King Ranch

As a city girl, I have never been interested in ranches. But because of a project I was working on for work and the fact that king ranch is the second largest ranch in the world, I decided to learn more about it. I took a bus tour on a Sunday at 12:30pm. The tour lasted for about 1.5 hours. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and entertaining. He taught us a lot we didn't know about the king ranch and Richard King. The ranch is indeed enormous. We got to see different parts of it, horses, cows, where the cowboys live, etc. We didn't see much of the wildlife probably due to the fact that it was too hot outside. We spotted some deer, wild turkey and a few birds and that's all. A little disappointing but oh well. They have tours daily except for mondays. I'd recommend the tour if you are interested in ranches and history. They also have a visitor center, a museum and a saddle shop. The saddle shop was closed when I was there and I didn't go to the museum either. Overall, interesting place!

We have taken the tour before and it was excellent however today was different. This time the tour guide had to speak spanish and going from English to Spanish was confusing. Also didn't get the same information.

We visited the King Ranch - Norrias Unit on one of their guided birding trips and were absolutely amazed. Our guide Tom was a wonderful historian of the King Ranch and the family that built the Ranch & businesses. Then we saw a lot of amazing birds including a Sprague's Pipet and the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl. The property was super cool and we were able to see much of it. Tom was a brilliant birder as well as story teller.

I usually love tours like this. But they don't show you anything at all. We drove around the ranch and saw some fine livestock. The story line was only modestly interesting. Way too much money and time for so little. The video in the shop was more compelling.

I was really looking forward to this tour but it was a big disappointment. Far too expensive to just drive around the ranch and receive a mediocre narrative. I wanted to hear more about how the ranch was run, if it's profitable, etc. instead we were shown twice (on both ends) of how if there wasn't a grove of trees we would be able to see down to the other road. Really? Otherwise we saw lots of cows, horses and goats and a few wild deer. We were more interested in the deer but he barely stopped and didn't say a thing about them. Skip it.

We live in San Antonio and had out-of -state family visit and went on the King Ranch tour to include the museum. Not being from Kingsville, we didn't realize the King Ranch Museum was different from the King Ranch Visitor Center and we waited for the your bus in the wrong location. The tour people were very kind and waited for us and even kept the Visitor Center and Gift Shop open for us after the bus tour. The tour was very informative and an interesting part of Texas history. I would highly recommend visiting King Ranch and Museum!

We stopped by King Ranch on our way back up to Austin from SPI. They were really nice about holding the tour for us since we were running late after getting lost (thanks, Google maps). Our tour guide was very informative--she knew all about the ranch's history and could answer everyone's questions. The tour itself, though, is kinda lame: cows for miles! You're not allowed to go in anywhere except the weaver's cottage. The rest is just taking in the sprawling acreage, with the occasional animal to break up the landscape. We'd probably give it a higher rating if it didn't cost $16/person, but it did. We're happy that we got to see to such a historical Texas landmark, but can't recommend it in good faith. We also went to the museum in town on 6th St., which was far more interesting in terms of seeing relics from the Ranch's heyday.

The 100 year old ranch has a 100 year old reservation system. Get there EARLY for bus tour tickets. We did not get there early enough (an hour and a half) and had been told "no reservations" over the phone. Guess what - some folks from Austin has been able to reserve tickets at the ticket counter (even though the lady at the front desk said "We are not supposed to reserve tickets..."). The good news - the King Ranch added another tour due to the persistence of a gentleman who had driven from Illinois to see the ranch. Hooray! The tour guide was excellent and provided wonderful historical insight. From the bus, we had the opportunity to see livestock and wildlife alike on the ranch - newborn calves and foals, javelinas, deer, cranes etc. Just beautiful! Worth the trip!

What a great day we had here. Took the bus tour which lasted about 1 1/2 hours. Our lady tour guide was very informative and kept things very interesting. For the whole time she kept giving one fact after another. I don't believe she repeated anything at all. All in all we highly recommend the bus tour.

Superb introduction to this Texas icon. Yes...it's a driving tour; kinda hard not to be otherwise considering it's a working ranch of over 800K acres. If you're interested in hearing a lot about cattle and cattle breeding you'll be happy. If you're expecting to interact (The Steer Whisperer?) with your future hamburger you will be disappointed. One note to whoever is running the place: We would've paid extra to tour the main house. Perhaps the family might be persuaded to allow small, escorted groups limited access? I'm thinking B&B...