Want to ‘sleep with giraffes?’ You can at this Texas manor that went viral on TikTok
.jpeg "A suite at Longneck Manor invites guests to “sleep with the giraffes.”")
A unique 100-acre animal preserve in Fredericksburg, Texas, has gained popularity thanks to a TikTok video that went viral in January, and now the place known as Longneck Manor is already completely booked for the rest of 2022.
The video — posted by a TikTok account named Texas Vacation — highlights a couple of giraffes peering into a chic hotel suite to the tune of The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Longneck Manor is now flooded with requests and taking reservations for 2023, the website said.
“So we just got flooded for two days, three days, everything got booked,” Longneck Manor founder Rick Barongi told the Houston Chronicle. “People were getting frustrated because it looked like the calendar was open, but somebody else was booking it just before they could press the button.”
The facility is home to not only the gentle giants but also to rhinos born in U.S. zoos, and it allows guests to get up close and personal with the wildlife.
“Traveling to Africa – an exceptional experience only possible for very few, fortunate people – provides the only comparable experience to what Longneck Manor has to offer,” the website explains. “Not a traditional zoo exhibit where barriers distance guests from personal encounters with the animals, Longneck Manor treats a small number of overnight guests to more of an immersive, exclusive safari experience.”
But sleeping among the animals doesn’t come cheap.
For a minimum of two nights, the price is $900 per night and $1,000 a night on holidays.
But it appears to be worth it since you can wake up to a giraffe peering at you — possibly the giraffe named Betty White, the Chronicle reported.
“So you walk in and you look to your left and there’s a giraffe staring at you when they’re inside,” Barongi said to the Chronicle. “Sometimes they come right up to the window... that opens up during the day where the giraffes can stick their nose in and their tongue and they can sit in the living room and feed the giraffes under supervision.”
Fredericksburg is about 69 miles northwest of San Antonio.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Want to ‘sleep with giraffes?’ You can at this Texas manor that went viral on TikTok."