a few years ago I went here for a Halloween haunted house that was advertised on Groupon. I really wish I had researched in advance. There was nothing Halloween about this place. The "pets " looked sad, all the animal live in strange living conditions. I can't believe they have a tiger, it looked so sad, last time I was there it was living In a cage the size of a crate. these guys shouldn't have animals at all this is no sanctuary, it's jail. The whole place looked run down and dirty. It's just run down trailers everywhere. When I was there, there weren't adults handling anything just kids. read more

We were at the park for a few hours before nightfall, which is when the hayride started. It gave us enough time to see all the animals they had. I'll start with the "petting zoo." There was no way to actually pet them because the animals seemed like they were starving, and were climbing on one another to get to the three-year-old (The expiration date had 2010) Goldfish they sold us for $8 (this was sold with three packs of Ritz Crackerfuls and some homemade "cookies" as their "Premier Feeding Package"). There was no other food in sight, and as part of the animal tour, the guide (a roughly fifteen-year-old boy, a volunteer) said to us "I'm surprised you're brave enough to feed them. Everyone is too scared. Thank god you bought some food because they haven't eaten all day since no one else has bought any." Really? They also had an exhibit that housed animals native to Georgia. This consisted of a 20' x 3' x 3' steel enclosure housing a gray fox, and one about twice that size for two raccoons (one was amelanstic, or albino, which was pretty cool to see). Tourists could feed these animals by dropping food into a PVC pipe rigged to deliver it straight to their cages. However, the food fell straight through the cage to the ground out of reach for the animals. The guide joked that there was more on the ground than the animals actually received, but it was painfully true. Somehow, the godawful owners of Graystone Ranch pulled some strings and got two tigers. Not only was the cage so small that the tiger cannot even jog but he was terrified. This tiger was so extremely stressed out by the dozen people in our animal tour group that it was letting out a ferocious roar the likes of which I'd never before heard and hope to never hear again. He backed himself into his corner as far back as he could squeeze and roared and scratched at us. This isn't because we were teasing him. As soon as he knew people were around he freaked out. This tiger was in a movie so he SHOULD be somewhat tame. The teenage boy then showed us the small alligator they had. The alligator was in a plastic tub that was 2ft x 3ft filled with muddy water. The rest of his cage was just dirt. His entire body did not fit in the tub and while the teenager poked him to get him to hiss he joked about how this animal hated him and his friend because they always poke him and mess with him. The part of our tour that hit my most sensitive part was the reptile room. As a breeder and collector of tarantulas and other reptiles I can confidently say that I am an expert in how they should be kept. In this they had about five or six juenile G rosea, some corn snakes, a legless lizard, some other lizards I couldn't identify, and a salamander. They tank behind us had an extremely large ball python. None of these tanks had any sort of heat lamps (they claimed to have a heater, but when we drove by to leave that night the door was open and it was about 55-60F). Next to the python, in a five-gallon tank, was a Theraphosa stirmi, roughly 7". I stared in disbelief. It was kept on aquarium rocks with no water dish and an open screen top. This was the moment when I started reconsidering the integrity of their animal husbandry. The guide poked him from behind with a stick to get him to move. The animal tour was only about twenty minutes of our time there. The entire place was a dump and I promise you if they got a surprise visit from the state they would be shut down in a heartbeat. They advertise that they have a "pumpkin patch" also. They have circle ten feet in diameter with pumpkins that they bought from the grocery store that are priced double. It was beyond pathetic. We went on their "guided boat tour" and our guide literally read verbatim off a piece of paper until he got to a word that he couldn't pronounce. No joke. He said "I can't pronounce that word" and we all just sat there while we rode from one end of the lake to the other. (Which is about half a mile long). The property is a trailer park with some tiny cages mixed in. I originally bought a $25 Groupon for the guided tour but we could not make it out before it expired. I was going to use the amount I paid as admission to walk around the park but they would only let me use that $25 in the "gift shop". The gift shop was a bunch of disgusting items that were bought from Goodwill a decade ago. Absolutely everything was covered in dust, half of the items were literally broken, and the other half of the items were so dirty that they had obviously been owned by someone before. It took us over an hour to find $25 worth of pointless items to take home. After we got home we read reviews on Graystone Ranch and it is pretty unanimous that it is a horrible place. They delete all negative reviews on their Facebook pages to make it seem like a good place. Like I said before, it is advertised as a "Rescue Facility" but it is equivalent of an animal hospice because all of those animals will die before they should. read more

I really don't know where to begin. I guess at one time, this place would've been great to go to, but not today. I just spent 3 days at this place and I couldn't wait to leave. Their website is very, very deceiving, pretty much a total lie. The place is run down, junk every where. We booked a cabin, which turned out to be a trailer. The trailer was livable, but roaches and spider webs throughout the place. But the big thing is we rented a cabin and what we got was a trailer. No TV's, radios, etc at all in the trailer. There's absolutely nothing to do there. You can only walk and look at the same animals so much. Let's talk about the animals. We only saw the animals get feed 1 time while we were there. They have two tigers that are in 2 small seperate cages. They can only walk back and forth. No room for them to run around. My biggest concern was when we walked up the hill past the RV's and went to look at the horses to find them totally emancipated. You could count their ribs and their pelvic bones were protruding so bad. It was horrific to see animals in this condition at a Animal Rescue place. There is no kind of education program there for visitors. No baby-sitting, maid service,etc like advertised either. Another thing, if you visit, don't pay for the meal wristband, it's a rip off. It's $5.00 per meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But you may get 1 or 2 meals, instead of the 3 meals, and that solely depends on whether someone comes from the main house to the kitchen area to cook. We lost out on $20.00, because no one showed up to cook. Make sure you have your own drink, that's not provided for you. But I will say, the meals that were cooked, were good. The kitchen was dirty. Believe me, if DHEC were to come in, they would shut the place down. The owners depend on their 14, 13, and 10 year old daughters to run the business side of the ranch. Please think twice about staying at the place, it was way to expensive for the crummy conditions there. Don't go by the website, because it's all lies. read more

This place is very interesting. My first impression as we drove on the property was "The Hills Have Eyes." We took the family there and the kids had a great time. I on the other hand was scared I was going to catch some incurable disease. It is a family/volunteer run business. Our tour guide was a 9 year old little girl. All the animals are rescue animals so a lot of them are in bad shape. I felt really bad for the tigers who were making circles in a small enclosed pen. The snake house gave me the creeps. There were no locks on the cages and someones little 5 year old was trying to open the cage! We ate dinner there and it was ok. I would not eat there again if I was to return. There was a sign that stated something like don't complain, donate $ to make it better. read more

I went to the ranch about two months ago to go fishing, me and my buddy caught a a bucket full of nice sized crappie so we decided to bring the Mrs. back and enjoy the ranch's other activities. We started off with an animal tour then did the boat ride and then the hayride and finally the haunted hayride. Everything was pretty entertaining.. the ladies enjoyed most of it more than we did... but I will admit that the haunted forest was pretty dang good... Jumped out my seat a few times... hate to admit that though. anyway it's a nice place and the money supports a good cause the only reason they don't get 5 stars from me is because they need to sell minnows for fishing.. we only fish with em and all they had was worms artificial and crickets.. they said they don't normally like people to fish with the minnows because we all know they can destroy a fishing hole but for guys like us who that's all we use it is a dilemma to have to drive back into town to purchase them. But Good place over all. read more