaining between them. Decorating and food are your side of it. Something to tell your guests: pony rides and lettuce for the animals are optional extras, bought at the gate or added to your tickets online, and every bit of the day is outdoors.
Group visits are the version of this that really suits the distance. Ten to nineteen guests pay $15 each and twenty or more pay $12 each on a reservation, with one free admission per twenty paid, which is how a good many Lake County schools and congregations get here. Easter Egg Hunts come each spring and other seasonal events surface through the year, all listed on our Special Events page and shared first through Facebook and Instagram.
We are at Lancaster Ranch Park, 1881 Jack Calhoun Drive, Kissimmee, FL 34741, roughly fifty-five miles and about seventy-five minutes southeast of Eustis. Most families come down US-441 and US-27, or through Mount Dora and Clermont.
It is one of the longest journeys anyone makes to us and worth planning around rather than deciding on a whim. A weekend gives four hours here instead of three, which at this distance matters considerably. Do check your maps app before you leave, since both routes vary with the time of day.
Eighteen dollars per person from 2 years upward, with under-2s free. A single ticket opens the entire property — every animal, the wagon ride, the playground — with no further charges inside and parking included. Bring a card; no cash is taken on site.
Larger parties pay less each: $15 from ten to nineteen guests, $12 from twenty upward on a reservation, plus one free admission per twenty paid. An annual pass runs a year of unlimited visits from purchase, which at this distance suits families planning to come back across more than one season. Feed for the animals is an optional few dollars at the gate, or added to your tickets online.
Not here. Green Meadows runs as a petting farm, not a pumpkin patch, and no pumpkins are grown on our land. What we open each fall is the Pumpkin Zone, and a pumpkin from it goes home with every paying guest, free with entry.
Eustis has kept the same February celebration going since 1902, which is a rarer thing than it sounds. This farm opened in 1988, closed for seven years and came back, so the instinct is familiar. It is open on all of our open days rather than weekends alone, and the Candy Hunt runs on 2 weekends around Halloween. We publish the dates on the Special Events page and are shared first on Facebook and Instagram.
Please do, and from Eustis it is much the best way to come. Group rates begin at ten guests: $15 each from ten to nineteen, and $12 each from twenty upward with a reservation, which also carries one free admission per twenty paid. Lake County schools and congregations make up a fair share of our visitors from this direction.
Book ahead and settle the bill in advance where you can, because it moves a large party through the entrance far faster on the day. There is open ground rather than a set route, so a big group spreads out and finds its own rhythm, and the shaded picnic areas give everybody somewhere to sit down and eat together properly.
Lunch first, and rather more water than you would think. No cafe here, only vending machines, and after an hour and a quarter on the road that is an unwelcome surprise. There are shaded tables kept for it, and a proper meal outdoors with cattle beyond the rail is a fair reward for the driving.
Otherwise everybody wants dressing for a farm rather than a day out: closed shoes, hats, sunscreen throughout. Old oaks shade nearly all the ground so it runs cooler than the forecast implies, though the weather does entirely as it pleases. If the sky looks poor before you leave Eustis, call (407) 994-2775 and we will tell you honestly whether to set out.
2 to 3 hours covers most families, which fits a weekend window neatly. The first stretch nearly always goes on feeding animals, then the wagon ride, then the playground, with a picnic somewhere in the middle. Nothing runs to a clock, so you leave when the children have finished rather than when a schedule says so.
Coming from Eustis, arriving at opening is what gets the value out of it. The animals are livelier early, the air is cooler and the paddocks are quieter. A 10:00 AM Saturday start leaves four hours available, which sits far better against seventy-five minutes of driving than a compressed midweek visit ever could.
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