Natural Bridge Caverns

Fun time here after walking to the bridge. Our guide was great and the tour took 45 minutes. Not too long if your child has a short attention span. Smaller than other nearby caverns but my nieces really enjoyed themselves. They picked up a little rock souvenir at the end to remember the day.

These caverns are beautiful, cold but beautiful. The biggest issue we had: I was with a group of kids on a school field trip. As soon as we left the caverns at 5:15pm, the people running it turned off the lights, locked the door, and left. Our group of 20 waited for 30mins no one came. We waited for the shuttle bus but it never showed. We had to walk back to the hotel.
The cavern workers were susposed to call for our pick up. Beware.

Beautiful caverns. Group was large but not overcrowded. Tour was 45 minutes long and broken up from room to room in the caverns. Tour guide was brand new so his trainer came along, which was nice. At the end of the tour, they turn off the lights in the cavern, which was a nice touch to fully experience a new definition of dark.
With the hotel-​stay discount, the extra $ 12 for two people (as a combo to our natural bridge tickets) felt like a good deal. Might be a bit much to swallow without the discount.

Expensive hole in the ground. The guide was ok but the caves are just not worth the combo ticket with the natural bridge. Let down.

The Natural Bridge Caverns are the deepest caverns on the East Coast. They were cool to see, and very convenient after seeing the Natural Bridge. I’ve seen better caves and caverns. But, if you are going to the Natural Bridge, might as well add this to your day of exploring.
Travel Tip: Show your AAA membership card to get a discount on your ticket.
Read more about my experience here:

Go if you never been in a cavern before. TIp the guide if he/​she was good. But if you have been to other caverns this could seem small and may be dissapointing.

We bought tickets to visit the caverns as part of a package for Natural Bridge. Both were a bit of a letdown given the price ($ 26 per adult). The caverns were neat, but the group was large and full of rude people who couldn’t follow the simple instruction of leaving the formations alone.
There are about five or six rooms on the tour with several rock formations to look at. If you’ve been to Luray or Howe Caverns, you’re probably going to be let down as well. I would skip this one if I had the chance to do it again.

A mossy hole in the ground…
Very glad that my fiancé and I got the student price. We purchased the bridge and cavern tickets for $ 16 each (student rate). And I am glad we didn’t pay more than that! This tour is only 45 minutes and that includes the 5 minute speech at the beginning and waiting for all 40+ people to get into the room etc. There is only 4 rooms to see and no real, fascinating formations at all. The moss is very very abundant and gross. The walls are green and even the biggest (most advertised formation) is covered in a dirty blue, green slime/​fuzz. This is all due to the fact that they leave the lights on and so close to the formations/​walls. I even saw some significant growth like you would find in the woods and small weeds growing in a couple of spots. In my opinion this really takes away from the beauty.
They warn you about the ‘stairs’ and ‘inclines’ but really they are nothing. Just can be slippery and muddy but that is expected, underground in a wet climate. I never saw any of these ‘bats’ or any insects for that matter. It is also not as cold as other caves/​caverns that I have been too.
The group was very very large and many small children even a baby. This can be funny at times (the kids comments) but can also take away from the experience. I would say it is just a huge tourist trap and not worth it.
The best part of it was probably the walkways that were well established but that also takes away from the adventure of walking on the actual rock versus man made steps.
*Skip the caverns and save your money! Better yet, go a little out of your way for some real caves/​caverns!

Not as flashy as Shenandoah or Luray, but still a solid cave experience. Has a huge earthquake-​created chamber, which is unique, with several water features. The caverns flood in heavy rain, so most other features are a bit muted. We had a small group, but we went off season (March) — would be crowded with big groups.

The guide was extremely knowledgeable, the only good part of this cavern. Cashier was rude and pushy. Way too many people for one guide. I think we had 40 people and about 8 roudy kids. You couldn’t hear the guide over their whining voices. The waiting area to go in was way too small. Once in you realize there are no formations to see, not as cold in there as advertised and way too short of a tour. Not worth going to.

This ain’t no Luray, y’all!
If you bought a ticket just to see the Caverns you’d pay ~$ 16. Um, no. Save the money. If you bought the all inclusive ticket (like my family did) you’d see all the stuff included in the Bridge ticket and the Caverns ticket. Those are like $ 28 a piece (plus my mom got a discount, I believe, with her military ID). I think had we only bought the Caverns ticket I would have been really upset… buyer’s remorse.
It’s not a very long tour. The formations aren’t that great. There is moss growing in a whole slew of places because of constantly keeping the lights on for tours (I’ve been to other caverns where they turn lights off to keep the growth down). The highlight for me was when we got to the area that was formed by an earthquake loooooooong ago. There is a large boulder wedged between the two walls of the split. If you stand back far enough in the «room» and look towards the boulder it almost looks like the scene from Goonies with the boobie-​trapped boulders hanging from the ceiling by chains (ps, you have to walk under this boulder!). Our tour guide took us into the last «room» of the tour and asked if everyone would like to experience cave darkness. YES, PLEASE! (come on, how many times in life are you going to be able to experience something THAT dark?!) Enough of us said yes so she went through her little demo. Pretty neat.
The tour groups are way too large. It’s hard to move around sometimes and I wonder if anyone kind of gets lost from the group. Not like you’d really get lost because the place isn’t that big if you stay where you’re suppose to walk. The large size also makes it harder to hear the guide sometimes since some people keep talking amongst themselves.
They do warn you at the beginning about this not being for people that may have trouble climbing stairs. They make it sound more difficult than it actually is. My mom was a little worried she’d have trouble but was fine (but everyone needs to make that call on their own). I think it’s more important to watch your way down into the cavern at the start. The concrete floor is wet, it’s really dark and if you’re not wearing shoes with treads you’ll really want to watch yourself. I was wearing running shoes but still walked flat foot instead of heel to toe just to be on the safe side.

Cute bats!
Our tour guide was great and very patient. There were several young children in our tour group and a few were breaking out into fits often during the tour. The tour guide would speak up so everyone could hear over the fits. She explained many interesting facts about the caverns and how they were formed. She even pointed out the bats on the ceiling. They are very clever hiders. The tour lasted about 45 minutes and we got to see the Colossal Dome room, the Well Room, and Mirror Lake.

Interesting to see, the wax person hanging from the outside of wax museum is very convincing. Quick stop.

Weekend trip to Virginia, Roanoke area was great. Road the bike down and got lost, well not really just for two hours. I ended up in Natural bridge Virginia and went to the Carverns. The tour was short but for someone that has never been to the cavern it was a great experience.

Too much hype over nothing really. So, when you go, don’t build up too much expectations from their travel brochures or highway signs.
Stalagmites/​stalactites??? Only a handful that are worthy of praise. But, not merely enough to woo any kids.
It is a good hike and escape from the heat outside. But not as bad that you have to be in shape to go (out of shaped ones as well as asthma pts are welcome). Just don’t try to run or jog cause it is a bit damp. The temp in the cavern is constant 56 °F yr around. Watch your head if you are close to 6′ or taller.
This is also part of a package for the Natural Bridge. So, it gets a lot of foot traffic from that.

The staff was nice. Considering we were a family with 4 kid, 8,6,3,7months. We had been to the Luray Caverns. I felt a bit rushed in this one. The kids Loved it! Just enough time for them to lose their attention when it was over. A few neat facts we learned. For the money (the combo tix) it was a good deal. The inclines were Steep! Definitely wear good tread tennis shoes, jeans, and a long sleeve shirt or something.

Except for the Natural Bridge part, it’s a tourist trap. The bridge is indeed very beautiful and awe inspiring. It’s the rest of the nonsense, which I stupidly purchased a One For All Ticket, that’s silly. You want to see their toy museum? Go into your addict. You probably have better stuff. Better yet, go window shopping during the Christmas Season. The Lace Waterfalls that one walks over a mile and a half of gravel to get to? A small, natural, overrated water-​slide. The caverns, except for the wee bats sleeping on the ceiling-it’s more of a long bore/​drill hole with some open pits. Very, very small and not too much eye-​candy. I think my All-​For-​One ticket cost me over $ 25. I didn’t even bother hitting the Wax Museum. And even though the ticket included a Creation show, that wasn’t happening until around 7−8pm. Eight hours later. Boy! Am I a bitter almost-​kind of reaching-​bitter pre-​middle aged man.

A quick forty five minute tour that takes you 30+ stories underground. Really cold and wet down there so make sure you bring a sweater and non slip shoes. Really cool cave formations. Think stalagmites and stalactites. Not for the weak of heart, asthma prone or extremely out of shape. Lots of stairs and somewhat steep inclines. The tour made me feel like I was in «Goonies» movie looking for one eyed Willie. Check it out.