Visiting Grand Caverns In Grottoes, VA

While Shae and I were visiting San Antonio last year, we met up with Larry and Rhonda who follow our blog and are from Portsmouth, VA where we used to live.

During that lunch, they’d mentioned that we should visit Grand Caverns in Grottoes, VA when we were back in Virginia this year as they said it was incredible. We thought the Luray Caverns were pretty special, so we were curious how they’d compare.

We visited Grand Caverns while staying in Charlottesville last week and it turns out Larry and Rhonda were right – it was incredible. So much so that I think they might’ve overtaken the Luray Caverns as my favorite ones that we’ve visited. Here’s why I loved Grand Caverns so much.

When you arrive, you’ll buy tickets inside the building that was once the Grand Caverns Inn. This also contains a gift shop and a little more information about Grand Caverns and the local area.

Once you have your tickets, exit out of the ticket office/gift shop and head up the hill to the left where there’s a large red building. Take the steps on the right of the building to the museum’s entrance upstairs as this is where the tour departs from.

Shae and I happened to arrive 15-20 minutes before our 3pm tour was due to leave as we didn’t know how frequently the tours are held (it seems like they depart every hour on the hour). I’m glad we were a little early as it meant we got to take a walk around the museum area to check out all the exhibits.

If you’ve ever visited any caverns, you’ll know that you’re not allowed to touch any rock formations as you walk around as oils on your hands can affect the growth process. It was therefore nice that the Grand Caverns museum had a touch table with lots of different rock formations you can touch beforehand.

In an adjacent room to the right there are several information boards providing information about the caves, cavern systems in general, how it can affect the water supply, etc.

Back in the larger room, another of the exhibits had coins they’ve pulled out of the Wishing Well in the caverns. The money used to be donated to local charities, but they’ve had to stop that practice as the coins corroded so quickly that banks had to retire the coins.

Soon enough it was time for our tour to start. When we’d visited the Luray Caverns a week or two beforehand, we didn’t have a very good tour guide. We thankfully had the opposite experience at Grand Caverns as our tour guide Daniel was fantastic – very friendly, interesting and knowledgeable.

He showed us a map of the entire cavern system which is 3.8 miles long. The tour itself only covers about 1/10 of that distance as much of the system isn’t easily accessible. In fact, 2.8 miles of the 3.8 miles was only discovered in 2004, with one section only being 9″ high.

Grand Caverns are a cool 54° F (12° C) year-round. As a result, they had a selection of coats visitors could use, although we didn’t find that necessary. I was wearing shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops and wasn’t at all chilly.

Daniel led us through a door and we were immediately in the caverns – it was like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. Grand Caverns is much smaller than the Luray Caverns but that’s one of the reasons why I loved this tour so much – it felt so intimate. All the rock formations are much closer, the ceilings are lower and it simply feels like you’ve been transported to a magical new world.

Many of the formations have been given names in keeping with what they look like. Near the beginning of the tour there was Solomon’s Throne which is a shield formation…

…and the Frozen Waterfall which is a flow stone formation.

Next up was the Zoo room, named that way due to all the creatures living inside. There was a crocodile, elephant, shark and pterodactyl.

Grand Caverns were discovered in 1804 by Bernard Weyer, so for some time afterwards they were known as Weyer’s Cave. Weyer started running tours two years later which means that it’s the oldest show cave in the US.

Other notable formations in the cave include the Liberty Bell…

…and a formation that’s known as either the chandelier or an upside down cheese pizza.

One of the rooms in the caverns was called the Armory Room due to all the shield formations inside. They’re not entirely sure how shields are formed and it was interesting seeing so many of them here as I don’t remember ever seeing them at past caverns that we’ve visited.

The modern day tour takes a different route through the caverns than was taken in the past, although there were a couple of sections where you could see the old paths that used to be used.

One of the larger rooms was the Grand Ballroom. It’s named this way because balls used to be held down in the caverns at a cost of $1 which was a lot of money back then. It’s a shame we weren’t visiting a few weeks later as they were holding a candlelit grand ball to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the town of Grottoes owning the caverns.

One of the formations in the Grand Ballroom is known as the Hitching Post. Unmarried women attending the balls back in the day would hover their hand over the Hitching Post to indicate they’d like to dance.

Other interesting formations included the New York skyline…

…and Jacob’s Tea Table.

The Still Water Room had a line on the ceiling where you could see where the water level had once been.

After that was the Rainbow Room (named for obvious reasons) which had a Wishing Well in front of it. This is the Wishing Well where they no longer have coins thrown inside due to them getting corroded too quickly.

Shortly after that section, Daniel turned off all the lights so that we could experience absolute darkness where you can’t even see the hand right in front of your face.

He then shined his flashlight in the distance to show us the Ghost of George Washington. It was named this because early cave explorers saw the formation in the distance and it looked ghostly. I can completely understand why they’d have been creeped out as it did indeed look like a ghostly apparition, but unfortunately the photo I took didn’t give a good representation of what it looked like due to the darkness. Instead, here’s a photo of the Ghost of George Washington in the distance once all the lights were back on. This formation is found in the middle of Cathedral Hall.

And here’s the Ghost of George Washington looking less scary when close up.

Other shield formations included one on the ceiling that looked like a chocolate chip cookie…

…a few that somehow grow sideways…

…a triple shield…

…and one next door to the Cathedral Room that’s in an area known as Martha Washington’s Dressing Room.

I took tons more photos of interesting formations, but I won’t share them all – you’ll just have to visit Grand Caverns yourself to see them all! I’ll leave you with a few more of their notable formations though:

One of the last things that Daniel showed us on the tour were some signatures on the walls. Some are more recent, but others date back close to 200 years.

Back during the Civil War, several soldiers spent some time in Grand Caverns including Stonewall Jackson. One of the signatures on the wall was from William Porcher Miles, who designed the most popular variant of the Confederate Flag.

At the end of the tour, we also got to watch a video which showed how most of the Grand Caverns system was discovered 15 years ago.

Final Thoughts

I’m so glad we followed the recommendation to visit Grand Caverns. The fact that it was a smaller set of caverns wasn’t a hindrance; in fact, that was one of the reasons I was charmed by them so much. With lots of interesting formations – especially shield formations – and an excellent tour guide, I’d highly recommend visiting Grand Caverns if you’ll be in the Virginia / West Virginia / Maryland area.

Grand Caverns Ticket Prices

Update 7/28/22: The ticket prices below are no longer valid as it’s been a few years since we visited. You can find the current pricing by visiting their website and clicking on the link for Tours & Tickets.

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Tickets for Grand Caverns are cheaper than Luray Caverns. Adult tickets for Luray are $28, whereas the maximum cost at Grand Caverns was only $20 when visiting in September 2019. You can get cheaper tickets if you have AAA or AARP membership too. We have both (you don’t have to be over 50 to join AARP but you can still take advantage of many discounts), so it only cost us $17.50 each which was well worth it.

Here’s how all the ticket options are priced:

• Adult – $20.00
• Child (ages 6-12) – $11.00
• Child (ages 5 & under) – Free
• Senior Discount – $18.00 (60+, ID required)
• AAA Adult – $17.50 (Card required)
• AAA Child (ages 6-12) – $9.00
• Military/Public Servant Adult – $17.50 (ID required. Public servant discounts include Police, Fire, and Rescue personnel with proper ID. Discounts apply to all individuals in the party/on the same receipt and paid for by one purchaser.)
• Military/Public Servant Child – $9.00
• AARP Adult – $17.50 (Card required)
• Group Adult – $13.00 (Group rates apply to groups of 12 or more in one party and paid for by one purchaser.)
• Group Child (ages 6-12) – $8.00
• Grottoes Resident Adult – $11.00 (Proof of residency required)
• Grottoes Resident Child – $8.00

Address

Grand Caverns, 5 Grand Cavern Rd, Grottoes, VA 24441