Cave of the Winds

Reviews 3

NA

Natalie Launer

We had a great time! We went on the discovery tour and our guide was Alexandyr. Alexandyr was great! He was very knowledgeable about geology, crystal formations, spelunking, history and even answered our questions about natural mineral springs. He was also super polite and patient with the young kids in our group and with another tour ahead of us that was us slowing us down. He used this down time to tell jokes and give more detailed explanations about the caves. The discovery tour is 45min long, and some children ages 3-5 in our group had trouble focusing on the tour, even though it was the easier and shorter of the tours. The pathway and stairs had guard rails and mostly flat surfaces and were easy to navigate. The cave was well lit and floor easy to see. Some areas had a small spots where you had to duck or crouch, but only for a second. The entire cave is paved to make it easily accessible by most. According to our guide, previous cave tours required crawling on your belly and climbing sketchy ladders for up to 6 hours in pitch black, so Id say this is a super safe tour for most people. It is not by any means extreme, and it is made for people of all ages and sizes who want to explore a cave in a safe, paved, well lit environment. My boyfriend is 63" and had no problem ducking and crouching. It actually made for some funny pictures and videos watching him do it. Our guide was very helpful in pointing out the "bruisers" the rocks people always run into, so none of the people in our group ran into rocks or bumped their heads. If a person thinks they cannot walk up steps, slanted floors or crouch and duck they shouldnt go on a cave tour. We also did the high ropes course and bat a pult. The high ropes course was super cool and I loved standing at the top overhang ledge which gives you a stunning view of the landscape. It was a bummer no cameras were allowed. The bat a pult was okay, not very fast, but a cool way to get a good view. However, the brakes system nearly gave me whiplash! It was hilarious to watch the video because I looked ridiculous when the brakes kicked in. Definitely watch out for rope burn on the high ropes course and the quick braking on the bat a pault. Still fun though. Overall, a great trip! The pricing was a little steep, but they do have a military discount. Our guide was great, even though he was full of corny puns and jokes (pretty sure they all have to do that). Great for curious minds and those who like geology. Id definitely recommend the discovery tour for the information because the lantern tour just tells silly ghost stories and isnt as informative or interesting. I feel like they just try to upsell it. Definitely a great experience.

MO

Monica Siah

I bought E-Tickets online a month before coming to Colorado. They worked like a charm! Easy as pie to get my tickets at the front counter. Staff from the start was super friendly. We arrived early and the entrance for the tour (We just went on the Discovery Tour) was in the Giftshop -- so while we waited for the tour to commence we just shopped – and let me tell you they have a great Colorado giftshop – we loved it. So then the tour started, the tour itself was fun, I don’t think I’ll do it again though. We were grouped with maybe 10 other people – and everyone was very friendly. I feel like our tour guide was very nice – however she would crack jokes and sarcastically laugh at them making it awkward for people to enjoy themselves because we weren’t sure if we should laugh or if she is NOT trying to be funny. The jokes were corny and that is completely fine – but if you sarcastically laugh at your joke so many times. .it’s kinda like – then stop telling the jokes? Anyway – after a while no one was really laughing with her and my boyfriend happened to laugh sarcastically at one of her jokes only after SHE laughed sarcastically after her joke and she decided to stop the tour and coach us on how to have a good time and how she will tell jokes and she will laugh at them. It was really awkward. Again, no one knew if they really should laugh or not. She put people in a weird position – almost like she didn’t really enjoy being there. Besides that whole thing, the tour was fun, but pretty fast pace, you’re in a small cave with everyone, so if you can imagine, trying to take a photo of anything, or at a certain spot – you will have other peoples “flashes” from their cameras messing up your photos, OR you’ll have a bunch of people IN your photo. After a while that got old because the tour guide was walking so fast that half of us ended up going at our open pace because we wanted to take photos and figured “well we paid for the tour we kinda would like to see what we are looking at for a second”. Once the tour ended I was relived. I want to say it was like 45 minutes long – but I might be wrong. It wasn’t even that I had a bad time, the cave itself and the stories ABOUT the cave are so neat but the tour guide spoiled it for me with her poor humor and poor sarcasm. No one even got a chance to laugh at her jokes because she laughed at them sarcastically belting out big HAAAAAA….HAAAA’s at everyone. It took away from a lot of the fun and distracted me from why I was really there. Great for everyone though, kids and adults. It’s easy to breathe, so don’t think it’s musky down there or anything! Hope this helps! Have a great time if you go!

MA

Mariah Osborn-Swift

We went this weekend to go on the Discovery Tour. On the website there was a $2 service charge for purchasing tickets, so I opted to buy tickets in person. It took 30 minutes to get tickets and I regretted not buying the online. We bought our tickets at about 1:40 and were told our tour would be at 2:50 pm! I couldnt believe how long we were going to have to wait. I asked if I had time to drive home to Manitou and the guy at the ticket counter said he did not recommend it. My daughter became very bored after about 20 minutes and there was nothing for her to do! The facilities are really nice. The food is not overpriced and the gift shop has lots of options. We bought the bratwurst and nacho meals. They were freshly prepared and delicious! The tour was about 50 minutes long. The tour guide paced the tour so that everyone could keep up, but did not give us time to look around. The cave itself is nothing to write home about. I liked the cave in New Braunfels, TX a lot more. The tour guide spoke quickly and didnt have many interesting stories (just the same stuff you get on the website). He mentioned when he was doing sales pitches for the lantern tour and pictures taken at the beginning of the Discovery Tour. I would have liked him to give the tour time to look around for formations, pointed out the different rocks, spoken about geology, talked about the folklore, history, or at least make the tour interesting for kids. The only cool part was when he turned the lights off and the cave became pitch black. This is definitely a tourist spot and I do not recommend it to locals. You can find way cooler places for free out hiking in the mountains.

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