Crystal Onyx Cave

Inexpensive, Beautiful Cave, offers two tours, Amazing Workers, Good for photos (above and below ground), and cute gift shop!
this is the best cave tour I experienced in the area, the tour guide was super funny and kept things interesting the whole time. I definitely recommend this cave for anyone in the area or if you're passing by Cave city.
bonus, the owners take such great care of the cave and make sure the rocks stay as natural as they can even with so many people in and out everyday, and the time they put into the cave for other people to explore is so amazing of them and the decorations everywhere are all so cute too!

Beautiful cave and excellent tour! Gary was our tour guide and at the beginning of the tour he said he hoped to be able to teach us at least 5 new things about caves that we didn't already know. I was skeptical as we've been in a fair number of caves before. But Gary taught us 7 new things about caves! Totally recommend this cave and tour 👍.

Cave was by far our favorite in the area! Our tour guide Charolay was amazing and very fun and informative. She kept our attention and made the tour very entertaining. The cave has many beautiful formation and draperies. You can tell the owners of this cave really care about your experience in their cave. Bravo! All around a wonderful last stop of our vacation!

I love this cave and always refer people here. The guides are informative and friendly and the cave is filled with formations. It’s family owned and while it’s great to visit Mammoth Cave it’s important to support small business as well and especially since the tours are shorter, allowing time to visit both caves. You can see formations in this cave you won’t find in Mammoth. Make it a stop on your trip to Cave City!

Definitely a 10/10! Don't go to Cave City without a stop here at Crystal Onyx Cave. After spending a couple of hours at Mammoth, which was fine.... we were wanting more, specifically beautiful cave features such as stalactites, stalagmites flowstone, draperies etc.... of which Mammoth has very little.

Crystal Onyx was easy to get to and has a really cute area in front with alien statues, dinosaurs another fun things for kids and grown ups to enjoy. They also have a sizable shop with snacks drinks and other souvenirs. We took a few photos and a walk around before our tour started and Gary was our guide.

Gary is the real deal. He's been a tour guide for something like 20+ years in various Kentucky caves. Unlike our tour at Mammoth where I felt like the guide memorized his speech, Gary was a walking encyclopedia and pointed out so many different features and gave us an excellent understanding of what we were looking at. This guy really loves his job and his enthusiasm was delivered with every word. The tour was about an hour and 15 minutes and I could have stayed for another hour easily.

The cave is covered in features that I love. Just look at the pictures and you'll see what makes this place very special. It's also family run and each of the workers that we met was super friendly. At Mammoth, the guides rushed our tour of 65+ people along. Here at Crystal Onyx, there were 4 people on our tour, Gary took his time, he offered to take pictures of my son and I and it was nice to walk the narrow winding passages of the cave at a slow pace.

Mammoth might be the big draw in the area, but for me, the best memories of this trip will be of Crystal Onyx. Do yourself a favor and put it on your list of must do's when in town.

We were a school science group from South Dakota. Walking into the lot, I was a little skeptical about the prospects of the tour with all the bizarre items on display in the yard. But, the formations in the cave were certainly worth seeing. I really enjoyed the story behind the change in management and how the cave has been rehabilitated with considerations for its natural state. The information presented was accurate. The quirkiness of the place and the guide kept my students entertained and engaged while learning about how caves form. Great job overall!

We had a great time. Naomi was a wonderful guide, very knowledgeable and friendly. Great interaction with the kids. She gave everyone plenty of time to take pictures. Highly recommend the tour. 👍👍👍

Very cool cave! I was impressed! We did the upper tour first (there’s an upper tour and a lower tour for larger groups- you don’t get to choose). We liked it so much we went on the lower tour immediately afterwards. If you go again within 24 hours, you get 10% off the other tour. Each one is about a hour. The tour guides, Naomi and Jack, were informative and entertaining! We enjoyed it very much!

November, Friday, final 3pm tour- no wait, great price, tour of only 10 people for 1 hr 15 min! Perfect! Loved our sarcastically funny guide, Naomi! She was super knowledgeable and made the tour fun for the 4 kids under 10 plus adults over 40! Beautiful Cave!!!!

Totally different experience than Mammoth Cave. Whether you've visited Mammoth Cave or not, Onyx Cave worth a visit. It's amazing!!!
Charolay was my guide. She's fantastic. She made the visit so interesting. Great experience.

What an awesome experience! Decided on a last-minute trip to check this place out. I'm so glad we did. From start to finish, we had a great time and was the highlight of our day. The tour guide was great, and took the time to answer questions. I am looking forward to another visit to check out the lower cave. Two thumbs up! 👍👍

We went there last week. Gary, the tour guide, was very friendly. He tried to match up our young kids' pace, which was very appreciated.

My husband had actually been here 20 years ago before this visit. It got upgraded a lot! It's cute and fun! The dinosaurs and aliens definitely made our son happy!

Cave with beautiful formations. GARY gave us an excellent tour. We fit this in last minute before our 2pm tour at Mammoth Cave. We knew we wouldn't see stalagmites or stalactites on the Mammoth historical tour, so this filled that desire.

We really enjoyed our upper and lower cave tours! We did the lower cave in the morning and came back to do the upper in the afternoon. Prices are reasonable. Staff is friendly and knowledgeable. They had a great little gift shop with snacks, treats and refreshments too. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit!

What a unique experience this was! They have a huge gift shop and plenty of outdoor games to play while you wait for your tour to start. We had Charolay as our tour guide and she was outstanding!! Incredibly knowledgeable, charismatic, funny, and kind, she patiently answered all of the children on our tour’s questions without missing a beat. Stunning formations in the cave, you could do this tour over and over again and always see something new. I can not recommend Crystal Onyx Cave enough, you will not be disappointed!

Amazing cave and tour!! Our guide was very knowledgeable and the surprise at the end was fantastic. We did the upper tour and wish we would have done the lower. What a beautiful cave and great experience. Highly recommend this tour, we enjoyed it more than our Mammoth Cave tour.

Charlay was our tour guide, she was wonderful! We visited this fall with our 5 children all under the age of 12. We were very impressed with her passion, patience and knowledge of caving. Wonderful experience for our kids, so much so we think it was the highlight of their week! The cave is quite literally an active living cave. Very interesting even for us adults.

We toured both crystal onyx cave and mammoth. The crystal onyx cave tour was a very small group, and that was very much appreciated in comparison to the large group tours put on by the NPS. We enjoyed supporting both!

Have done both the upper and lower tours! Both are amazing! This is by far the most awesome cave in the area! The formations are just breathtaking. I’ve had different guides for each of my tours, Jack and Aaron, and both were so knowledgeable and fun! The cave is remarkably well-lit with easily walked paths. I look forward to going back to see this beautiful cave again and again!

Highly recommend visiting Crystal Onyx Cave. We went on a few cave tours while visiting the area and this was by far our favorite. Our tour guide Jack was very knowledgeable and answered lots of cave questions as well. They do offer two tours - an upper level and a lower level of the cave just FYI.

This place was great! The tour was super relaxed and our tour guide was amazing. It was informative and lots to see while you’re there. Also the gem mining was a fave of my son’s. He got some really cool stones! Definitely recommend checking this place out!