Four of us were booked for a 9AM a private tour. ...

Four of us were booked for a 9AM a private tour. We showed up 30 minutes prior to our tour at 8:30AM as directed by the email. When we got there the gate was closed. We called and no one answered the phone or retuned our call. We sat in the car in front of the gate until a few minutes before 9AM when someone finally came and opened it up. So if you have a 9AM tour, you don t need to get there 30 minutes early. All the staff members were friendly and helpful. A pleasant surprise was that our private tour included a ride around the grounds in a large electric cart. Our guide was Ginny and she was great, very friendly and knowledgeable. She taught us a lot about the Big Cat Rescue and their mission to stop people from owning big cats and outlawing petting circuses. Which is all in addition to taking care of all the big and small cats along with managing their medical issues. We watch the BCR YouTube channel and the live webcams and know who some of the cats are and their stories. We all loved the tour and loved seeing all the cats we knew, it was fantastic! You can see and hear that the cats love it there and are treated very well. The smaller cats were purring and the bigger cats were chuffing. You get to be very close to them and most of them like the company. We live over 1000 miles away but the next time we re in the Tampa area, like Clearwater, we will come back to see the cats again and help support the BCR. We recommend going to see the cats, it s a wonderful experience.