We arrived at Mammoth Cave at noon on Saturday, just in time to pick up our reserved tickets at the visitor's center and grab a quick bite to eat. I had reserved the Frozen Niagara cave tour and the Star Chamber Tour online at, reservations.nps.gov, or you can call 1-800-967-2283. The Star Chamber Tour had sold out, so I was happy that we had tickets. We ate at the on-site fast food restaurant, TrogloBITES, and wished that we hadn't...it was not good. The Niagara Tour is an excellent tour, a bit strenuous, 2 hour hike, with around 500 stair steps. You see deep pits, high domes, and beautiful flowstone formations. There are no bathrooms, and no drinking water on the tour. After the tour, we checked into our room at the Mammoth Cave Hotel. The hotel offers rooms, from around $70 to $100 a night, and cottages, from around $60 a night. I had reserved a cottage; it was adequate, clean and had a coffee pot. The only major problem was that parking seemed like around a city block from the cottage. The Star Chamber Tour in the evening was guided by hand held lantern light...a unique experience to view a cave. Highly recommend. Some of the tours overlap, but if I were to take another tour it would have been the Historic cave tour. Sunday morning the Travertine Restaurant at the hotel had a breakfast buffet for $5.95. Everyone at the hotel was very friendly; the waitress went out of her way to make my husband toast with his buffet breakfast. Later we viewed two 7 minute films at the visitor center, then took a guided surface tour, the River Styx Spring Trail, to the Green River. We saw plenty of wildlife...an over abundance of deer. To end our vacation, we took a cruise on the Miss Green River II. We don't have small children, but I think that it would be an excellent vacation for families...there are cave tours especially geared for children. It is free to enter Mammoth National Park and camping is available. The park wasn't busy when we were there, and according to an employee, it hasn't been all year. It's a shame, it's a wonderful National Park.

I'm so glad you had a nice visit. I've been twice and I would love to return.

Thanks so much for writing a trip report. It was very interesting--glad you enjoyed your trip.

It is interesting why more people don't go there. We, for instance, only live about 4-5 hours away and have only been there once, a couple of years ago--and never took our kids there when they were growing up. We always headed to the Smokey Mountains.

At one time they offered boat rides on the cave's lake, do they still do that? Thanks for the interesting report.

The Echo River Cave tour...part of Mammoth's subterranean waterway...was discontinued in the early 90's, I believe, for various reasons. However, there are cave tours for all levels of abilities. I am one who would never even consider the Wild Cave tour, which involves lengthy crawls through areas 9" high, free climbing cave walls, and hand and knee crawls. The Wild Cave tour is very popular though and sells out quickly. I like the idea of the "kids only", Trog cave tour...must be at least 8 and no older than 12. There are around 12 different cave tours...the 2 that we took were at my level, and I still had sore muscles for a couple of days after the tours.

We have a terrific photograph of our group that toured Mamouth Cave in about 1962. I love what everyone was wearing (lots of ladies in head scarves and cat eye glasses).

Wanderluster

I remember wanting to take the Echo River Tour when we went and couldn't remember why it was discontinued. Found the following:


Do you still offer a boat tour inside the cave?
No. The Echo River Tour was discontinued in the early 1990s because human traffic in the river levels was causing harm to aquatic creatures that live there. Also, keeping the passages, which flood frequently, open for the public was prohibitively expensive. In season, we do offer the Making of Mammoth Tour, which lets visitors get a glimpse of the underground rivers.

I know I might be prejudiced since I live in next door Ohio, but I think Kentucky is a great vacation state. We have visited Mammoth Cave many times and really love it. Even Cave City can be fun for kids. The Corvette Asembly Plant is just down the road is also a good place to visit. There is a beautiful Bourbon Distillery, Maker's Mark on the way down I-65. I could go on and on.

I grew up less than 50 miles from Mammoth Cave, and we used to take a lot of family and school trips there. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit.