We had several with worms this year, so that was a bummer, and there are so many fallen apples rotting on the ground that bees and other insects are a nuisance constantly.
The apple cannon is a pain point. My son loves this, so we do it, but it's always a 45 minute line, to shoot a few handfuls of apples. It's great fun, but standing in the line takes so much time. This year was worse, they were only running half of their cannons, so we stood around for an hour. Kid had fun though.
update*9/29/17 - I don't mean to hurt your business. I just appreciate when businesses are forthcoming with this kind of information. The damage is hard to spot. The first time we visited your orchard we picked a 1/2 bushel almost entirely of this variety and ended up losing a good deal of money. I'm posting this as a note of caution to anyone picking this variety to examine the apples closely since I wasn't warned when on the farm. I suggest looking closely at the flower and stem sides for holes or signs of a damaged core.
This was a great place. There are several different activities to enjoy. They have a petting farm with different animals, an apple cannon, an underground slide, tractor rides through the orchard, pig races, a zip line, and of course apple picking. The orchards are arranged by types of apples and each section has a sign to let you know what kind of apples there are. They have a great store where you can buy all things apple. We had some of their apple cider and it was wonderful. You can also buy apples if you don't want to pick them yourself plus all kinds of baked goods and jellies and honey.....everything! Great place! Take your family....you won't regret it.
We've made a tradition of going to Reece every year for the last few years, trying at different points in the season to get different kinds of apples. Most of the time it's reasonably organized chaos, which is expected due to the large crowds that gather here. It's popular, has a huge picking area, and lots of other activities. We can usually count on spending a whole afternoon here having fun.
Positively, there didn't seem to be issues with other varieties. Thank you. Keep up the good work. We'll see you next year.
Super busy, but we got lucky. We pulled in just after a tiny thunderstorm, so many people had been driven off. The trees are pretty picked over in mid/late September, but if you keep looking, you can find some good size apples. Kids loved the petting zoo, milking a cow, and the very fast (and cleverly made) super-slide. The pony rides are NOT worth the price. Avoid. The apple cider is crazy delicious, and the fried pies are wonderful.
So we had a great experience! Just feel like they could think ahead for injuries on a working farm. Like ice packs that aren't full of holes or something. Lol
The only orchard with U-pick during the week in September. This is good. However, suggesting we pick the Golden Delicious without first warning us that most of them had worms or damage from them, is not cool. This is actually the second time this has happened to us here. Thankfully we knew better and were very careful picking this variety. Yet, we still came away with mostly damaged GD apples. Rome beauties were pretty good so we filled our bag with this variety.
Because of the popularity, it's common to have the trees pretty bare though, finding good apples is pretty challenging, but persistence pays off, we've never not filled our bag with good apples.
Despite on orchard being picked clean, we were happily able to fill a small bag with leftover apples on the trees in the second orchard! The petting zoo was a hit with the kids! The corn maze was fun, and the kids liked the cow train. It was standing room only for the pig races, and only the front row had a view, but that probably just means it is a fun and popular attraction.
-
Our only problem was an inevitable thing, not really the orchard's fault. Their in-ground balloon jumper was overfilled with kids, something I would avoid usually because I'm they're disasters waiting to happen. But a family member paid for them, and I figured we'd just keep an eye out. No biggie. Well, of course, a much bigger kid accidentally jumped too close to my 7yo and she landed on and hyper-extended her knee. It swelled up right away, but there was no first aid station anywhere we could find. The lady selling tickets did give me a plastic grape bag to fill with ice from the soda cooler, though.
The store really is one of the highlights here though, their baked goods are excellent, and the lines move very fast. You can buy the apples you want and save the walk though the orchard if you want. I think next year we'll just buy a few activities and then spend all the money we save on activities in the store.
This year we really just went for the activities - we picked a small bag of apples, did the pony ride, apple cannon, cow milking and petting farm. My younger kids could spend all day in the petting area.
---
B J Reece Orchards is a US Bakery based in Ellijay, Georgia. B J Reece Orchards is located at 9131 Georgia 52 East, Ellijay, GA 30536, USA.
Please contact with B J Reece Orchards using information above: Address, Phone number, Fax, Postal code, Website address, E-mail, Facebook. Find B J Reece Orchards opening hours and driving directions or map. Find real customer reviews and ratings or write your own review.