Orange County Great Park

You can float 400 feet over Irvine, ride a hand-painted carousel, and let the kids dig for worms, and none of it costs you a dollar to walk in.

By The Editors · August 2026

The headline attraction at the Orange County Great Park is a giant orange balloon that lifts you about 400 feet into the air for a 360-degree view stretching up to 40 miles, it was the first of its kind in the country, and your kids ride it for free. Adults pay ten bucks. There is no height restriction, and it takes strollers, wheelchairs and ECVs, so the baby goes up too. Try finding that deal anywhere else in Southern California.

The balloon is tethered, which is to say it goes straight up and comes straight down, so nobody is white-knuckling anything. Nap timing matters here. The balloon and carousel run Thursday through Sunday, and the balloon splits its hours into a morning block and an evening block, so check the hours and rates before you load everyone into the car, because arriving during the mid-afternoon gap is a rookie mistake.

Kids ride the balloon free. Adults pay ten dollars. That is the whole catch.

The carousel is also free, and it is a good one, hand-painted, originally from Fashion Island in Newport Beach, with panels repainted in 2021 to nod at Orange County history. Then there is Kids Rock, a playground built for toddlers through elementary age with climbing rocks, tunnels made from recycled runway concrete (yes, this whole place used to be a Marine base), and misting shade structures that actually cool the kids down when Irvine turns into a griddle.

My favorite freebie is the Farm + Food Lab, a two-acre hands-on garden run by UC Cooperative Extension where kids dig for worms, hunt bugs with tiny magnifying glasses, and see actual fruit and vegetables growing out of the ground. It is calm, it is educational, and it buys you twenty minutes of not being climbed on. Admission and parking are both free (aim for Lot 3), which means a full day of balloon, carousel, playground and farm costs you roughly the price of two adult balloon tickets and whatever snacks you smuggle in.

Bring the snacks, by the way. Bring a picnic, sunscreen, and hats, because the shade is real but the sun is realer, and pack water like you mean it. This is a toddler-through-early-elementary paradise; older kids may shrug unless you point them at the sports complex. Verdict: free, special, and worth planning your whole day around the balloon's clock.

Sources and further reading: Orange County Great Park - City of Irvine (official), Great Park Balloon & Carousel - hours and rates (City of Irvine), Great Park Visitor Information (City of Irvine). Photos via Wikimedia Commons: the balloon by Ganeshk (CC BY-SA 2.5) and the carousel by Ryan Friesen (CC BY-SA 4.0).