Trip Report - Mammoth Cave National Park

We planned to spend the first night in Bowling Green, KY instead of Nashville because we were going to leave later in the day than originally planned and wanted to get there at a reasonable hour. As we got closer, I started seeing signs for Mammoth Cave National Park. Somehow I didn’t realize it was right here. The hotel we had booked was only twenty minutes south of the park, which was exciting.

Anyhow, we checked online and they are still running the tours down into the cave during Covid-19, with masks and limited availability. We had a choice between a one-hour tour (Mammoth Passage Tour) and a two-hour tour (Broadway Tour)  and went for the longer one first thing in the morning. We booked online and the tickets were QR codes sent to our email, which was easy. Our boys are big enough to walk (and it wasn’t that long a walk) and to wear their masks.

When we got to the park, I stopped by the Visitor Center, which was empty and had a complicated system of one-way traffic. So after I talked to the person at the counter to confirm that I didn’t need to collect paper tickets there, and stopped at the information counter to get National Park Junior Ranger Activity Books and badges, I had to exit and walk around the building and re-enter to get to the bathroom. Then exit and walk around the building again to get to the shop to buy our National Parks passports.

The kids were reasonably well-behaved, and the two-hour tour was the right choice for us. They alternately ran ahead and sat down and refused to move, so we spent a good amount of time making sure they were next to us and not disturbing other people on the tour or being too loud when the ranger was talking. You can’t bring anything on the tour other than water, and I’m glad we had brought water. It provided a distraction and kept them occupied, sucking water through the Lifestraw bottle.