The Domes & Dripstones Tour at Mammoth Cave National Park was easily one of the highlights of our…read moretrip to Kentucky. If you're looking for a cave tour that combines incredible scenery, fascinating geology, and a bit of a workout, this is the one to book. The ranger-guided tour is well organized and packed with interesting information about the cave's history, formations, and the natural processes that shaped this underground world over millions of years. The descent into the cave through the natural sinkhole entrance is an adventure in itself, and while the 638-640 stairs sound intimidating, they're absolutely worth it. The highlight for us was Frozen Niagara. The stunning collection of stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and delicate cave curtains is unlike anything we've ever seen. It's amazing to think these formations were created one drop of water at a time over thousands of years. Throughout the tour, the massive domes and enormous passageways constantly reminded us why Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known cave system. The guides were knowledgeable, friendly, and happy to answer questions, making the experience both educational and enjoyable. The cave's constant 54-degree temperature also makes it a comfortable activity no matter the season. Be prepared for plenty of stairs and wear comfortable shoes, but don't let that discourage you. The tour is paced well, with opportunities to stop and admire the scenery along the way. If you're visiting Mammoth Cave National Park, the Domes & Dripstones Tour is an unforgettable experience and one we would enthusiastically recommend to anyone looking for a memorable underground adventure. Five stars! Check out our video on our socials @reessroots

I wish I just day tripped it and did not spend money to stay the night. I was travelling solo and…read morethis was my last stop before heading back to Maryland. I was arriving from St. Louis. I booked one of the historic cottages to stay the night and planned on hanging out in the bar on site. When I first arrived my cottage wasn't ready to check in yet and I still had a couple hours until my tour. I went to the restaurant and sat at the bar. I was informed that they did not have a bartender but the servers were rotating serving the guests at the bar. I was promptly greeted by the waitress but ultimately moved to a table because the chairs are not tall enough for the height of the bar. It would have been extremely awkward and uncomfortable to eat up there. I had a salad and sweet potato fries and two IPA beers. Everything was delicious and the service was great. I went on the Historic Cave tour which was great. I wish I remembered the rangers name who gave the tour because he was amazing and hilarious! After the tour we (another solo traveler and I) planned to go to the bar and grab a drink before she hit the road for her next stop. Upon arrival to the restaurant, the bar was open but the host (who admitted he was new and did not know what he was doing) refused to let us sit there. He said there was no bartender. I told him earlier they allowed people to sit there and the servers helped. He said they only had 3 servers so he handed us a buzzer to wait for a table. The restaurant had half of its tables open. She decided she didn't want to wait so she left. I was then frustrated because I did not want to sit at a table alone again so I ordered food to go and ate in my cabin. There is no service in the cabins because you are in the middle of nowhere. As a solo female traveler I rely on meeting people at restaurants by sitting at the bar. This on site restaurant clearly was not staffed well enough to accommodate their guests in the middle of the summer when everyone is travelling. The other stores that served coffee and ice cream were closed by the time I finished my 3:30 tour. The prices in the gift shop were extremely high and I refused to pay for a magnet that was $12.00. I ended up going to bed super early and hit the road at 3 am because there was nothing else to do. For these reasons and more, I would have preferred to come for my tour and left to stay somewhere else.

This is a great cave tour. Our guide was Stanton, and he provided some great information on the…read moreformations, but far more than we have normally heard about the oddities that form. Our group was small, so it was great to engage and share stories of the area. The wedding venue in the cave was neat, and the blackout was cool as well. The staff overall was friendly and fun and it made for a nice two hour stop rolling down the road. Totally worth a trip!

Worth the entry fee for sure! These games are much different than mammoth caves. They are…read moreconsidered caves along with caves are considered dry caves. The tour guide did a fantastic job of explaining everything and pointing out diverse structures that a novice cave person would miss

Pine Paradise lives up to its name! It is paradise! I recently visited this lakefront resort on…read moreNolin lake and it is amazing! This is a hidden gem, I had no idea it was even there. The lodge and additional kitchen/party space is huge, there is so much room! You can do everything here from weddings to family reunions! It's right on the lake and there are so many beautiful little sitting areas and reflection spots. There is a playground for the kids. There is something here for everyone! If you are looking for a place to have an overnight event. I highly recommend Pine Paradise! I met the owner and he is a real down to earth and friendly guy!

Hmm... Mixed bag for our stay at The Lodge at Mammoth Cave. We were there just last week and the…read moregovernment shutdown had the cave closed which was heartbreaking but not a reflection on the lodge. The lodge, park and grounds were very quiet due to the shutdown. All the staff we encountered at the Lodge were very nice. The cafe there off the lobby had very affordable meals especially at breakfast. $8.50 for 2 eggs made to order, bacon/sausage, country potatoes and biscuits/toast! Breakfast was the winner, dinner was edible but not great. Definitely skip the "Hot Brown" sandwich. So why 3 stars? Our room (316) was extremely dated. And at close to $200 a night I expected better. There was an overpowering smell of mildew. The bathroom sink was cracked. The toilet was wobbly. Cracked tile in the dingy tub that also had a rusted shower curtain rod.

My husband and I stopped in for lunch after a cave tour. This is a very popular destination so pack…read moreyour patience there could be a wait, expect 15+. Limited bar seating. The food is delicious and reasonably priced. The service is very good.

After planning to take a trip with family to Mammoth Cave National park, I did some searching and…read morepeople recommended that this place be tried out. One of those roadside attractions that you really have to experience sometime in your life if you like quirky things. Apparently this is only one of three of these teepee villages left in the country after many more have been torn down. So I made my reservations online and less than a year later, we arrived! Keith and Megan are the owners and Keith greeted us and gave us quite the verbal tour and history. Him and Megan bought it five years ago and they are slowly updating everything to the original 1937 design but also keeping updated amenities in mind too. We stayed in number 10 and even though it has not been restored yet it was still clean and they put work into at least keeping it current until it gets a full restoration. The only complaint I had was there was not a lot of horizontal space to set things down. No nightstands either because it's a very tight space. No table at all in the bathroom either so it was hard to use toiletries. The air conditioner is in the window but eventually there will be a silent mini split installed and I can't wait to see that! The whole playground and fire pit area is completely vintage looking but still maintained. Guests came and went and it was always fun to watch different sets of kids enjoy all of the activities. We had a fire every night and Keith had one or two cats follow him down from his house who joined us and let us give them all the love. This was definitely a great stay and I'm looking forward to doing it again someday but I definitely want to stay in one of the more updated teepees. But they made it clear that anything we needed, we could just ask. Very nice people and you can tell they are really putting some love and TLC into this place. It might take a while to get it back there but they are not just skating by. The big teepee out front that used to be a restaurant and gift shop is going to be a coffee shop someday as well. Excited to see what happens in the future!

We had an amazing time at the wigwam village. When we arrived the owner came out and gave us a…read morehistory lesson about the place. It's been there since 1937. He built a bonfire at night and the guests sat around making s'mores. I met some really nice people from England. The room where so cute. I loved the rick rack tile in the bathroom. It had the original furniture in the room. The bed was very comfy. I highly recommend.

very nice campsite, very best customer service. We had prior reservations at the state park only…read moreto find out when we got there it was closed it was 9pm and raining and we in need of somewhere to stay. We called her and she said she space come set up and we will take care of it in the morning. Very kind, helpful and friendly. There place is also really nice.

I didn't know anything about Mammoth Cave when we signed up for it, other than vaguely being aware…read morethat it was one of the bigger tourist attractions in Kentucky, but this was legitimately cool. My top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality and I drove over from Lincoln's Birthplace (we packed a lot in that day) last Thursday in the early afternoon. Despite a great deal of attention to our itinerary, someone (cough cough top tier chum cough cough) didn't realize that this adventure required us to make a cameo appearance in the Central Time Zone, which threw us off a bit but ultimately wasn't a big deal. But if you're scheduling something involving these caves literally to the hour or minute, be aware of that important detail. The Visitor Center is predictably...pretty mammoth. Definitely not meant as a negative or insult, but the larger main room with the side stores/rooms reminded me of a nicer rest stop on a toll highway. It was spacious, clean and informative, and I thought the donation area where you could drop some dollar bills into a box based on the state you came from was a clever gimmick. It also seems bigger because it's connected with the Mammoth Cave Hotel building behind it via a pedestrian bridge, which feels like an extension of the Center more than an actual hotel. It was easy to locate the ticket booths and make a quick determination on the best tour and accompanying times. We went with the Domes and Dripstones Tour (that was more of the top-tier chum's call because she specifically wanted to see the Dripstones) at 1:45pm. Very easy as well to get going on that - we just had to walk outside the building to the clearly labeled bus stop area in the parking lot and wait for our guide and his bullhorn to take charge. I was a little apprehensive about a three-hour tour, but it honestly didn't feel like it (and part of those three hours is the short bus ride to and from the actual cave entrance/exit, so I think the cave portion is closer to two hours). We started out at a metal door in the side of a wooded sinkhole that looked VERY reminiscent of the one Laura Dern runs through to escape a raptor in Jurassic Park, and then went down literally hundreds of steps into the actual cave. (As an aside, this is a legit workout. I'm in good shape, but I was out of breath a few times and it's a lot of steps throughout the tour, both up and down.) It's pretty wild - I went to the Lost River Caverns in Hellertown, PA when I was a pup, but it wasn't particularly memorable (I remember the gem stone collection I bought at the gift store more so than any underground attractions). This is such a different animal. The caverns are literally mouth-dropping, and I've never seen anything like it in person. The beginning of the tour seemed "dustier" if that makes sense, and a lot of those caverns reminded me of that opening scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where young Indy is roaming around in the desert. The star of the show is towards the end when you actually lay eyes on the stalagmites and stalactites. It's just gorgeous, and I'd say it makes the whole trip worthwhile but I thought all of it was great so maybe your mileage may vary. But if you're comparing it to a cinematic experience - and there's a reason I keep doing that; this stuff feels like something you'd see in a movie, not in real life - it's very Aliens to me, with rocks that look like they're dripping in real time even though they're not. Our guide was very knowledgeable and clearly has been doing this for years. My only nitpick was that he literally kept repeating every single sentence. My chum didn't see that as an issue - she felt it was an effective way to get his information across - but for me I thought it made some of his dialogue repetitive. But I could for sure be in the minority on that one; it ultimately didn't take away from the experience for me. After being underwhelmed by Lincoln's Birthplace, the NPS redeemed themselves here and then some. If you're in this area of Kentucky, I think you have to give this a shot. Bring a hoodie - it gets nippy underground.

Beautiful area of Kentucky. We've done several cave tours now with the most recent tour being the…read moreBlack Onyx Lantern Tour. Tour Guide staff has always been great. The bigger tours will book up several weeks in advance, especially during holiday seasons, so plan ahead if you want some of the more popular ones. However with so many options you can usually get a tour if you have flexibility in your schedule. We typically go while we are traveling up I65 but look forward to camping in the area and doing more in the near future.

My daughter had been attending Loucon for the last 5 years and every year she comes home spirited…read moreand praising the Almighty. The camp has continually upgraded it's facilities and class offerings.

I love Camp Loucon I go there every single year I love all the really fun activities gaga ball in…read moreespecially the mega slide I just love it there all the counselors are really really nice