![]() The owners came up with a truly ingenious solution for the lighting. Very little “down time” where you are just walking and not seeing anything good. (disclaimer: Most of the others were in southern Indiana) It’s not huge, but it is packed with formations. The cave: I’m pretty sure this is the prettiest cave I’ve ever been in. I can’t say enough good things about this place and the people who work there! But I’ll try, and hopefully I won’t leave anything out. This place is absolutely worth an extra stop when you’re in the area! I know some other tours in Mammoth have those features, but Crystal Onyx Cave was just bursting at the seems with them that I have to think Mammoth just can’t compete in this category. While the size of the caverns and walkways were impressive, we couldn’t help but feel slightly let down by the lack of formations growing in this section of the cave. Later in the day we did the Passage Tour at Mammoth Cave. You could tell he takes pride in his work and wants people to enjoy this beautiful cave. The owner gave us a tour and he was fantastic! Knowledgeable, friendly, and patient with some rambunctious kids. Thanks to another review, we knew we could schedule a personal tour even during the off-season, and we are so glad we did! The cave is a relatively short tour in distance, but it was packed full of incredible formations! The kids loved learning about what determines the shape and form of the features, and they were especially invited any time we got to see cave wildlife along the way (which happened a few times). Our family would highly recommend a visit to this cave! We loved it! The owner described some of the work he had done for years before he could open to make the cave accessible for tours and it shows how much he loves the area- the work is lovingly done to preserve and protect the growing cave formations while sharing this lovely gem with the world. ![]() There are calcite deposits of various ages throughout the cave so we learned about how they can darken with age and that was confused with onyx when people first started naming the caves in the area. My 8 year old loved the dark experience the most and my 5 year old loved the imagination room. My 10 year old kept taking pictures of the cave formations and she learned so much about the different types since there were so many varieties here and the owner was so knowledgeable about them (we previously knew about stalagmites and stalactites and columns, but we saw and learned about drapery and cave coral and soda straws and so much more!). Walking past the underground waterfall and on top of the cave lake was such a lovely experience! There were beautiful giant domes to look up at and so many large displays of dripstone! My 2 year old enjoyed hopping up and down many of the stairs and squeezing through the columns on the walk to the wedding cake room. Then the owners gave us a tour of the upper cave and it was so very beautiful!! We took our kids, ages 2-10, and this came tour was everyone’s favorite part of the trip. Fortunately, the light ice on Sunday morning melted quickly and we were able to make it up the hill to Crystal Onyx Cave easily. We were warned that if the roads developed ice, then we wouldn’t be able to make it up the hill to the tour in the morning so it would need to be cancelled. I was able to book a Sunday morning private tour for our family after we arrived in Cave City, KY late on Saturday afternoon. I was searching for a cave with formations for my family to see while we were visiting and Crystal Onyx Cave fell on my radar - boy did they look like a jackpot of formations! But then I saw that they were closed during the winter- however, even though their regular tours are closed for the winter, they still offer private tours! This cave is on the opposite side of the highway exit than Mammoth cave and it is up a relatively steep hill. Such a lovely place! We were visiting Mammoth Cave in the winter and the only part of Mammoth cave with formations was under construction (they’re doing maintenance on those trails so the Domes and Dripstones Tour won’t be offered until at least the fall of 2023).
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