Moon River Ranch — Hotel in Marlin

This is a pretty cool place to stay for a few days. Customer service is a five. Kesha helped us before we even arrived with setting up our excursions. On site staff was just as helpful and willing to do anything they could to make our stay great. Rooms are a 4.5 We stayed in a cabin. It's prepped with basic kitchen needs. The loft is kid friendly not adult friendly. You can't stand up up there if you're much over 4 1/2 feet tall. Not an issue for young and short people. Big issue if you're looking to split it with adults (we weren't, just a heads up for those thinking it could work. It won't.). Also, the temperature number on the AC unit is bright enough to be a nightlight. Wasn't an issue for us, but people who like it really dark may not like the effect. Activities are really fun. We didn't do the ATV rental, but there are two different trails we saw for using them. Safari: Adam was a great tour guide. We did the 10:30 tour, so the animals were out and active. Afternoon tour may get different results in the middle of summer. I think they do one every hour starting around 9:30 until mid afternoon. Pool: it's not very big, but it never seemed crowded either and there were usually a lot of people there. The Lodge is basically right next to the pool if you're thinking about staying there. Easily walkable from the cabins. Wagons still walkable, but it's the furthest distance. Kayaking: the main place seemed to be a "pond" that was about 100 yards long and 30 yards wide. Great if you're a novice. Boring if you're much more than novice. It did look like a few people were putting in kayaks down by the wagon rooms in the actual Brazos River. It's pretty low right now though so we didn't try the river. Horseback riding: Kenneth was a great guide. We spent around an hour out on one of the ATV trails. It's a follow the leader tour, but Kenneth will let you trot your horse and get out in front of him if you know what you're doing. He's very patient with kids, so it was a great experience for the second timers in our group who had some nervous issues. Must book in advance. Tell Kesha what you need and she will set it all up. Lots of free bicycles for the kids to just jump on and go. There were some bigger ones too for adults. They're building a saloon and restaurant venue, but right now it's bring your own groceries and cook your own meals. Lots of outdoor fire pits if you don't want to use the cabin stove/oven. Waco is about 25 minutes away and Marlin 15-20 minutes, so it's a pretty secluded spot but with reasonable...

A little over a month ago, our parents had a reunion without their grown kids and grandkids. We decided we would have a Cousins’ Reunion! I googled venues in Texas and came across the property. Once I read all they had to offer, it was easy to see EVERYONE could find something to love about this place! From our Liberal, animal loving Austinites, to our gun loving, huntin’ and fishin’ conservative DFW family to our Red Raiders from Lubbock, it was an easy meet up spot! We rented the Boathouse for gatherings and it was PERFECT went it rained and never felt stuffy on the large screened porch! We spent a lot of time out on the deck overlooking the Brazos River as well. We were a good ways from the rest of the resort and I didn’t stress about everyone laughing/talking/playing music/games and disturbing anyone. Everyone enjoyed the ATVs and the pool. We didn’t book any activities and we had plenty of fun. Our family rented the Boathouse (super rustic, no stove just a hot plate and microwave, 6 twin beds, 2 of them are suspended by ropes from the ceiling- the perfect house if you’re there to fish!!! If you like the finer things, I’d suggest one of the houses that follow! This is a good guys’ house 🤣), the Gatehouse (fenced yard, BBQ pit, we stocked house with a normal kitchen, bathrooms with tubs, and lots of shade, the house closest to the party barn and the pool- not including the main lodge!!!), the Farmhouse(super nice porch area overlooking ponds with a SWING, a cool loft with full sized bed and several separate rooms, a stove, microwave, bathrooms with tubs), and Magnolia (tiny home, close to Farmhouse, way more room than you’d expect, very modern, washer/dryer). If we were to book for another reunion, I would probably ask everyone to pitch in to rent boathouse for our meet up spot and I would stay in a tiny home. The teens LOVED the ATVs and we loved them just as much! The exotic animals were easily within view of the trails and the ATV Trail follows along the river, with a sandy beach area at one site. The management was amazing. They were available and helpful, but not constantly standing over you. I would 10/10 recommend this place! It had an adorable little chapel and bridal suite too. Absolutely book this venue. Amazing experience! Hope to...

We took a girl's trip and stayed in the Family Farmhouse Ranch. The location is great and the ranch is charming. Perhaps the other lodging is better, but our cabin was not ok. There were exposed nails on the floors, rustic, but dangerous. The back of this lodge buts up to a larger group of rooms so when the power went out it was terribly dark, with no emergency lighting to supplement as the back half is essentially solid wall. I believe this lodging was once the office, or maybe because it is centrally located it houses the main fire alert box which during the power outages loudly beeped at us repeatedly until a service technician managed to get over there. And luckily one of us pointed out which button to push, because he wasn't certain how to turn off the blasted thing. And that wasn't the only beeping, this lodge also holds every internet hub for all of the buildings. These also beeped repeatedly once the power was out, and the technician also did not know how to turn this off so just left us in the cabin with no power and incessant beeping. I finally pulled the entertainment stand out myself and located switches to relieve us of the sound that was assaulting us all morning. This should not be a rentable cabin. No power, no internet, ok, but staff having to come reset routers one day then dealing with all the breakdown of the system in our space was not tolerable. I reached out to let them know we were bothered by this, and they did reply that they would take it under consideration. Before you rent this room be sure they have resolved this issue. Also, the hot tub never got hot and you don't have your own fire pit. Maybe if they weren't additionally doing major landscaping maintenance with chainsaws the day before the power outage beeping the noise wouldn't have been so bad? I really wanted to like this place and felt let down. Staff was nice, and the animals were really fun to see...