Moaning Caverns Adventure Park — Attraction in Angels Camp

I recently visited this cavern, and sadly, I came away from the experience feeling totally ripped off.

Now, I've visited numerous caverns throughout the USA and the world, and I think that they're all unique and truly magnificent natural wonders, including this one, however, to pay $20.00 (actually $16.00 since they offered a 20% discount for online bookings), for a "1 hour tour" that encompasses walking down a very cool spiral staircase (constructed from the remains of a WWI navy ship) into a vertical cavern, with explanations about the history and rock formations, along with a black out experience, well, it's just a tourist total rip off. As a result, I didn't bother to buy any souvenirs or have a beverage afterwards, since I wasn't interested in getting ripped off any further.

This "tour" would be better priced for the public, at $10.00 ($8.00 at the 20% discounted rate) for a 30-45 minute visit, since that is all you really need for the experience of it.

Now, if you've never ever visited the inside of a cavern before, and this is the only place you have access to, or if you're the type of person who travels for the sake of telling others by way of selfies, that you also did it, then this might be perfect for you. If you have options then I'd suggest going elsewhere for your cavern experience, where you can hopefully get a little more bang for your buck. Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone and will never return.

If you do have the ability to travel, then I'd highly recommend Carlsbad Caverns in NM, or the vast cavern networks of Slovakia and Slovenia. Those are truly spectacular places to visit and worth the price of admission.

By the way, the two star rating is for the pleasant,...

I don’t any reviews but today I feel I must cause it was a great tour experience with my kids and Angel our guide did and other staff did a great job. This was not my first time going to moaning caverns. I remember going as a kid with my school and also my parents taking me. So now it was my turn as a parent taking my kids and all I can say still amazing, well worth the drive and the employees are also amazing with helping answering questions. Things inside the cave may have not changed much or look like much but it’s a cave if there was any outside influence then things would be ruined and wouldn’t be a special place. Angel was our tour guide today and she was so sweet and understanding very good at making things easy and feeling comfortable to ask questions. I was worried about my oldest daughter because she had to go down and up the stairs slowly due to an injured knee “unrelated” to the tour and Angel was so sweet to not rush or make it an issue that we had to take our time. She even went beyond letting us know to take it slow by letting my daughter take a break at the upper level before having to climb out more. Angel gave us more info about the cave and told us things that weren’t part of the tour. All the employees did well and were very compassionate when we were basically the last of our group to head up and very helpful to make sure my family was ok. We will definitely be going back for the expedition tour and asking for Angel to be our tour guide once again. Wait time depends on when you arrive because they take groups down the cave at top of every hour. Price is fair, I’ve spent more on things that weren’t even close to a...

165 ft deep underground - 235 spiral stair steps up and down. Even it’s the largest and deepest cave in California - It’s somehow easy and not bad at all for family with kids to enjoy. Lot of fun and informative tour (45mins time).

We gathered at the gate for some general information about the cave’s depth. Then we started with narrow small passages to the first stop where we can touch the cave and our tour guide gives us some interesting information why some parts of caves have that color or some area is made with different formation. At the end of the spiral stair, the tour will take picture of you and you can purchase at the gift shop ($15) then she provides us more information. It’s interesting and amazing.

Staff is very friendly and helpful. I did booked online and very easy to check in at gift shop. Our tour guide is funny, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. She provided us with detailed information about the cave’s history, geology. I can see her passion for the job.

Moaning Cave is very closed to Vallecito where you can visit the Gold rush town at the same day. We did have very short of time after visiting the Columbia State Park. That why we just took the easy tour - the last tour of the day at 4pm with 8ppl in the group. Next time we definitely come back and ready for the expedition tour - as know it will be more challenging with 5 hours of crawling and climbing through narrow paths.

This is an awesome amazing experience to explore the nature. Highly...