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We went Sunday morning at 8:45 am and parked at Carter Finley easily. I would have hated to be in the line waiting to get in when we left at 11:30. We drove around and exited out the PNC side and there was NO traffic. Back way in?
I want to thank everyone who contributed to this thread, because I used many of the ideas last night and had a great time. I parked at Carter-Finley and it was very easy and free! I also took advantage of a few of the free exhibits mentioned by others. I have two kids (ages 8 and 9) and I had never fully paid attention that some games are "everyone wins" and some games are not. So that really helped in the strategy making sure the kids could come home with prizes.
Just got back from my 2nd trip to the Fair! We got there at 10:30 AM. It was a bit more crowded getting in, as it was "canned food day". Once in, it wasn't nearly as crowded as it was on Sunday and today, I was pushing a stroller.
The kiddie rides weren't too crowded, maybe 2 or 3 kids in front of us but we always got on as soon as the ride stopped. No long lines for food. It was a lot easier to get around than it was on Sunday.
Another fair tip - there are PLENTY of games on the midway that say "kids always win" - stick with those or you will end up with unhappy kiddos. I should have taken my own advice on that today but eventually we found them!
I have to say that I've always been pleased with the folks who run the games in terms of watching out for the kids. Our son really wanted to play that horse race game one year and before he took our money, the game operator told us about the "kids always win" games and let us know that the horse race game was not something that he would have much of a chance of winning. I was impressed with that.
I was the original poster of this thread and see MANY others have also found it useful! We did go Sunday first thing and by 1:30 were suffocating and had to leave, but it was a good time. The garden area was beautiful. Thanks to my printed itinerary from a great poster on this forum, we did well on our first venture, but somehow got a bit lost in the end due to crowds. The stroller was not a problem, the kids didnt compare it too much to their hometown fair (but we do miss the GIANT cream puffs) and we even found a few rides suitable for all-and with my advance sale tickets they each got to go on a few!
Thanks to everyone for their contributions to this post. Our "new" state fair will be a new annual tradition, but I might have to be one of those bad parents that takes the kids out of school or something to avoid that weekend crowd!
We went Saturday morning around 9:30am and were able to stick around til about 1:30 before the crowds starting getting crazy. I'm kind of sad I missed out on the fried girl scout cookies but by the time we hit that booth I had met my quota on fried foods haha.
Another huge thank you to Usedtobe VaNC!! I printed out your post and used it as our map to the Fair. It was actually our second time going, but the first time we didn't like it and left after only about an hour, because all we saw were rides and food. This time we stayed for four hours and still had stuff we wanted to do! Next time I will probably try the free parking, but we still did really good ($10 parking, $5 lemonade plus $2.50 refill, $8 for 2 slices of pizza, $8 for 2 NC State ice creams...and $65 in pottery at Frontier Village). My kids LOVED watching them throw pottery on the wheel and the gardens were just beautiful. Thanks again!! ETA that we went Wednesday evening and had no problems with crowds.
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