Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales

Dear Sir, I would like to buy CD with the music of your bells. I am planning to make a slide show. I hope I will play it at the photo club meeting. I like very much your park. We were several times and always enjoed. And we recommend this park to our friends. Thank you Andrew Ciszek 6821 Higdon Rd. NorthPort, Fl 34287

We had a great time. This is a quiet, peaceful change from most of the attractions. The volunteers made us feel so welcome! The gardens are beautiful and the Christmas at Pinewood was well done. We will visit again -- well worth the drive and the very reasonable admission price.

Spectacular! By far the most beautiful, unique, peaceful, scenic gardens I've been to in this country. Tower carillon performances are magical. We lucked out and visited on Oct. 17th, Boktoberfest, when admission was free but the usual $10 entrance cost is well worth it. We brought a picnic and found a secluded spot to enjoy it. Lots of open space for kids to run and play. Plenty of park benchs throughout so don't worry about finding a place to relax. This place calls to the artist's heart. I could happily fritter away a day with a good book, under a tree near the tower. It's all uphill terrain from the entrance, through the trails/paths to the tower. Except for a few yards of paved paths near the entrance the rest are dirt covered in bark chips. Motorized scooters, wheel chairs and strollers can handle them. Rental motorized scooters at the park cost about $26 for, I think, six hours (also rent for shorter blocks of time) but are large...look like small four wheelers with oversized tires and might be a bit much to handle for some. Seems like everything in the gift shop was made in China....disappointing. Cafe there offered appealing salads/sandwiches/wine etc. at reasonable prices. I've lived on the Treasure Coast for about three years and had not heard of this place...glad to have finally discovered it. Open every day but Christmas....very convenient. Don't forget your camera! Time flies here....very easy to arrive at opening and stay til they make you leave. Looking forward to going back during the Christmas season and touring Pinewood Manor which will be decorated for the holidays and is on Bok Tower Gardens property. As for the staff....with the exception of just a few....they seemed like a bunch of grumpy old people. All in all, though nothing's perfect, this place came close in my book.

I love Bok Tower and On April 18, 2009 I My husband and I had our fairy tale wedding here! The staff is very helpful and if you have never been it is BEAUTIFUL! The cost of our wedding package was 1395.00 and that includes the dressing room and they set upthe chairs for your guests for you! If you just wanted to go for the day the last time I went it was only 10.00 per person. Lovely carillon bells! Large fish is water surrounding the tower! Please note that they DO NOT allow you to go in the tower for fire code and safety reasons, but don't let that put a damper on a lovely day!

The gardens were large, quite and full of various plants and blooming flowers. You can walk around or just hang out on the lawn. I loved it and will go again!

After reading the review by the person who wanted to take some better photos I felt compelled to mention that we also had poor interaction with some of the employees at the garden. This was back around 1999 but it sounds like some things have not changed.

My fiance` and I got engaged at Bok Tower about a month and a half ago. The experience was wonderful. The gardens were beautiful, the people were helpful and friendly...everything went perfectly. Well, while we were there on that day my fiance` asked one of the "welcoming" staff if we could bring a friend back and take engagement pictures. They said that was fine, no problem at all. We went back a little over a month later with our friend (who, yes, has a nice digital camera but who is not a professional). We were dressed nice and when we got to the gate we asked the woman if taking pictures was still ok. She looked at our clothing, stepped back and said, "Is this for a wedding?" and we replied no that we had just gotten engaged there but we wanted some better pitures than the ones we had taken. She then got very rude and said, "Not in those clothes. You are taking professional pictures in those clothes and that will cost you $150." It just went down hill from there. We insisted that no they weren't professional and that we had asked and called and had already been told it was fine. We asked if we could go in and get it straigtened out, and if we stayed and took the pictures we would come back and pay our admission fee. She refused. She said we had to pay before we went in but that we only had an hour and a half so we had better hurry up. So...flabbergasted we paid and went in. On our way up there she called a little guy named Joe who met us at the front and said, "Our you the folks taking the professional pictures? Because if so you will have to leave. It cost a hundred and fifty dollars to take professional pictures here." We and our friend insisted that we were not taking professional pictures that we just wanted some better pictures than the ones we did ourselves. He looked at my friends camera and said, "Only professionals have cameras like that" (by the way he is speaking of a camera that can be bought at any Best Buy or Curcuit City). He then threatened to call security on us (although he was the only one yelling). We left with a bad taste in our mouths, we did get our money back, and we never even got asked if we would pay the $150 to have the pictures taken...which we would have. I will be calling supervisors. So needless to say Bok Tower needs to start some mandatory customer service training for employees, set a vistor dress code since you can not wear anything nicer than jeans and a tee shirt, and you can't have a nice camera that is anything near professional grade.

is you like to be in touch with nature this is the place, peaceful, no rush, no to many peoples, we visit this place several time is lovely, also the mass for easter is very nice, we also recomend leu gardens in orlando ,fl

This beautiful sanctuary will always be a very special place to me. This valentines day my boyfriend took me here and proposed (I had told him about my visit as a child and he remembered :.) The garden is about as close as you can come to heaven on earth. There are breathtaking sights around every corner. It is absolutely the most serene, tranquil, romantic place in Florida. Very well worth the drive from Orlando...must see to appreciate!!

As newcomers to Florida, we were lucky enough to have neighbors that have visited before and asked us to join them in a trip to Lake Wales to visit the Bok Sanctuary. We loved the beauty of the plants,the flowers, the wonderful view at the point and most of all the breathtaking Bok tower. The detail work and beautiful coloring of the tower are just spectacular. We visited the gift shop and of course had to take home some sovenirs. We also took many pictures and had to look at them over and over again when we returned home. You must see this tower to believe how beautiful it really is. Can't say enough about it...just wonderful. We are so grateful to our neighbors for sharing this wonderful experience with us. We in turn look forward to sharing with our family and friends when they visit us here in Florida. Would we recommend to others?...absolutely!!! Jack & Marie Macholz