GW Interactive Zoo and Wildlife Park Reviews

Guy who owns the place now has the personality of a stump

Please don't come here ever! They breed lions and tigers just to create unnatural tourist attractions, not caring if the children are blind and deformed. Then they discard the poor animals once they grow too big.. Please read the recent Nat Geo article about Langely the liger and the cruelty she faced

We had a great time. We bought a pass to the Nursery and got to pet n play with a tiger cub and lemurs. The staff was very nice and the all the animals looked comfortable and well cared for in my opinion. Some of these animals were rescued from bad places or circuses and I believe almost all of them could not survive in the wild. I plan on visiting again very soon!

Love this place! The compassion the staff have for the animals is amazing.

Are they open still? I was wanting to go with my family in November. How much is it to pet the cub tigers? I was also wanting to take my senior pictures there!

Lots of tigers and lions. You can get close to the cages and interact with many animals. Lots of fun.

My kids loved it here. We are allowed to touch and feel some exotic animals. The picture taking experience was very good don't miss on that.

This is a small place that is very reasonable on price, it was very quiet when we went there so it felt like you have the place to yourself. An amazing opportunity to be close to so many big cats, and for an extra fee you can have hands on experience with a choice of babies that they currently have.
As far as a zoo experience, yes the enclosures are small but you are closer to the animals than I ve ever been and it s a different kind of experience.
I would recommend this place to anyone with an interest in large cats.

I drove 6 hours for my wife to suprise her with petting Bengal cub tigers, she's a big tiger fanatic. Very expensive to say for such little time they give you to pet the animals. Once we arrived we paid $130 for me, my wife and daughter to pet the cub tigers, monkey and lemurs. What was so upsetting from this trip was I called the day before to make sure the bengal tigers were gonna be able to be pet and they confirmed yes. Once we walked into the petting zone they were not bengal tigers they were ligers which is an offspring of a female tiger and Male lion. I really wanted the experience for my wife and daughter and although it was cool petting the ligers, it was false advertisement to say we were gonna be able to pet legit tiger Cubs not mut tigers. Although they do have the Bengal cub tigers in cages, when asked to pet those they said it was $500 for 15 minutes with them. Not cool, should I have known this from the beginning after asking detailed questions not once did they mention or attempt to be clear they were ligers, they kept saying tigers to trick us. Had they been honest from the beginning, I might have not considered taking the long trip. I would have given the place 5 stars since the experience is still different than visiting a regular zoo, the place is just really pricey for the time given and the false advertisement to pet legit 100% cub tigers.

If you want to see large number of big cats then this is the place. You can also get close to cubs with some extra money. This place hybreeding big cats so you might see hybrid cubs.
This place is small, compare to zoos. You can easily cover in few hours. Don't plan it for whole day. Bottom line, it's worth spending time and money here.

Didn't get to see the tiger show, so was a bit disappointed but the trip was totally worth it. Our guide was super cool and this was the closest we ever came to a tiger. Innumerable tigers, camel kissing, playing with the tiger cubs were a few of the many attractions here.

Had a great time seeing big cats up close. Highly recommend interacting with the cubs if you can.

Our tour guid Eric was really humble and knowledgeable.

Highlight of the trip was meeting this epic talking bird named Spike .

Had a great time. Will visit again for sure.

This place is so amazing! Best experience I had with hands on animals. Joe explains everything clearly and will answer all questions. Would highly recommend this place. And the restaurant located at the entrance off the highway is awesome

I really expected to walk out of there sad and upset for the animals- but they seemed pretty decently treated. I asked about the pens and if they had time to roam and was told they rotated to the large areas every 3-4 days. The staff are nice and decent- not what I was expecting based on the reviews... previous reviews would have me believe they were monsters... Overall, I was pleased. I would visit again and support it for the animals sake.

This place is just incredible! It's so easy to see that everyone who works there isn't there for a paycheck or for notoriety. They are there because they love and care for these animals like we care for our kids. Sadly, we came the day after tragedy struck this family of amazing people. Joe Exotic's husband passed away the day before but he came out and made sure that everyone on that tour had an awesome experience. My heart broke for these people but there was so much beauty in this haven. I don't know that Joe or the people who give their time here will ever see this review but what you did Saturday was a testimony to love and to carrying on someone's memory even when the pain is unimaginable. We were only able to give a little to help with the funeral expenses but I pray that he rests in peace. We also had a private playtime with the baby tigers and and Kelsey Saffery was the employee who was with us during that time. You can tell that she absolutely loves these tigers and was just incredibly nice! She told us a lot of really cool things about tigers and it was an amazing learning experience for my kiddos! It was a 2 hour drive for us to get there but we will definitely come back! So ignore all of these politically driven reviews from people who have probably never even been to this zoo and go see for yourself! I guarantee you will see a whole bunch of happy and well cared for animals as well as a group of people who are doing some really amazing work!

This place was the best stop on our trip! My 15 yr old daughter got sprayed by the lion that was the best part of our weekend the ride back to Joshua tx with that smell not so much. But the staff was awesome answered all out questions very thorough made us feel part of the family..

I have been reading these comments and some a so far frome the truth. The animals are ALL healthy and have clean, spacious cages. The tigers, lions, and bears get feed chicken(I dont know where people het dog food from chicken). I have been looking for 10 years to invest in a BIG CAT sanctuary that could prove that my money was going to be used to give these cats a great place to live. I see no abuse, ONLY love from the cats and humans. Continuous loving contact is practiced. The hands on educational tours are great. Pet exotic animals and pet TIGERS. The other "big cat sanctuaries" have cats dieing every day from sickness and malnutrition. These same people have broken the law to poision the animals at GW by braking in at night or by presenting false evidence against GW. I will continue to stand by GW and support with what i can.

One of the coolest trips we have made with the kids.... get there early in the morning before the heat and when they are feeding, the animals are very active and talking, fun to see and hear, we paid extra to play with the baby tiger and fed the big guys in the open pen, well worth the money, our guide was informative and made for a pleasant visit, will go back again...

Very good tiger zoo. 5 stars for the tigers and lions. The person working the front desk was absolutely rude, my friend and I greeted her and she just ignored us. Was very rude, I wanted to leave but on 2nd thought I decided to stay and give the lady the benefit of doubt. May be she had a bad night.

Loved the animals and the photos that were clicked with them

5 stars are because I watched the Netflix documental, I came to see the POV of the visitors.

We enjoyed our time here, we just got the regular admission and not the extra tour. They have a variety of animals to see, and you get to see them pretty close up along with feeding some of them snacks.

Good place for kids to learn about tigers and lions

My wife and visited the park just after being married in 2010. We tell friends and family about it all the time. The staff is amazing! Very friendly an extremely knowledgeable on everything. When we visited, we were lucky enough to have the privilege of interacting with 2 baby tigers. It was a memory we will forever have, and and experience we will never forget!

Horrible layout. They have had children get scratched by felines they are supposedly allowed to pet. I watched a tiger literally jump to the top of its cage. The top paws reached the top of the gate. You could tell it didn't reach full height because the front paws weren't extended to climb with. The cages are arms distance away from the sidewalks as well so you are at risk all the time. The smell of the cages signifies a lack of cleanliness too.

You may enjoy this place if you are a yuppie tourist that likes cheap, non-sensical enterntainment. But for the rest of you decent people, stay away from here. The animal cages are way too small and not well maintained. Some cages are borderline animal cruelty. The animals, for the most part, look miserable and I would be too if I were them. I wanted to leave as soon as I entered but my idiot family thought this place was acceptable.

Dont come here awfule place and worst service ever.

Absolutely a dump, animals are inn very small cages and miss treated. Exploiting these animals for money is so sad.

Animals were adorable and you can tell that everyone there treats the animals with love care and respect. Great place to visit

The conditions these animals are in is terrible! We saw 10 tigers in one cage, it smells of cigarettes and the people there aren't very helpful. I regret going there and wasting any money! That place needs to be shut down!

The sloth exhibit was amazing, but you should probably post the pricing for the specialized exhibits.

It was amazingly good i guess just that there should be more things than tigers like a hippo.

wow...speechless that a place like this could actually exist in modern day America. Was in the area for business and had my 10 year old daughter in tow...looking for something fun to do with her we were told by the hotel front desk that this place was a must see. Zoological park is the wrong name for this place. Macabre display of cruelty would be more appropriate. I could not believe the conditions the animals were living in. It was actually horrifying. Even my 10 year old felt very unsettled and asked to leave. We love animals. We have spent many a day at the Bronx Zoo. This is more equivalent to the menagerie of animals you read about being exploited for giggles during Victorian England. The animal "keepers" were also clearly uninterested in the animals at all, most of which looked like they were out on work release, cursing and smoking in front of "patrons". I left there wanting to call "someone" because this place was a horror. Only after looking it up on Google did I find out it has a history of complaints. Hopefully someone steps up and does something. Please, do not patronize this place. Your children and the animals will thank you...

I will admit when we first got there I was a little upset. We wanted to do the 1 on 1 time with the tiger cub and the next available opening wasnt for another 4 hours. We paid what seemed to be a lot of money for the tour, which I had no clue what to expect from and then was faced with paying for photos that I had no clue theyd even get good shots of us.

I will say the lady who gives the tour is amazing and in my opinion invaluable to the zoo as a whole. She is what made me change my mind from this place is money grabbing to this is completely worth every dollar we spent. The tour was perfect. They make sure everyone gets a photo with the animals and you get to see parts of the Zoo you would otherwise not be allowed to see.

Im on the fence about how I feel for these animals in small cages but the alternative could very likely be death and they are supposed to be moving to a new place closer to Dallas.

I have one recommendation. The CDs for the pictures are an outdated process. Your zoo could easily create a dropbox or gmail/google drive account... create a folder to upload all the images in and share it out to the email accounts of people who paid for pictures. This would ensure people who didnt pay dont get their photos. The CD process is nice but took too long. Make it easier on yourselves and digitally share these to people. You could even charge $5 for people who request a CD. Then once a month clean out older photos from your account.

Overall a great experience I would visit again.

Front desk woman was rude! Did not end up purchasing tickets to the zoo ! Wish I could rate this 0 stars.

We humans destroying all the other species.Mr.joe is doing awesome job that we can't even think off. Trying to save a species is not an easy job.

The worst! Enclosures are so small, big animals need big enclosures. I have never seen something so sad. Memorial Day weekend and the animals were all panting, settled into a breeze-less cage. No fans, no misters, no grass, nothing. Do NOT waste your money! Only reason I say to spend your money is so the animals will be fed.

This was an awesome experience!! Playing with the baby tigers, snakes, exotic lizards and other animals was out of my comfort zone but they made me fearless.

Keep in mind, you can t take pictures using your personal phone or camera while taking the tour. For a fee, they will take professional photos and you will get a CD at the end of the tour. My photos turned out great!

I read all these bad comments about the place but when I went there with my wife me and here had a really good time We bought the VIP tour and the person was very nice and I liked how different it was from being really far away in a zoo and we bought the time with baby tigers and it was on time and really fun and the people at really nice we have been there 3 times at the time of writing this all times it was awesome the tour and cubs (we did the same thing all 3 times).

A must see for any animal lover and big cat enthusiast

Its very dirty and the customer service is really bad.Cub petting was really bad experience. I took ticket for 6 min cub petting but till that you cannot bear the bad smell. There were lot of bigcats beside them there were some animals mostly were sick undergoing treatment processes.

Animals appear healthy. Up close looks at about 150 big cats and hundreds of other small and large animals. You can even pet a baby lion. Controversial rep but excellent experience for me and my 9 y.o. daughter.

Some really neat animals. Ever feed a baby liger? You can. They welcome volunteers to come and help care for the animals.

Mean staff. It is a small but great exotic park. I loved the tiger cubs. The staff are neither welcoming or friendly.

Should have read reviews before going. Absolutely horrible conditions for the animals and way over priced. If the animals were cared for it would be worth it

The general admission you purchase through Groupon only gets you in the park. You cannot pet any of the baby goats or Cubs unless you pay extra. The staff at the check-in was rude and the park really uninviting. Heart was saddened by the condition of the animals and their small cages. Will not be back nor recommend.

This is an amazing place! The tour is fun the zoo is great Pet wolves see lions tigers monkeys etc up close its an amazing place! Bring the kids I promise you will have an amazing time

Fun place to be with your friends and family members. Little disappointed with the photo service. But you can touch a real tiger cubs, great experience.

I really enjoyed being 3 feet away from large lions and tigers. It is a small zoo but worth the price for a short trip while passing through highway 35.

I gave it two stars because my daughter loved holding and touching animals that she would not be able hold anywhere else. The tour guide was great and very knowledgable. We were also able to get a Groupon, which I could not imagine paying more money than $65 to go there. With that said, this place deserves one star. As soon as we walked into the main office, we were overwhelmed with the smell of cigarettes. The person up front could have used some help with checking everyone in. She did not give my family wristbands for the tour, but we noticed everyone else in our tour group had them, so we had to go back inside to ask for our wristbands. There were way too many people in the tour group for one person. They should have no more than 15 people per tour guide to make the experience not feel so rushed. As soon as it was time to start our tour, we were ushered to a seating area that did not have circulating air. They had fans, but they were not on, so our group had to sit and sweat in the 90 degree temperature for 15 minutes while we waited for our tour to actually start. Seeing all the animals was great, but because of the large group of people (~40 people) we could not hear what the tour guide was saying unless we were standing near her. We passed by a trash barrel that had a rotting cow carcass, and it smelled awful. I do not get sick easily, but the smell alone made me nauseous. The tour guides only response to everyone was "Don't look at if you don't have a strong stomach", but there was no way to avoid the smell. Like I said earlier, due to the large tour group, we were rushed through the animal interactions. We only had enough time to take a picture with the animal, then move on. If we wanted to interact longer, we would have had to pay an additional $50 per person. We purchased the CD before the tour started since cameras were not allowed, but we were so displeased after the tour that we did not want to wait around another 45 minutes to receive the CD, so we paid an additional $5 to have it mailed to us. The "professional photographer" took some decent shots, but the CD of the photos that we purchased was missing some of the pictures of my family. The CD however, included at least 100 photos of other families in our tour group that I did not care to see. The day after I received the CD in the mail, I sent two emails and talked to someone in the main office about our missing family pictures, but I never got a response. I'm sure they deleted the photos the next day after our visit. With all of that being said, I will pay more attention to negative reviews in the future, because we had the same experience as a lot of the negative comments.

PLEASE Don't support this park. Exploits animals and they live in very poor, small habitats that are not well suited for them. I feel guilty contributing money to this place.

How can people visit places like this???
Breeding lions & tigers together so unnatural.
Should be ashamed of yourselves in giving these people money. If you want to help donate to wwf

I have not been to many zoos but this place is far from a zoo. It is simply animal abuse!
The animals look pale and unhealthy. Many of them are caged in really small space.
The lion cub we saw was in miserable condition.
The zoo staff doesn t give up any opportunity to criticize PETA or Oklahoma City Zoo.
I would not waste my money on this and rather visit a proper zoo!

Great place to see large cats, front desk lady was not friendly at all, no souvenirs or shirts available anymore your only option to get in now is to pay online as well. Most disturbing though, my kids and I walked up the (not so safe feeling) cat overlook and on top was Jeff Lowe and his wife, my kids and I immediately were a little scared and shaken by the fact it shakes and sways in the wind and from the movement of people, my kids age 3 and 4 were starting to cry over this, and Jeff noticed and then started shaking the overlook and laughing! Not cool!

I lived in a small town (Elmore City) and applied to work here at age 17. I got hired on and immediately quit. It was godawful. I m glad Wondery put a spotlight on that sad madness. Thanks to Saint Carol Baskins for what she has done!

Why don't all this animal's returned back to their nomal habitats?

Awful human if you can even call the owner that. Cross breeds cubs and when they are too sick a rescue comes in to take them because the guests of the park would be scared senseless. Natgeo just did a write up of the last cubs taken out of the zoo. Absolutely disgusting that animals are treated this poorly. Do not support animal abuse and cruelty by visiting this establishment and the donating part of the zoos website is hilarious considering they don t feed their own animals properly.

THE BEST tiger zoo I have been too!
I couldn t recommend them enough.
I ve been to many all around the world.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK GUYS

Beautiful animals but they are living in very confined spaces. Smell was horrible in some areas and animals were skinny. To me it seemed like too many animals for that type of park.

Most see experience, and the fight to save our big cats. And opportunity to pet a Liger cub. Good job Joe, Jes and the rest of the crew.

we went today with my 12 year old and my 6 year old who is non verbal autistic and had an amazing time! would recommend it and plan to go back!

When joe exotic was around this place was the best! Be careful with the rats that run the place .

Not alot to see..unless u really like tigers...and the prices are pretty high...We only went bcause we had a coupon.

Consistently wonderful, the people there truly love their job (well maybe not the lady at the front counter, but she's not in your life but a moment) and animals! I strongly suggest the guided tour, and extra play time if you can swing it. A must see if you are within a days drive.

I felt really sad after seeing these majestic animals cramped together inside tiny enclosures, filled with mud and filth. Not a good place.

My husband and I went two weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Mark was our tour guide and was both friendly and very informative. The animals are very well taken care of. The water dishes were all spotless without even a speck of algae. They all have shade and pools to play in. Amber the camel is a delight. When any of our friends visit from out of town, we are definitely taking them there. Thank you, Joe. We had a wonderful experience, and Dave and I will be back.

Probably one of the best sites to visit in the state of Oklahoma.

Not really a fun place to go. There are animals but not in good conditions. They look sad. Unfortunately Trip was not worth....

Quit giving this place your money so they can keep abusing these beautiful, exotic and wild animals.

Absolutely amazing experience! If you truly love animals than you'll appreciate the way Joe & his team spoil their's!!! They do an amazing job & it shows. As far as the negative reviews pertaining to the staff...their job is around the clock, they deal with disrespectful children AND adults consistently (that's the world we live in today), but they do a damn good job with the upkeep of the animals! The last time we went we almost didn't get to love on the 4 week old bear cub because the previous tour had a punk kid that hit him several times! For those hating on Joe, he's worked his butt off providing for hundreds of large cats & other animals for most of his life!! He sells videos, calendars, books, etc. to help pay for these animals; NOT for fame! My sister & I go visit regularly & the staff are all good 'ole Southern folk (some smoke), get over it! It's Oklahoma!! Either appreciate the beauty of it, the SOUTHERN hospitality or don't go!

Animals are caged in small spaces. Animals are not being fed enough and properly. I am surprised to see the animals being tortured in one of the most developed country in the world.