Carter Caves State Resort Park — Hotel in Grayson

This is a gorgeous state park. There’s a lot of hiking trails and cave exploring that you can do. That is mostly what this state park consists of. Most of the caves you have to have a tour guide and buy tickets at the Welcome Center, but there are 2 that you can explore on your own, but you have to get a permit from the Welcome Center for both of those. I would say that anyone who wants to visit this park, would be better off to do it without small kids. There isn’t a lot to do as far as entertainment for young children. They have a putt-putt course but they didn’t keep it maintained so it was a mess and there were a lot of things that were broken or falling apart. However, we played anyway and enjoyed it. They gave us a discount because of its condition. There are horseback rides available and I believe it was $22 per/person for 45 minutes, or you can bring your own horse and ride/walk the trail. They have campsites there as well and they weren’t very private and didn’t look very well maintained either. Sadly. We stayed in the Lodge. It’s been there since 1981 so it wasn’t in immaculate shape or anything but they did keep it looking nice and cozy. The floors squeak and it has a musky smell to it, but it is sitting right in the middle of a “forest” and has been around for a while. They have a restaurant downstairs called Tierney’s Restaurant and they serve breakfast (which was AMAZING), lunch (which we didn’t try), and dinner (also very tasty)! The prices are what you’d normally pay at any “nice” sit down restaurant these days. My family of 5 cost us about $75. Of course, that price is based on the food you choose to order. The rooms are “ok” for its age. The beds are very uncomfortable and the pillows are very firm. (Just my opinion). My family did not sleep good at all. 😟 The lodge doesn’t have vending machines (except one pop machine by the lobby bathrooms), and town is about 8 miles away so if you plan to stay overnight then perhaps you may need to stop and get some snacks and drinks on your way in. They do have a few snacks behind the counter of the lobby that you can buy. All of the rooms have doors leading directly outside and they all have balconies off the back. We went on a cave tour of Cascade Cave the last day we were there and that was pretty awesome. I would highly recommend that! Other than that, they had a mining station at the Welcome Center where you can buy a bag of sand from inside and then take it outside and let the kids (and adults, like me), mine for gems/crystals. That was fun, and my kids and I enjoyed that while my husband watched. 😁 Overall, I would say it’s a park better suited for older children and adults, or it would make a nice getaway for adults that just want a nice weekend away and enjoy hiking and caving. It’s a beautiful place, just not a whole lot to do otherwise. P.S. They also have cottages that you can rent, they looked...

Note: Somebody got back to us and refunded us for the 3 days that we had left early. I suppose that counts for something, and I appreciate their effort. They admitted to the construction and the necessary revamping. I guess that’s fine - just state the situation on the website or something before someone uses their time and money to only be surprised by the construction.

Original Post:

Absolutely disappointed in this 6 day camp trip my wife and I were to take. We wanted to experience a mild winter camping trip up here, and were excited to go to Carter Caves because of the great reviews.

Week both took PTO for this trip, and drove 6 hours to get up here. All of this planning and driving to then find out that the campsite area was under construction - they were revamping the RV areas and completely tearing down the registration building. Trucks were constantly back and forth and extremely loud demo going on with the big construction machines. Absolutely nothing on the website stated there would be construction going on at the campground.

We hand no where to check in since the registration building was being demolished, and the temporary office hadn’t yet been set up. The welcome center was closed until the following Wednesday, and when we went there - as well as guest services over at Tierney’s Cavern - they just apologized for our bad luck and couldn’t do anything for us.

We left that Wednesday. We called Reserve America for some kinda refund, and they couldn’t do anything except say that we have to talk to the camp before leaving. Welp… tried that. Didn’t work. But reserve America did provide us with some direct line to Carter Caves, and whatever number it was was non-working.

Can’t believe it. Planned this trip for months, reserved early - paying nearly 150$ and driving over 6 hours, both of us used our PTO for this, only to come to this and get zero help, ultimately ruining our trip and time.

Thank you Carter Cave. I will never go there again, and I will tell others to...

We had a neighbor tell us about Carter Caves so we decided to do a day trip here. During our visit we toured X Cave, Horn Hollow, and Cascade Cave. The park was very clean and well organized. We didn’t know what to do and where to go at first but were quickly and easily able to find staff that showed us the ropes. Our first tour was with Tristan at the X Caves. Tristan was informative and the Cave was interesting overall we enjoyed it. The only thing we wish he would have done differently is slow down . We moved so quickly through the cave that it felt like at times we were trying to keep up with the group instead of getting to enjoy the experience. Our next tour was a self guided tour to Horn Hollow. We were informed that we needed to bring flashlights with us so we purchased some at the gift shop. The permit process was easy however finding the cave not so much. They literally circled it on the map and said “it’s somewhere around here” and to stay on the green trail. We kept walking and walking at one point we saw a couple walking down what appeared to be a creek bed and wondered to ourselves is that the cave entrance? We pulled out our phones to Google it, it was. Then once we got to the mouth of the cave we saw that it was flooded. We were not aware that the mouth of the cave was going to be in a creek bed and the water at the mouth was already at shin level. Not wanting to spend the rest of that day in wet shoes and socks we decided to not venture inside. Our last tour of the day was to Cascade Cave. Our tour guide was Skylar. Skylar has a family history when it comes to this cave and it is clear that he is both knowledgeable and passionate about it. He has a great personality and really took his time sharing the cave with us. He also told us about some of the other caves and tours we would not have known about otherwise and would love to check out in the future. We were so thankful that our tour was with him as he really made the experience. Overall it was our favorite...