Ohio Caverns Visitors & Ticket Center — Attraction in Bellefontaine

I took 6 kids to the cavern and me solo. We did both tours, the history tour had a lot of great info on the early days of cave tourism, lots stories about mud and crawling through the cave with gas lanterns, which is very different than today's nice mud free path, not a lot of stalactites/stalagmites/columns since those early cave tourists chipped it all away, but the inside of the cave is still incredible.

The Natural world tour was even more incredible than the historical tour, lots of stalactites/stalagmites/columns, with some really unique characteristics.

Some portions of the trail are very narrow and some areas are very low, so if you are above 6 foot tall, watch out. Both cave tours require a stair climb out (History tour was a stair climb in, but the Natural tour you just walk in after walking down a long ramp outside the cave), both climbs out were very steep, but I think most people can manage, the kids had no problem. The kids did great, my 5 year old was a little nervous, and the rest found the two tours very interesting (12 and under). The tour guides did a great job, mixing history, science and humor. The gift shop was massive, lots of rocks and the items were not over priced as compared to most gift shops. They sold some chips/candy and some water/soda, but not a robust food selection so you will have to go off-site to eat (we had lunch afterwards in Urbana, about 20 min away). However, there is a great picnic area on site if you plan better than I did. Overall, it was a well run tour with friendly tour guides.

I was very surprised how modern everything was (and the bathrooms were very modern and clean), particularly since some of the signs on the interstate might make you think it is an old school tourist trap. Overall, we had a fantastic day at the caverns and will go...

There are two tours: History one and Crystal one, each tour about 50 minutes. For two people to tour one tour, would be $50 but to do both tours it was $73 for two people. This place is NOT for people that have issues w climbing stairs, we were XA of feet under ground, it took 60 stairs almost straight up to come back to the surface. You know those never ending hallways....try never ending stair feelings lol. All the young staff were amazing, you could tell they had good morals all around. From them being very respectful, outgoing n funny to very knowledgeable for all the "tourists" of all ages. In my tour I had as young as 3 years old to I heard a lady say her group were in their 60s, so aray of ages. We all kept each other safe but had a blast. R front guide needs to hear what a great job she did, even tho she might have thought it went all wrong. She made us all laugh n when u can break the ice for 25 different people of dif back grounds at the same time to make it comfortable being in a dark tight space together, u have to be someone special. Also someone else that deserves Recognition, the back guide, Sarah she deserves a foot n back massage for finding my lost phone before I made it into the caverns w the crystals. I noticed I didn't have it as we approached the doorway, 70 feet under ground level by then. She was quick, had my phone AND HAD A SMILE!! This has to be one of the few places that hire young people that I've seen where there is great work ethic n respectfulness from them. They do have fun n "mess around" but in a clean, healthy...

First, let’s talk about the good. The facilities are very nice here and the caverns are beautiful and fascinating. Having said that, at least our tour suffered from the current offering of tour guides. They tried hard but sure seemed to miss the mark. A lot of mumbling, a lot of talking way too fast. A lot of people in the group agreed that you couldn’t really understand about 50% of what was said. Another issue we had when we first arrived was they took our money for the tour and then absentmindedly just told us to wait outside. A few minutes later there was an announcement over the PA with the young man speaking way too fast and mumbling through a lot of it. we couldn’t understand what was being said and because of that we missed the beginning of our tour. We tried to catch up to our group but a young lady, who was completely incapable of communication stopped us and just stared at us instead of actually communicating. It was a very...