The last time I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival was in 2019 or pre-pandemic. I was planning to attend in 2021, but wedding plans quickly booked my weekends. I wanted to make it a priority to attend this year. I’m so glad I was able to go.

Normally, we always drive to Ren Fest, but this year we decided to take the bus. There’s a bus that will do drop-offs at the entrance. It’s well known that Ren Fest has extremely long wait times to get into the fairgrounds. By long, I mean you could easily be waiting 2+ hours to park a car. Once I found out the bus was an option, I kick myself as to why I didn’t do this years ago. It was so slick. There were times that the bus had to wait, but once we got closer, there was a bus line created, so we could bypass a lot of the car lines. I think it took 20-30 minutes to get there versus hours waiting in a car.

In previous years, we tried to go towards the middle of September as it’s supposed to be cooler. However, the weekend we went, it was 80 degrees! It was nice not being cold, but it messed with the tradition. I used to always order soup in a bread bowl, but it was too hot. I opted for potato skins, chicken fajita, and a chicken wrap for dinner. I did stick with the apple cider float, which I still love. It’s the perfect fall beverage.

This year, I decided to wear a full costume! I decided to go with a pirate look. I rented my costume from Royal Fashions Costume Emporium, which I have been doing since 2018, except I would always rent for a convention and not for Ren Fest. Renting a costume is great because it’s cheap and I don’t have to store it anywhere. It was a little bit hot, so I ended up not wearing my red pirate jacket as I really didn’t want to overheat. Wearing a costume for the Ren Fest is so fun, and I plan on doing this every year going forward.

We spent six full hours at Ren Fest, which included seeing two live shows, shopping, and walking around. I missed going to Ren Fest, so I’m happy that I was able to go this year.