A properly gated country fair at $18 a head midweek and $27.50 at weekends, where roughly ten of the twenty attractions only run Saturday and Sunday - so the cheap day is also the thin day.
Country Fair day tickets are $18.00 per person Wednesday-Friday and $27.50 per person Saturday and Sunday; babies 23 months and under are free. A season pass giving unlimited Wednesday-Sunday access all season is $46.00 per person. Group discounts run $3-$4 off per ticket depending on party size and day. U-pick apples and u-pick pumpkins cost extra on top of the fair ticket. The Country Store is free to enter.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $72.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
Wiard’s is the one farm in this batch that behaves like a theme park, and it should be judged on those terms. There is a gate, a day ticket, a season pass, group rates, and a programme that changes between weekdays and weekends. That is a clearer proposition than most Michigan orchards offer, and it also means the arithmetic matters more.
Day tickets are $18.00 Wednesday to Friday and $27.50 Saturday and Sunday. Babies 23 months and under go free. For two adults and two children over that age, a midweek visit is $72 at the gate and a weekend visit is $110. U-pick apples and u-pick pumpkins are not covered by either - they are additional - so the pumpkin your child came for is a separate transaction from the ticket that got them near it.
The season pass is $46 per person for unlimited access Wednesday to Sunday across the whole season. For a family of four that is $184, against $220 for two weekend visits, so it turns profitable on the second Saturday. Midweek it takes three visits to beat $18 tickets. If you live in Washtenaw County and this is your default autumn outing, the pass is straightforwardly the right buy. If you are driving in once from out of town, it is not.
Group discounts run $3 to $4 off per ticket, kicking in at 10 tickets midweek and 11 at weekends. Two families travelling together should count heads before buying separately.
This is the thing the price difference conceals. Midweek you get the Firehouse Fun Zone, the Learning Barn, the corn maze, Crazy Cob’s Corn Crib, Fort Wiard mini golf, Old West wagon rides and the animal petting farm. That is a solid morning for a young child.
Weekends add roughly ten more: the giant slide, fire engine rides, the bungee run, the Wiard’s 500 pedal tractor races, the Spine Chilling Mindshaft, the Karaoke Kabin, a moonwalk, the Schoolhouse Challenge, Pappy Apple Playground and Quaker Rapids. Those are the higher-energy attractions and they skew older. A seven-year-old who has seen the giant slide in a photograph and arrives on a Thursday will notice it is roped off.
So the honest framing is not that the weekend costs $9.50 more. It is that the weekday and the weekend are two different products, and the cheaper one suits a four-year-old while the dearer one suits a ten-year-old. Choose on the child, not the price.
The Country Fair runs 11:00am to 6:00pm Wednesday to Sunday. The Country Store opens earlier, 9:00am to 6:00pm Tuesday to Sunday. Everything is closed Monday.
An 11:00am start is late for a farm and it compresses the day: seven hours of operation, and at $27.50 a head you want most of them. Arrive at opening rather than after lunch, particularly at weekends when the queues for the ten extra attractions are the constraint.
The season starts Tuesday September 8, 2026. It does not have a published end. The farm says November hours vary and asks you to call, which is honest but leaves anyone planning a late-season visit with a phone call to make. Michigan frost also ends corn mazes - if the maze is a large part of why you are going, November is a gamble.
Wiard’s runs haunted attractions under the Night Terrors name, ticketed separately from the Country Fair. No 2026 dates or prices appeared on the pages we read, so do not assume a day ticket touches them, and do not assume they run on the day you have chosen. That is a phone-call question too.
Budget beyond the gate. U-pick apples and pumpkins are extra, the cider mill and donuts are extra, and a family of four at weekend rates that also picks a pumpkin each and buys lunch is comfortably past $150 for the day. That is not unreasonable for what is genuinely a full-day fair with twenty attractions, but it is not a $27.50 day either, and the difference is worth deciding on before you drive to Merritt Road rather than at the counter.
The Country Fair opens Tuesday September 8, 2026, running 11:00am to 6:00pm Wednesday to Sunday, with the Country Store open 9:00am to 6:00pm Tuesday to Sunday. Everything is closed Mondays. November hours vary and the farm asks you to call. A Wednesday or Thursday is the value pick if your children are small; a Saturday is the only way to get the full attraction list.
A full day, or close to it. At $27.50 a head on a Saturday you need four to five hours to make the gate price sensible, and the seven-hour operating day allows it.
The pricing does the crowd management here: $27.50 weekends against $18 weekdays, with the weekend-only attractions deliberately loaded onto the busy days. That means Saturday is both the fullest programme and the longest queues, and a Wednesday buys you space at the cost of content.
Not published. Assume field or unpaved parking, which is the norm for Washtenaw County farms, and assume soft ground after October rain.
Not published. A corn maze, a bungee run, a giant slide and Quaker Rapids are physical attractions; the Country Store and cider mill are the flat, low-effort part of the site. Call 734-482-7744 if this decides the trip.
You want a cheap look round. There is no free version of the Country Fair - $18 is the floor, and for two adults and two children that is $72 before you have picked an apple. Skip midweek if the weekend-only attractions are what your children came for, and skip Mondays entirely because the whole site is shut.
Plymouth Orchards & Cider Mill is roughly forty minutes north-east and is the opposite model - no published admission, long daily 9:00am to 7:00pm hours, and a cider mill season that ends November 8. If Wiard's gate price is more than you want to spend, that is the free-entry alternative in the same corner of the state.
Country Fair day tickets are $18.00 per person Wednesday to Friday and $27.50 per person Saturday and Sunday. Babies 23 months and under are free. A season pass giving unlimited Wednesday-to-Sunday access all season is $46.00 per person. U-pick apples and pumpkins cost extra on top of the ticket, and the Country Store is free to enter.
Roughly ten attractions only run Saturday and Sunday - the giant slide, fire engine rides, the bungee run, the Wiard's 500 pedal tractor races, the Spine Chilling Mindshaft, the Karaoke Kabin, the moonwalk, the Schoolhouse Challenge, Pappy Apple Playground and Quaker Rapids. Midweek you get the Firehouse Fun Zone, the Learning Barn, the corn maze, Crazy Cob's Corn Crib, Fort Wiard mini golf, Old West wagon rides and the animal petting farm.
If you will visit twice at weekends, yes - two weekend day tickets cost $55 against a $46 pass. Midweek it takes three visits to break even at $18 a ticket.
No closing date is published. The farm says November hours vary and asks you to call 734-482-7744. Treat any November trip as needing a phone call first.
Opens September 8, 2026 (closing date not published). Tuesday-Sunday for the Country Store; Wednesday-Sunday for the Country Fair. Everything closed Mondays.. Hours: Country Fair 11:00am-6:00pm Wednesday-Sunday; Country Store 9:00am-6:00pm Tuesday-Sunday. November hours vary and the farm asks you to call ahead..
Admission starts at $18 per person. Country Fair day tickets are $18.00 per person Wednesday-Friday and $27.50 per person Saturday and Sunday; babies 23 months and under are free. A season pass giving unlimited Wednesday-Sunday access all season is $46.00 per person. Group discounts run $3-$4 off per ticket depending on party size and day. U-pick apples and u-pick pumpkins cost extra on top of the fair ticket. The Country Store is free to enter.
5565 Merritt Road, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, in Washtenaw County. It is one of 10 patches we track in Metro Detroit.
We track 10 patches in Metro Detroit, 9 of which are free to walk into. At $18 a head this one sits right on the regional median of $18.
What sets it apart locally: it has rides and play structures, which most Metro Detroit patches on our list do not.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
wiards.com
Checked August 2026.