Aikman Wildlife Adventure — Attraction in Arthur

We went to the snack shop first, and waited for 30 minutes behind 2 other customers. Never figured out what the heck was going on and no one bothered to explain. No one took our order or told us anything. The employees didn't appear busy or bothered. Both my kids wanted a slice of pizza, and I noticed they had only one slice of pizza in the warmer, ... so I got an employee's attention and asked when they could have more pizza done, thinking they could go ahead and start another pizza while I waited (for whatever the hell I was waiting for), but the employee just said "that's all we have right now". Uhh... ok... so MAKE MORE! but I went back to my spot in line to negotiate with my kids who would get the single slice of pizza and who would choose something else. My daughter finally agreed to get a pretzel with cheese just so we could get out of there. Fast forward another 10 minutes and we FINALLY got waited on, and when I ordered the pretzel with cheese, the employee said "we don't have any cheese" (P.S. They also couldn't get the keurig to work for hot cider/cocoa, and since there's no cheese, there's no nachos) They let us wait 30 minutes only to tell us they basically didn't have ANYTHING on the menu. There were 2 employees and neither of them had the brains to even apologize for any of this! I mean, considering they were out of over half the items on the menu, why wouldn't they have said "hey just so you know, we are out of A,B, and C" instead of letting us stand there? Put up a sign? Close the shop? So many right choices, but they chose none of them. We ended up leaving hungry. Then, on the drive through, some employees (or owners?) drove an ATV out onto the path ahead of us with some little kids in back seat and lured ALL the animals away from our car with food. So we basically paid $33 bucks to drive a dirt road with no animals on it and stand in line at a snack shop that didn't have anything to eat. This day was a colossal waste of...

Habitats and general keeping were lacking for a lot of the animals. Their "cute 'n cuddly" encounter was seeing their hedgehog, sugar glider, wood turtle, and Hermann's tortoise in a side room where they were housed. The wood turtle and Hermann's tortoise were housed together in a small stock tank without water, proper heating, or UV, and the staff admitted the tortoise liked to bully the turtle, who should have had an area to soak. The room also felt too cold for the hedgehog, and they only had one sugar glider, which are not meant to be solitary animals and can easily lead to lethal stress without other individuals. The bear enclosure was very small. I don't recall seeing any type of mental stimulation for any of the animals. One of the tortoises was kept with the rabbits. Tortoises are known to eat feces of other animals and become very sick. He stayed under the rabbit hutch on the rock path to keep cool. The rabbits were clearly over heated and one kept chasing the others around in their over crowded yard, again with no visible water. The keepers even poked fun at this. The other tortoise had dug several inches down and exposed about a foot of metal rebar sticking a good 4 inches above the ground over a path he clearly paced; the keepers didn't seem too worried about fixing it. He also didn't have water. There was little shade in the drive through part of the park, aside from the pond which was over crowded with animals and didn't allow others to have room for shade. There were also dozens of these small concrete and rock mounds in straight rows that were clearly man made and looked like grave markers throughout the drive thru portion, which seemed strange. I understand this is a private, small scale operation, but these animals need...

We have been on the wagon tour and the behind the scenes tour as well. The animals all seem decently cared for and have nice enclosures (even the temporary ones). They have everything from a macaw to a bear and so much more in between. The wagon tour takes a group of people through a large pasture of animals all while telling you about them and stopping from time to time to let you feed them. It isn't rushed and the guide was nice enough to answer all of the questions everyone had. The behind the scenes was also great but keep in mind that they book 5 seats on a UTV so you may be with people you don't know. You are guided through the walk through area and get to see the animals that aren't out for general spectators yet. You get to hang with the kangaroos for a bit also before getting in the vehicle for the next part of your adventure. You're driven through the pasture area while getting a more personal in depth history and lesson on the animals all while feeding them (watch out for that greedy camel Randy). Its pricey but understandable seeing all the work that needs to be done and all the work that has been done already. Maintaining animals, enclosures, grounds, buildings and, a crew isn't easy or cheap I'd assume. There is a small gift shop as well where you buy your tickets and can see a few smaller critters. It's a couple hours worth of...