One of the most heavily equipped fall festivals in Lake County and one of the oldest, but as of late August 2026 the farm had published neither dates nor prices, so there is nothing yet to plan a Saturday around.
The farm's own admission page says 2026 admission pricing is coming soon - no current rate is published. Children 2 and under are free. Prepaid timed-entry tickets are required for every guest.
The useful way to think about this place is that it is a Christmas tree farm with a second job. The fall festival is the autumn half of a year-round operation, and the farm described its 2025 run as a 37th season — which, whatever else is unclear, tells you this is not a first-year pop-up figuring out how to park cars.
The attraction list backs that up. A hayride, a petting zoo, a giant bounce pillow, the Jolly Acres maze, a giant slide, a trike track sized for both adults and children, a shark tooth sand dig, a sand mountain, duck races and a barrel train. That is a purpose-built family park, not a field with pumpkins in it, and it is priced and ticketed accordingly.
Here is the thing you actually need to know before planning a trip. As of late August 2026, the farm’s own admission page said 2026 pricing was coming soon, and its hours page said seasonal times were coming soon. No opening date, no closing date, no operating days, no hours, no rate. The two figures the farm has committed to are that children two and under enter free, and that every guest — not just adults — needs a prepaid timed-entry ticket.
That combination is worth pausing on. Timed entry means you cannot treat this as a spontaneous Saturday. It has to be booked, which means you have to be watching for the moment the calendar goes live. For a farm this well-equipped, the good slots on the last two October weekends will not sit around.
If your mental picture of a pumpkin patch involves vines and a New England field, adjust it before you arrive anywhere in this state. Florida’s climate cannot support a commercial fall pumpkin crop, so the pumpkins at essentially every Florida patch — this one included — were grown elsewhere, trucked in and arranged. What Florida farms sell in October is the festival: the rides, the play equipment, the animals and the photographs. Judged on that, an eleven-item attraction list is a strong offer. Judged as a harvest, it is theatre, and there is no point pretending otherwise.
The other Florida constant is the weather. Late September and much of October in Lake County still deliver high-eighties afternoons and reliable afternoon thunderstorms, and almost none of the attractions listed here — a sand mountain, a trike track, a slide — come with shade. When the timed slots do open, the early ones are the ones worth having.
Unknown, and that is the honest answer — the farm's hours page said seasonal times were coming soon when we checked in August 2026, so no operating days or hours are published for the 2026 run. What we can say is that every guest needs a prepaid timed-entry ticket, which means the decision is made online before you leave the house, not at the gate. When slots do go on sale, take the earliest one available. Central Florida in late September and October is hot until the sun drops, and a farm built around a bounce pillow, a slide and a sand dig gives kids nothing to hide under at 1pm.
Three to four hours to make a paid gate worth it. The attraction list runs to eleven items, including a maze, a barrel train, a trike track and two separate sand features. A family that leaves after ninety minutes has paid for the whole farm and used a third of it.
Timed entry is the farm's crowd-control tool, and it works on the parking lot and the gate rather than on the attractions. Expect the bounce pillow and the slide to queue on October weekends regardless of how orderly the entry was.
Unconfirmed. The site is a working tree farm on Huff Road rather than a paved commercial lot, and most Florida farm parking is a mown field — which turns to mud after the afternoon storms that run well into October. Wear shoes you do not mind writing off.
You need to know what a day costs before you commit. There is no published 2026 admission rate, and with timed entry you cannot simply turn up and decide. Skip it too if you want a pumpkin and nothing else — this is a ticketed activity farm, and a paid gate is a poor way to buy a squash.
Amber Brooke Farms is also in Eustis and publishes its dates, its prices and its add-on costs well in advance. If you need to plan and budget a fall day now, that is the one with the information available. Mount Dora, about twenty minutes south, is the natural lunch stop for either.
The farm has not said. Its own admission page stated that 2026 pricing was coming soon when we read it in August 2026. The only confirmed figure is that children two and under are free.
Yes. The farm requires a prepaid timed-entry ticket for every guest, so this is not a patch you can drive to on a whim.
Unknown. No season start or end date had been published for 2026 when we checked. The site also operates as a Christmas tree farm, so the fall festival and the Christmas season are separate operations with separate dates.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission pricing was not published when we last checked. The farm's own admission page says 2026 admission pricing is coming soon - no current rate is published. Children 2 and under are free. Prepaid timed-entry tickets are required for every guest.
35317 Huff Road, Eustis, FL 32736, in Lake County. It is one of 14 patches we track in Central Florida.
We track 14 patches in Central Florida, 2 of which are free to walk into. The farm has not published a gate price, so it cannot be compared on cost — call before you budget.
What sets it apart locally: it has rides and play structures, which most Central Florida patches on our list do not.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 8 of the 14 patches we track in Central Florida had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
There are 6 other patches we track in Lake County. All Central Florida patches →
santaschristmastreeforest.com
Checked August 2026.