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| - We attended the Cave Creek Balloon Festival last night (2018) and it was a different experience than prior years. We had VIP tickets which were $80, $60 more than general admission. The VIP food was a big let down.
The shrimp cocktail was okay and had a nice hot bite on the sauce. But there was no steak at a country festival! The ribs were a bit dry and had sparingly sprinkled sauce. The spinach blueberry salad was tasty; however, it was the only salad choice. The side vegetables were mediocre looking and tasting. Unspiced potatoes, or lumpy bland mashed cauliflower, or sogged croutons (?) were the only choices. A bite of each was too much torture for a foodie. Only 3 desert choices were offered and never all together. All were awful. The peach cobbler was more dough than fruit and wasn't sweet in any way: inedible soggy slush it comes in runner-up for the worst dessert ever. The thimble sized cheesecake was more crust than filling and had a small piece of strawberry on top. It left a filmy feeling in your mouth. The 3 inch chocolate meringue tartlette was super sweet chocolate sauce with meringue on top, yuck! It is officially the worst dessert ever offered. None of these required a chef.
We tried Tonto Bar & Grill's Tornino Margaritas and the first one was good. The second one was watered down so much from ice melt, yet another disappointment in quality control and guest experience.
The fly over was only 2 directions this year, instead of 4 and came immediately after the Color Guard presented the flag. It was still a hit against a beautiful blue sky.
Madison Holmes' set was wonderful as was the second band (blue grass).
We left the VIP area to check out the festival when the third band (country) came out. The music was not consistently pumped throughout the festival. So I don't know if they were bad, or made to sound bad.
Because of mild wind, no balloons were inflated. Wind happens daily in AZ and 40 mph wind happens regularly. Yet the organizers announced mild wind as the reason no balloons at the balloon festival. The balloon operators chatted with guests and candelled their torches. It was a nice effect with the waxing moon and bright Jupiter high above. We chatted with one and his balloon stories were very interesting. He was an extreme balloonist who rose and dropped rapidly.
The food in the midway smelled a lot better than the VIP food. It rubbed it in that we made a bad choice with VIP seats.
Getting a courtesy bus back to parking was a nightmare. There were no attendants in the staging area to stage people. So people started walking down to queued buses. At every bus, dads with monster strollers elbowed people out of the way in the most disgusting display and lack of manners and anger control I have ever witnessed at a festival.
We were forced down from the second bus to the 9th. It was pandimoneum with the elderly, disabled, and mannered people literally pushed back by stroller weilding dads. The strollers were huge, not the umbrella type, and hit everyone around the dads' paths. #Shame on them for modelling such belligerence to the young kids. Our bus driver was courteous as everyone boarded. He had to stop a stroller weilding, elbow flairing dad from muscling in to a full bus. #GratitudeToBusDrivers.
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