Grade: D-
Most everything at the Sterling Renaissance Festival is renaissance- (or, more accurately, medieval-, or, sometimes even more accurately, fantasy-) themed. Grown men and women walk around in cloaks and kilts and chains and jewels. People have swords strapped to their backs or hips. You can throw tomatoes at a guy who in turn hurls insults at you. You can purchase full-sized turkey legs to eat. They sell soda, but it is referred to as something along the lines of "non-mead sweet drinks." There is magic and jousting. It is, in short, totally awesome.
That said, the restrooms drop the ball. Big time. The Renaissance Festival is made up of permanent structures; its huts and pubs and stands are around all year. So why would the bathrooms not be themed as well? A quick Google search of "medieval bathrooms" yields the following results:
Any one of these examples, no matter how filthy or dysfunctional, would have been amazing. Instead, we're teased with this promising sign...
...only to be treated with an awful, disgusting, ordinary, non-themed, almost completely non-functioning men's room. The soap dispensers do not work and are instead replaced with pump-bottles, which are of course soaking wet and gross from the sheer number of people who pass through. The automatic hand dryers do not work. It smells, quite frankly, awful.
The one redeeming feature is the costumed restroom attendant, though he seemed to simply stand outside of the door and not actually do anything. I do not have a photograph of him because I would have been obligated to tip him, and I wasn't about to tip him for standing there with a basket and saying "Thank ye, good sir."
If it helps, you can use the porta-johns that are set up along some of the pathways. They are actually much cleaner and probably simulate medieval bathrooms a little more closely.
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