Elephant sanctuary — Local services in Hugo

I've hesitated to write this because I still don't know how I feel. My husband and I were so excited to visit this place and interact with the elephants, hoping to see them enjoying their retirement out of the circus, that isn’t how we left feeling. We pulled up and saw the elephants out and got so excited, we saw one of the elephants that looked like they were dancing, so we were like, oh my gosh, how cool. We quickly unpacked our stuff and ran out to look at the elephants; sure enough, the elephant was still rocking back and forth. Something felt a bit off to me, so I googled what it means when elephants do that, and it’s called “Zoo Psychosis”. My husband and I instantly felt terrible. We walked around to check out the other two elephants, and they both exhibited the same behaviors. I asked one of the keepers who was watering the elephants why the elephants were doing that, and he said they do that at nighttime when they are ready to go in. They were all separated and looked so unhappy. We felt terrible about it, so we started googling more about the company and found some not-so-nice things about the owners and the treatment of the animals. We fed them in the morning and paid extra for more feeding time. We were so blown away by these creatures' pure beauty and magnificence. They are treated more like giant dogs doing tricks than elephants that should be enjoying their retirement. We honestly felt guilty leaving this place. Overall, I wouldn’t do it again. The staff was very friendly, but paying over $500 for less than 10 minutes with the elephants, which we didn’t know how they were truly treated or lived, made us feel terrible. I would’ve been fine paying that much if I knew these elephants were living their best lives out of retirement, but that’s not the case. I hope I'm completely wrong, I really do. They are such special creatures that deserve to be treated...

Hard to see the check in sign as you pull in. The woman who greeted us and took us back to our cabin was very friendly. We were told we could walk the grounds and look at the elephants until 730pm. Check in was at 6. There is one loop we were actually allowed to walk on. The rest if the pathways are labeled restricted access. The restricted signs were very small and easy to miss. We started down a side path when a man cane running at us yelling no. So we enjoyed the one loop we could walk on and see 1 elephant who was visible from that loop. The cabin was cute. It's advertised as rustic and that there would be board games provided to play while you wait for the elephants to come the next day. There was 2 games in our cabin both missing pieces. We made do and created our own pieces to play. The next day when the elephants came a different man who was walking with the elephants was extremely unfriendly and was not patient. He rushed us to feed the elephant who brought us the breakfast. My three year old dropped a banana from the porch and the man groaned and mumbled something about how kids shouldn't be able to participate. He huried us to finish feeding the elephant. The whole elephant encounter took less than 10 minutes. This place has alot of potential and with more appropriate staff in place and more activities to do while you wait and this could be a 5...

Unique experience cabin was cute. Waited to check in where the sign is. Wrong. After waiting fat too long before anyone acknowledged us, someone pulled up an SUV confirm that we were waiting check into our elephant cabin. Then notify us we were in the wrong place at the wrong time to follow her. Well then quickly spat the rules and told our stop would be said stop out of three. Everything should be inside. See you in the morning. We were at the basket of bananas for elephants. We feed them in the morning.

First of all, it is very cool and rare to have an elephant. Bring you a basket for breakfast . Side note, the breakfast in the basket is trash is single, served gas station size prepackaged oatmeal cereal and I believe there was a fruit cup . Depending on what you chose from the menu the night before back to the pros? Or maybe a con We got about 5 minutes depending on how slowly you fed them the banana. Stand on porch. Stick bananas in truck Is it cool? Yes, I think it's worth...