Rip Van Winkle Gardens — Attraction in Youngsville

What can I say. I should have written this post a while ago. I did not appreciate the woman at the counter assuming- because we were dressed up- we were there for a photo shoot, therefore automatically advising us the price would be $12. That would have been fine had we not seen others there with different color wristbands and professional camera equipment taking photos. Their cost was obviously $8. She even went out of her way to tell me that I could not apply the military discount and that the price would be $12 regardless.

When I called the next day to confirm the prices of the different wristbands and informed her of what happened, she went on to assume I was there taking graduation pictures for my daughter. I don't have a daughter. Where she got that information, I don't know and I believe this is the same type assumption that led her to thinking my family and I were having a professional photo shoot. Yes, we took photos but we only had cell phones. According to her, you don't pay extra for that.

She also assumed that we may have gone to the house and that's why our tickets were $12. When I told her we didn't go to the house we were only dressed up and she made the assumption we had a photo shoot, that's when she started trying to change her story. THIS WAS TERRIBLE SERVICE. In the future, DO NOT make assumptions about your customers and force them to pay something that no one else has to. We were the only ones outside with blue wristbands. Over the phone, she also told me everyone else probably had yellow wristbands because she ran out of blue. I would believe that had not everyone else been there before us, so how did we end up with blue if they ran out before we got there?

After catching herself in several lies, she proceeded to basically double down (if that's what you want to call it), and made excuses about why we were charged more, and tried to laugh me off the phone. She failed. My advice to this person is, DO BETTER AND BE BETTER, but I guess some people are just not equipped to do that.

My mother and I were out of town visitors, but my sister and her family will not be returning or recommending this place, especially without letting people know what to look for. Please do not be duped into paying more if you do not have to. Ignore the woman behind...

I would like to give 5 starts to the entire facility because the gardens, birds and Jefferson’s home were absolutely stunning. What a great place to take family and kids photos. We took a tour of the mansion that starts on the hour every hour and ended up getting asked to leave. We are a family of 4 with a 6 year old who loved it and a chatter box 2 year old. The other two couples that were in the tour with us did not mind the two year old blabbering and pointing but the tour guide said that we needed to leave if the two year old could not stay quiet and quit distracting her for the next 45 min. She could not remember her lines with him pointing at the different paintings and furniture around the house. The tour guide was just downright rude. We stayed on the grounds for a couple more hours looking around and taking pictures. During that time one of the couples that was in the tour seen us on the trail and apologized that we were asked to leave, stating that they were not bothered by the two year old and liked to see that we are trying to raise our kids to respect and understand history. We will never spend the entrance fee every again to visit this place due to the...

Last month, we decided that after 16 years having a B&B in New Orleans/French Quarter, we needed to explore our State.

We were 'wowed' by the tour, home, history, and audio/visual presentation about the salt dome collapse. The gardens, which are a bird sanctuary are awesome.

We were there on a day when a bride was taking pre-wedding photo's. The peacocks were in full display glory for the photo shoot.

Being from New Orleans, and are 'jaded' eaters. Never expected the awesome food at the estate.

NOw, We reccomend that every guest who stays with us, visit Rip Van Winkle Gardens if they have a car and eat at cafe. We just added them to our proprietary online guide.

We stayed in one of their cottages 1 night. What a splendid retreat. No way we can recommend them enough!

Bye from...