Treasure Quest Mining — Attraction in Apex

If I could give zero stars I would. My daughter and I came here for the first time for something fun and different to do together. She has really been into rocks/crystals/geodes lately so I thought this would be perfect. However, I was astonished at the treatment I was given by the woman working today. It did seem moderately busy but nothing crazy. She was helping someone as we walked in, so we waited patiently by browsing until our turn to pay. When our turn came I had told her it was our first visit and that we wanted to start with a small bucket and we also wanted to get a geode to crack open. The employee just refused to ring up the geode and said “let’s just start with the bucket, kids get tired at the end and sometimes just want to keep mining anyway.” Then only charged me for the one bucket. So, not to make what was supposed to be a fun and positive outing into a negative one in front of my 8 year old, I just went with it. She told me the total and I grabbed a card and tried to tap it to pay and didn’t realize the card I had pulled from my wallet wasn’t one you could tap. The employee then got verbally aggressive and said “do you see the little lines on the card?!” I just simply said “Oop, didn’t realize this card wasn’t a tap to pay.” I went on with the transaction just to move on so we could leave. As I was finishing up she had the audacity to smart off at me “well just so you know for next time, only cards that have the symbol on the front allow you to tap. You don’t want to be embarrassed at the grocery store.” At this point I was fuming, but unlike her, I have class and kept it together for my daughters sake. This came completely out of nowhere and was absolutely unwarranted. I couldn’t let this go without saying something. I have never in my life been treated the way that woman treated us today. I honestly couldn’t believe it after seeing all the good reviews. Needless to say, we will never be back, and to be perfectly honest it was not worth the...

This place is AWESOME! Highly recommend.. The prices are great and the mining was so much fun. My 3yo was squealing every time she found a treasure. The buckets yield such a great amount of gems and other treasures. Angeline was so wonderful - she gave good, clear instructions on how to mine and my girl adored her. If you have a little one, it's definitely a good idea to bring an extra set of clothes if yo.u decide to mine. Also there's a geode cracker - need I say more? We can't wait to come back! Thank you Angeline!

UPDATE: We went back today and my daughter had even more fun. She shared an amethyst she found with a little boy mining nearby because she likes to share and his mother was so nice to us. Angeline heard that Chloe shared a treasure with a fellow mining buddy and gave her a treasure as a reward. Angeline, you are just the best! She will not let anyone touch the treasure that Miss Angeline gave her because it's very important.

The store is beautiful, the mining is awesome fun, but it's the people at Treasure Quest Mining that are so rare and wonderful. Thank you Angeline, Nate, Justine, and Mr. Angeline (sorry!). Please go visit. You will be...

Absolutely amazing experience! I have not done gem mining/panning in years and this was far better than anything I have done. To start off with, the whole facility is so clean and kept cool which is a blessing in this NC heat. I went with my brother and we each got a bucket of shells and then shared a big bucket of gems which totaled out to be $70 or so and we had some amazing finds. We each received multiple shark teeth and a variety of full unbroken shells large and small. I know some places used to do the fake coloured stones and charge a lot for them but for the $55 bucket we received a large amount of actual gems and minerals. My brother even found 2 very large geode-esque pieced of amethyst amongst many other gorgeous finds. The owner was very sweet and hospitable. She regularly checked in on us as we panned and made sure we were having a good time. I will definitely be coming back hopefully many times in the future, even if it is to purchase some stones or fossils from the gift shop portion of the facility. The prices for everything is just so reasonable and with the friendly staff, you just can't...