BRUTALLY HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW — I have no complaints about the caverns and the waterfall itself, both are beautiful and a sight to marvel in the wonder in. However, THE ISSUE lies within the way the tours are set up and the way things are run, which AFFECTS YOUR VIEWING EXPERIENCE.

1. When you reserve a tour time, you’re actually going to go down with up to 38 people at once. That seems to be the maximum when booking online. However, it could be more than that, as tour times are set within ten minutes of one another. So add on to that. We booked a 10:40am time slot, and we ended up going down with the 10:30am crew as well. When we got to the bottom of the elevator, they were waiting for us. There’s not enough time in those ten-minute slots to have other groups going ahead, I guess? Or perhaps it has to do with the fact they want to just go ahead and shove “smaller” reserved groups with another one so they don’t have to have more “guides?” Either way: PACKED LIKE SARDINES. HEED THE WARNING.

2. After being packed like sardines, you’re shoved into a singular elevator with as many people as possible. You will be touching strangers with your buttocks, your chest, tummy, and whatever other body part they decide to squeeze against.

3. Getting into the caves, you’re stuck into a single file line, of course. No complaints about that. HOWEVER, when there are potentially 38+ people within your little group, it gets messy. If you’re at the back, you can barely hear anything the guide is saying, if they are saying anything at all.

4. WARNING TWO: If you book the 26$ ‘walk to Ruby Falls’ package, you won’t get ANY INFORMATION ON THE CAVE OTHER THAN TWO PRERECORDED BITS INSIDE. The guide does nothing but tell you the rules and make a few witty comments. The first bit of anything informational is two TV screens with a semi-informative video about how the caves were found, but it’s framed like a commercial. Trying to get you hyped rather than feed you important info. The second one is quite literally a pre-recorded audio played over the speakers that’s it.

5. Because there’s nothing informational whatsoever, that also means there’s NO TIME TO STOP AND LOOK AT ANY FORMATIONS. IT IS AN HOUR LONG SPEED WALK TO THE FALLS. The guide is just there to make sure you don’t do anything stupid, I guess. Otherwise, there’s no point in them being there. They don’t do anything but rush you through the pathway. And if you do stop to take photos or anything, you risk being COMPLETELY LEFT BEHIND and rushing to catch up with the rest of your group.

6. THE FALLS — seeing the waterfall itself is TIMED. You probably get five minutes MAXIMUM TO LOOK AT IT. The room is completely pitch black to where you CANNOT see it until they do their little light show, and after the five minutes is up, no more falls, turn back. Because of this, if you’re at the back of the group, YOU WILL NOT GET ANY PHOTOS WITH THE FALLS AT ALL. We were lucky and ended up managing to squeeze a few in, but a few at the very back of our group weren’t so lucky. Especially when you have larger families wanting to take 20 different variations of one photo. (No shade, just a fact.) The waterfall IS very beautiful though, it honestly felt like a rush of adrenaline seeing it for the first time, but with the time limit, it’s like taking candy from a baby. Luckily, you see the same stuff on the way out so if you miss something, you’ll see it again, but you’ll also be RUSHED out while passing other groups headed in. We passed four groups on the way back out, us squeezed on one side and them on another. Barely any room to pass. SARDINES. Crazy.

TLDR: It’s a VERY rushed, uncomfortable experience and you don’t learn anything worth noting. We left googling questions about the discovery of the caverns. The falls and the rock formations are very beautiful and luckily, make the trip somewhat redeemable. Heed this one with caution folks. It’s very much greedy tourist trap vibes, trying to turn and burn as many people as they can through the caves. That aside: cool waterfall.