South Texas Maize — Attraction in Hondo

NOT WORTH THE PRICE. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME. Horribly over priced. POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. Muddy, unkept grounds. Most of the property closed due to rained out grounds but prices remain the same. Rude staff -- especially management.

MANAGEMENT DOES NOT CARE to correct rude staff and intentionally refuses to acknowledge or remedy poor customer service.

We drove to the ranch with a car full of kids excited to visit the corn maze Nov 10, 2018. We found the ranch web site online to be cluttered and an automatic pop up stated the ranch opening be delayed until 4:30 p.m. and to refer to another site section for details. This could not be easily found. HALF THE RANCH WAS CLOSED but rates were still the same. After making the long drive with the kids, we opted to try the half of the park that was open as to not waste our hour drive and time. We were told the kids could still pet the animals, which were just goats. We ruined the entire family's shoes playing hop scotch on rocks to avoid pools of water and mud at the unavoidable property entrance. There wasn't courtesy enough to lay down particle board or more rocks to help people enter safely. Granted, there was a popular band -- we did not stay for it as the kids feet were so wet, muddy and cold. When we arrived the woman at the entrance told us the entire second half of the ranch would be avaiable to us. However. very little was open. We bought food and tried to sit at an empty table by a fire to warm the kids only to be scolded by staff we needed to move if we hadn't reservations. That is understandable but the table was empty and the fire burnt for no one -- not to mention that should of been explained at admission. The jumpy staff could stand to be a little more polite and professional and not bark at little children for not putting their muddy shoes near the jumpy. Very disappointed. We paid nearly 80 dollars to feed goats grass, to buy overpriced food, and ruin a family of five's shoes and muddy our car mats.We wasted time and gas money. If they are going to charge what they do, they should deliver great customer service and a big bold "MAZE IS CLOSED/CONCERT ONLY" post as soon as web site is opened. And when I brought these exact concerns to management in an email, she defenseively and rudely responded in red ink -- line by line -- "NOT OUR FAULT, NOT TRUE, FALSE ACCUSATION and MY STAFF WILL BEHAVE HOWEVER THEY DEEM NECESSARY TO RUN THE JUMPY."

Very unprofessional. Very over priced. Poor customer service. NOT...

Here’s the short and skinny of it: yes, it’s worth your money and your time. The. End.

If you want to know more, read on….

Although most of the attractions here are for kids, it's still worth the drive out there for the couple of adult entertainment attractions they have.

The corn maze, “MatterCorn Mountain,” and the apple cannons are my recommendations for the adults.

*The corn maze – it’s separated into two different sections, and you get to try each of them with your admission. At the maze “orientation” booth, you choose from a selection of paper slips with categorized trivia questions on them. As you go through the maze, you find sign posts with numbers on them and you match this number up with the question on the slip of paper. Select what you think is the correct answer on the slip of paper and then take the path it tells you to take (you’d better hope you’re answer is right). They let you look at the slips of paper before you go, so you can choose a category of trivia that you are comfortable with. I went with the easiest one (it’s actually meant for kids) and was able to get through each section in a total of 45 minutes or so.

*MatterCorn Mountain – there are several tube slides around the place, but this locale has the tallest slide. Not scary at all and a lot of kids going down it.

*Apple cannons! I think this was my favorite. You pay $5 for a basket of 10 apples and load them up into an air powered cannon and shoot at different metal targets out in the field. I could have done this all day if it didn’t cost extra.

There’s plenty of parking and short lines for admission and everything else inside. As I mentioned above, there’s lots of other stuff to do if you have those half-sized people with you, but I just reviewed the attractions for the full-sized people.

Plenty of stuff to eat and drink, but it’s overpriced carnival food style. Save your money and find a good local place in Hondo or nearby Castroville to eat at instead.

They’re open from mid-September through mid-November.

Helicopter rides, pony rides, and quarter horse rides are an extra cost and it’s listed on the map they give you...

My family has been going here for years! We have always loved all the activities available and the friendly staffs. This year though was a little disappointing. The first year they offered souvenir cups with free refills when you bring it back each year was a great idea! I got mine the first year they offered it. This year though they have changed the rules, refills on old cups $2 not bad but would have been nice to have them disclose that on the website or Facebook page. The confusion comes in with one place letting us have lemonade with the purchase of the new cup but refills would cost us, oook. Not homemade lemonade but sure. First new cup no problem. Went to a different place wanted to buy a new cup but was told no lemonade can go in that cup. What? You can’t put an $8 lemonade in a $9 cup? Someone please tell me how this makes sense. One new cup I could get it with original purchase but the second cup it’s not allowed. Can’t pay for a refill and get lemonade, again it’s fountain lemonade so why not? If you want to charge for refills make it well known going forward there will be a charge, let the old cups still get what your selling point was when you sold the cups free refills. Have the new cups going forward get the charge, easy to keep track of your staff is very good at recognizing your cup designs. This venue has been a great memory builder please do better at communicating this big...