I will say I'm very torn about writing this review, but after speaking with the owner, I felt that I should because I felt like she wasn't listening to or accepting what I was telling her over the phone. This review is long (sorry) but it may help you decide whether you want to make the drive and support the business.
I've lived in the Boring area my entire life. I have come to Liepold Farms every single year for over a decade. This is where I came as a child, and I have very fond memories, and I have chosen to take my friends with me every year to share these memories and experiences with them. After my experience this afternoon, I'm hurt to say that I don't know if I will ever return.
After paying $7 per ticket (we bought three) for the corn maze, buying three caramel apples at $5 a piece and a bag of popcorn for $3, we headed to the corn maze. After wandering through the corn maze for about 10-15 minutes, we realized we were pretty close to the end after passing on top of a bridge that is set up within the maze. Whether we got really lucky in the paths that we chose while chatting or it was just really easy, I'm not sure. We decided to explore some of the various paths that were leading us to dead ends to see the rest of the decorations. This included a little bit of back tracking to see all of the decorations, but we didn't see a problem with this as we had just spent almost $40 between the three of us and we had only been in the maze for about 15 minutes. I will reiterate that we never found the exit, we never left the maze, we just saw from the bridge that we were getting close.
On one of the paths we passed a woman and her three young kids. She stopped us while we were mid conversation, asked us if we left the maze and came back in. My friend said "no, but we got close and were headed back this way." at which point she told us that we had to pay to re-enter the maze. I looked at her and said "we never left the maze, we just got close and wanted to explore the other paths and look at the other decorations." She rolled her eyes at us, muttered an "okay whatever" and followed her kids. This really hurt the feelings of my group. We are not 14-15 year old children, we are adults in our mid-20's and we just got accused of not buying tickets and/or leaving and re-entering, essentially "stealing" from the farm. For the next half hour, we wandered the maze extremely upset with our feelings hurt that a woman who did not even identify herself to us as an employee or affiliated with the farm in any way, shape, or form just accused us of stealing.
After leaving the maze, we saw the lady with her children standing around. Me and my friends walked by with our heads down because our feelings were hurt. We stood for a moment deciding whether we wanted to just leave or go see some of the little animals they had. The lady and her children approached us, said she was sorry for approaching us in the maze but she had been "told to keep an eye on people" because they had an issue with people entering without tickets and cutting through the corn. I looked at her and told her "okay, but we felt attacked and it hurt our feelings". She apologized again and walked away. For the rest of our time there, we would look over and see her staring at us from afar like we were criminals that she was making sure weren't stealing. This caused even more frustration to the point I finally went to a lady weighing pumpkins to talk with her. She was unsure how to handle the situation, but had informed me that the lady watching us that we had had the issue with was a relative of the family and had nothing to do with the farm or the functions going on. It turns out the lady who had yelled at me and my friends was the niece of the owner. While I was discussing our incident to this lady, the niece and the owner walked out and (according to the rest in my group) was watching the conversation I was having with this lady.
We then decided to leave. I live very close by, and on the short drive home, I nearly teared up because I was so frustrated that this happened and that I felt attacked like a criminal who was up to no good. I decided to call the farm and speak with the owner. I talked to her and told her our issue. She replied with "she told me your group left and then entered the again through the exit ". I explained to her that that was not what happened and explained the situation. After a few more defensive comments, she told me they had had an issue with another group of girls throwing corn at the decorations. Again, we are adults in mid-conversation, not teenagers screwing around. She did apologize and say that she appreciates me calling and will learn from the situation, but seemed annoyed by me at the same time.
After a long, very stressful week at work, we just wanted to go to the corn maze and relax and have a good ending to our evening, and instead it turned into a frustration. Don't think I will be going next year, sadly. read more