Minnesota Renaissance Festival - 2012

[luci]

We went to the Renaissance Festival on opening day.  Had a lot of fun.  I was worried about allergies (alternaria mold seems to cause asthma flares that require prednisone), also worried about the level of dust in general, also worried about whether there would be safe food available. Okay, so why did we go?  i guess I was just that desperate to do something "normal".  My son has pnut and some tnut allergies and we explained that this was a high allergen environment and that we would have to be careful and leave if there was any sign of allergies beginning.  We also discussed for days beforehand so he would increase his allergy/asthma meds before and on the day of the visit. We did make a big deal out of it, but the place is so dusty and it's during the time of year when his allergies are just starting to act up.

Anyway, no reactions whatsoever and now he has a strategy for preparing for a high allergen environment - lots of rest and lots of meds (except albuterol) before the visit.

With respect to the food - the people at the booths were hit or miss with their knowlege of food allergy and avoiding cross contamination.  Mostly it was miss.  We didn't like the booths that were really close to the entrance.  We ate popovers and turkey legs at the booths that were further into the festival, we ate cheese curds, beef stix, and drank soda and water. I brought some food along although the website said no outside food allowed (our backup plan was to leave it in the cooler in the car and go out and eat it if we needed to).

We fenced, shot arrows with a recurve bow, played chess with a giant chess set, played chess with a normal chess set against the chess master, watched jousting, sheepherding, acrobats, comedians, wandered into shops and didn't buy anything, listened to riddles, had a wonderful time.  It was a great day and I could get really used to going places and eating fair food without having any reactions! 

[hedgehog]

Glad you had a good time!  The good thing about most fairs is that there are usually so many vendors that if you strike out with one, there's another you can try.  Of course, the bad is that many are not safe, and it's hard to tell if the ones that seem safe really are.  But we've usually been able to find safe food at fairs, sometimes even vendors that go above and beyond to check.

[Mezzo]

Thank you for posting this! I've been wanting to take the family there, but we haven't gone since we had kids, and it's just so daunting when one of those kids has a food allergy.

[luci]

Oh, I just thought of a couple more things with respect to taking kids with allergies.  First, make sure it isn't your allergy season - since this festival runs August through the end of September you might be able to go.  And this year's allergies seem a little muted compared to the last several years.  My guess is that the drought in the rest of the country has killed some of the pollen producers and molds that we normally would have piled onto our own MN grown pollens and molds.  Second - if you go, go early. Gates open at 9am, but if you start queuing up at 8:40 or so, there is a little show, and the canon shots and all that stuff.  The crowd just keeps building as the day goes on, and we like to get out of there by 2 or 3pm.  The bigger the crowd the more dust is kicked up.

Remember to ask your allergist if you should up your allergy/asthma meds, and which ones to increase and how many hours/days in advance to start the increase.

Hope you have a safe and fun time there!

[Macabre]

I enjoy Ren Faires in general but haven't been since DS was in Kindy (and we were in Texas). We are living in an area very accessible to this.  Kiddo is a vegetarian--makes things like this a bit more interesting.

I am creating a thread about the Minnesota State Fair--which has a few more days.