If you can only afford one cave tour, I'd spend my money on the cave that is southeast of here. Colossal earns a solid review, but if Kartchner gets a perfect 5, Colossal Cave settles for a very good 4. I feel like Colossal Cave is an important part of our state and its history. Guided tours and advanced caving treks are conducted on a daily basis. So overall, we don't regret taking the tour or stopping by. Colossal Cave Mountain Park On the National Historic Register, the 2,400-acre Park showcases crystal-filled Colossal Cave and historic La Posta Quemada Ranch, a 128-year-old working ranch. It's probably partly the whole bats thing, too. But Kartchner didn't smell perfect either. It wasn't terrible, and it IS a cave after all, but it just smelled a bit musty and old. Until you make it to the cave parking lot, the outer property and roads look so deserted and run down that you might think you are in the wrong place. Shouldn't be a big deal, but the formations just look a little more lifeless and gray when they are not being actively fed with water. This means that no water is flowing into the cave, so the formations are no longer growing. Just not quite as much bang for your buck. CONS: - The quality of the cave tour against the relatively high price just didn't quite add up, especially when compared to Kartchner Caverns. They are a little more flexible and friendly. Not as rule-rigid as Kartchner Caverns. Food service shack on site with a decent variety of items and fairly reasonable prices. Unexpectedly great gift shop with a good variety of items and appealing graphic design of Colossal Cave items. Their flexibility in adjusting our tour time to a sooner tour helped us ensure that we could maintain our otherwise tight schedule. I think they were the single thing that solidly made our trip worth it when it otherwise might not have been. The staff here were very friendly and helpful. PROS: - This cave offers a unique tour because of an interesting recent (last 150 years) historical storyline and the many movie/TV appearances of the caverns. This helped us get back on track with our schedule and allowed us time to eat lunch before our next stop at Kartchner. Colossal Cave has featured interestingly in Arizona history and it should do more to showcase this whimsical history! Wanna know more? Go do the tour! Our schedule was very tight when we visited the cave, so we were thrilled when we showed up an hour early for our time and the friendly staff in the gift shop immediately offered to get us out on the tour that was currently departing. This cave has a lengthy natural history, but I think its best history is that of the last century and a half. But what this cave lacked in pristine, physical beauty it made up for with wonderful stories of cowboys and treasure and Sesame Street. Maybe that's why the staff at Kartchner have such a maniacal focus on cave preservation. Perhaps this is why so many formations are cracked off and missing. I overheard someone say that until recent decades the cave management group invited people to pluck their own souvenirs from within the cave. We enjoyed our tour and our time at Colossal Cave, but the cave itself was a bit lifeless and tired.
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