Colossal Cave Mountain Park, Vail

This review is long overdue! My friend came to visit me from out of town and I'm usually the one that makes the itinerary of activities for us to do. After a very long google search, I came across this place and it looked pretty cool. The location is breathtaking. From the gift shop you can see the mountains and all the beautiful cacti miles out. Adam was our tour guide and he was absolutely phenomenal! He really knows his stuff when it comes to the history of this beautiful cave. He even told a few corny jokes to keep us laughing the entire time. It was also my first time ever seeing bats and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. They weren't as big as I thought they'd be though. Although it was quite the drive, it was well worth it and I'd come back a million times. I really only took videos but this is the best photo I got! We went on the cheapest tour and it still lasted about an hour. I 100% recommended going with friends and family!

Great informative tour. Dalton, our guide, was engaging, fun, and knowledgeable about the cave. Interacted well with the whole tour group. My family made up 7 of the group and we all found the tour and cave interesting. It wasn’t a difficult walk and the 50ish minutes flew by. Temp was comfortable, although more humid than AZ above ground is (but less then the East Coast summers). Nice gift shop. Easy trip if coming from Tucson. Our tour was at 10:30 and we were back in Tucson before 1.

This place is a real natural treasure with interesting history. This visit was my fourth, and each time, I learn a little something new. One other great part of visiting Colossal Cave is that it's always 71 degrees inside the cave, even when it's 100+ outside! Dalton was our tour guide for this visit. He was obviously knowledgeable about the cave and full of enthusiasm for it as well. The food choices are relatively limited, but kid-friendly, and the surrounding desert is beautiful and peaceful.

Splurged and got the $50 Ladder Tour while niece was visiting, very happy I did! Our guide was Adam Lutes, and he was amazing. Knowledgeable on all things Colossal Cave, he engaged us for hours in discussions of earth science, hydrology and anthropology… this included old Hollywood trivia and, of course, haunted cave lore (Hi Frank!) All while guiding our small tour as we grasped and wriggled our way through these incredible limestone caverns. Had a blast, beautiful and fun, great guide with a lot of knowledge and heart.

Touring the inside of a cave was on my bucket list and Colossal Cave did not disappoint! I first went on the Classic tour because I didn't think I had the physical strength to do any of the climbing tours. The Classic walking tour was an hour long and led by a knowledgeable guide. The tour was very interesting and beautiful! The walking paths and stairs are nice. Don't let the stair count scare you! It's a slow descent and slow ascent so it's entirely manageable for all ages. There are occasionally some drop-offs on either side of the walking path, so if you bring very small children, at these parts of the path, carry them or just keep them close. The guide talked a little about some of the places you can see in the cave and things you can do on the other tours and told me know that I could absolutely do the Ladder tour or the Intermediate tour. I went back a couple days later for the Ladder tour and I'm SO glad I did! It was so fun and I saw many new parts of the cave that I didn't see on the walking tour. You only need to be able to crouch, crawl, and do basic clambering for the Ladder tour and the Intermediate tour. Basic mobility and average agility is required. I highly recommend all these tours!