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Very few small cities have Winter Haven’s record with visitors. Cypress Gardens opened here in 1936 and became Florida’s first commercial theme park, its water ski shows famous enough to draw presidents and film crews. The site is Legoland now. Publix started downtown. There are more than fifty lakes under the city’s care, many joined by canals dug during the Depression. This is a town that knows how to put on a show.
The flip side of living somewhere like that is a shortage of the unshowy. When most of the family options in town are the ones visitors pay for, an ordinary Tuesday morning with the children can be surprisingly hard to fill. Nobody choreographs anything at our place. There is no schedule, no performance and no admission tier above eighteen dollars.
What there is: cattle grazing out across the pasture, alpacas and donkeys drifting to the rail, goats with no manners and a strong interest in whatever you are holding, a Tractor-Drawn Wagon Ride through the trees and a playground under old oaks. Admission is $18 for anyone 2 and older, under-2s free, and it covers the lot. Children decide what happens and when it stops. That is genuinely the whole offer.
Coni and Bob Keyes started Green Meadows in 1988 on shaded ground in Kissimmee. Across nearly three decades an extraordinary number of Central Florida children met their first cow here — on school trips, at birthday parties, or on ordinary weekends when a parent wanted everyone outside. Then the gates shut and seven years went by with nothing filling the space.
The farm runs again at Lancaster Ranch Park, with the City of Kissimmee’s support, and the reopening was faithful rather than clever. Cattle, alpacas, donkeys, pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits live near enough for a child to reach across and touch them. The wagon ride goes out over the pasture regardless. Old oaks still keep the heat within reason. Different ground, same farm on top of it.
We are at Lancaster Ranch Park, 1881 Jack Calhoun Drive, Kissimmee, FL 34741, roughly thirty-five miles and about forty-five minutes northeast of Winter Haven, usually along US-27 or I-4 toward the 192 corridor. Eastern Polk has been citrus country for a very long time, and a fair bit of the drive still looks it.
Our hours are the thing to plan around. Wednesday through Friday we open 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM, and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, with Monday and Tuesday closed. We stop admitting at 1:00 PM from Wednesday to Friday with 2:00 PM on weekends. From Winter Haven the midweek window leaves you three hours at the end of a forty-five minute run, so weekends generally make more sense unless you can leave early. Wednesday does carry Grandparents Day, with one grandparent admitted free alongside each paid general admission.
Pack lunch before you set off. We have no cafe on the property, only vending machines, and after that drive nobody wants to go hunting for food. Shaded picnic tables are kept for exactly this. Bring plenty of water, sun hats, sunscreen and closed shoes rather than sandals, because the ground here is pasture rather than paving.
Then come across. Book online first or pay when you arrive; there is no reservation requirement for general admission. It is $18 a head from age 2, with under-2s free, and we accept every major credit card and no cash at all. Parties of 10 to 19 come in at $15 each and 20 or more at $12 each with a reservation, which also brings a free admission for every 20 paid. At this distance the annual pass is worth asking about. The animal feed is optional, available at the gate or bought online with your tickets.
Plan Your Visit
Each fall the Pumpkin Zone opens and the farm is at its busiest. Worth stating rather than implying: this is not a pumpkin patch and we do not grow pumpkins on the property. Every paying guest chooses one from the Zone and takes it home free with the ticket. The Zone is open every day we are open right through the season, not just on weekends. The Halloween Candy Hunt falls on 2 weekends around Halloween, and those are the 2 to plan around.
Birthday parties ask almost nothing of you. Pick your date and time, pay ahead, and your tent is reserved for your celebration. Tents cost $450 and cover up to 25 guests, with anyone beyond that at $15 each, and four run each day across Saturday and Sunday with tables already out. Every guest gets the whole property rather than a marked-off corner, so the animals, the wagon ride and the playground handle the entertainment while you arrange none of it. Decorations and the food are yours to choose. Worth putting on the invitation: pony rides and lettuce for the animals are optional extras, bought at the gate or added to your tickets online, and the day is outdoors throughout.
Group visits work well from this far out, and we take a good number from Polk County schools and community groups. It is $15 per person between 10 and 19 guests, $12 per person from 20 upward with a reservation, plus a free admission for every 20 paid. Easter Egg Hunts arrive in spring and other seasonal events appear across the year, all posted on our Special Events page and shared first on Facebook and Instagram. Paying beforehand moves a large party through the entrance a good deal faster.
We are at Lancaster Ranch Park, 1881 Jack Calhoun Drive, Kissimmee, FL 34741, roughly thirty-five miles and about forty-five minutes northeast of Winter Haven. US-27 or I-4 toward the 192 corridor are the usual ways across.
It is one of the longer runs on our list, so treat it as a planned morning rather than something you decide over breakfast. Weekends give you four hours at this end instead of the midweek three, which the distance rather calls for. Check your maps app before leaving, as I-4 through here is famously variable.
Admission is $18 per person for everyone aged 2 and above, and children under 2 are free. That single ticket covers the entire farm — all the animals, the wagon ride and the playground — with nothing added at the gate and no parking charge. We are card-only and take no cash at all.
Groups work out cheaper per person: $15 each between 10 and 19 guests, and $12 each from 20 upward with a reservation, which also includes one free admission for every 20 paid. An annual pass covering unlimited visits for a year is worth weighing up at this distance if the first trip goes well. Animal feed is an optional few dollars at the gate, or added to your tickets online — and it is where the morning really starts.
Not here. Green Meadows is a petting farm, not a pumpkin patch, and no pumpkins are grown on our land. What opens each fall is the Pumpkin Zone, and every paying guest chooses a pumpkin from it and takes it home included with admission.
Winter Haven has been in the business of entertaining visitors since 1936. This is built the other way round, for local families on an ordinary morning, and the pumpkin comes with the ticket rather than at a gift shop. It is open on all of our open days rather than weekends alone, and the Halloween Candy Hunt is held on 2 weekends close to Halloween. The dates are listed on our Special Events page and out first on Facebook and Instagram.
We do, and gladly. Choose your date and time and pay ahead, and your tent is reserved for your celebration. It costs $450 and takes up to 25 guests, with additional guests at $15 each, and there are four available each day on Saturdays and Sundays, all with tables set out.
Because guests can roam the entire farm, the entertainment is settled before you plan a thing. Between them, the animals, the wagon ride and the playground cover it. The tent comes bare, so decorations and catering are entirely your choice. Do mention to guests that pony rides and lettuce for the animals are optional extras, sold at the gate or added to your tickets online. Weekend tents disappear quickly through the fall.
Lunch, first and foremost. There is no cafe here, only vending machines, and it catches out plenty of first-time visitors. We keep shaded picnic tables for the purpose, and a meal outdoors with cattle in the middle distance repays the journey nicely. Bring more water than you expect to need, particularly through the summer.
Otherwise dress the family for a farm, not a day out: closed shoes, hats and sunscreen. Mature oaks shade most of our ground so it runs cooler than the forecast suggests, though Florida still does as it likes. If the weather looks doubtful before you leave Winter Haven, call us at (407) 994-2775 rather than making the drive and hoping.
It depends what you are after. For a quick look at some animals, forty-five minutes each way is a lot of driving. For an unhurried couple of hours outdoors, with a picnic, a wagon ride and children setting their own pace, the distance stops mattering fairly quickly.
2 things improve the arithmetic. Come on a Saturday or Sunday, when the gates stay open until 2:00 PM and the window stretches to four hours. And come with other families, since group rates start at ten guests and turn a longer drive into an outing worth organizing properly.
Know Before You Go
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