bluff dwellers cavern

The family and I just toured the cave today. We had a fun time learning about the cave from Steve, our guide. My wife and I had a great talk with Steve after the tour and think he is delightful. Highly recommend this for a nice 1-2 hour stop if you are in SW Missouri. We saw bats, salamanders, salamander nymphs, and crickets. Our 6 year old had a lot of fun.

Finally stopped out here this weekend on a cold day. It does not matter when you stop by because the cave is around 60 degrees year round! I seemed to stop by at the right time. A big group had just finished up and I was the only person to show up for the next tour. I got my own personal tour of the cavern and it was phenomenal!!! There is so much to see and look at in this cave and the tour guides know how to tell the cave's story. The tour is about 45 minutes to an hour long, depending on questions and the like. The walk is around 1/2 mile. You will need to have some stability as you will duck low in many areas and walk along some slightly small paths. The most effort is walking up the main steps to the office though. Kids will love this and so will adults! The ticket price for an adult was $14. There is also a small museum with minerals from the local areas and other places. They have one of three in existence of petrified bird's nest with eggs. There are also personal belongings to the family that owned the cavern. In the office is a show box full of arrow heads that were found outside the cave along with some human skulls, that was interesting.If you keep a look out you will see bats, salamanders, frogs, and a few other animals. Do not miss the cave duck!!! (They will show it to you)Go and you will want to go again. The staff is amazingly friendly and knowledgeable and will make you feel like family. The view...well, it's simply stunning. Do not miss out!There is a restroom facility here.

Visited several times... The best sjow cave in SW Missouri. Inexpensive, great for families, lots of natural features. Family run.

Growing up, my grandparents lived in Noel, Missouri. While I've been there many times, I had never visited the Bluff Dwellers Cavern. We decided it was time to check it out. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the cavern. MaryJane was a very entertaining guide! The cavern was larger than I had anticipated. It has a lot of natural beauty. The museum is small, but has an impressive collection of locally found arrowheads and artifacts. The place has a charm that comes from being an attraction since 1927. A great place to take school age and older kids to give them some insight into natural history. Hours of operation are convenient and it is a worthwhile visit if you are nearby.

Great adventure for kids and adults. The tour guide was very knowledgeable, friendly, and interacted with all the children on the tour. Very suitable for children as the tour only last about 30 to 40 minutes. Nice museum and gift shop as well. Will be going back this year when we attend an Arkansas football game.

We just happened upon this hidden gem in Noel Missouri. We got a private tour of a very awesome cavern. Lots to see, knowledgeable guides. Great little store and museum attached.Interesting to grown ups and kids.

Liked the cave - was very neat. This was our second cave tour - the first was Seven Falls in TN. Highlights of the cave: Saw two bats, some lizards, water dripping and in a still "pool", heard a really cool reverberation from a special spot our tour guide "hummed" in, and loved the "musical" area. Very natural and level surface, neat history. The tour was supposed to last 45 min to 1 hour. The reason for my 3 stars - our tour guide was very nice, and I feel badly about this review but he had a difficult time staying on topic and shared many stories about his own life, his own studies, random things…most were funny but again - not cave related. LOTS of sharing not cave related. The most annoying thing about the tour was that he kept referencing/showing areas that looked really neat that we "were no longer able to enter", telling us stories about how cool they were, then always talking about how he "could go there himself, take a girlfriend or family member but not us". This happened many times and we would stand and listen to him talk about it for several minutes each time, and who he could take. It really annoyed my teenagers - kind of ruined the experience for them. He obviously loves the cave, really cool, but the tour was 1.5+ hours long. Way too long. Also, this was heavy in Old World education - all presented as fact, not hypothesis. Depending on your own research/beliefs on some/all of this aspect of dating artifacts, ages of caves, etc., this may or may not interest you. Again, very nice people, just long. Cool cave.

My family and I toured the cavern on July 22. We had 10 people ranging from 10 to 63, and we all enjoyed the tour. The inside temperature in the cave is 56 degrees. It felt so good, considering the outside temperature was HOT and HUMID! We saw a couple of salamanders and amazing cave formations. They even have Big Foot's foot! Our tour guide was Mary Jane. She was hilarious and knowledgeable about the cave. She kept us all laughing throughout the tour. There is a small museum and gift shop at the end of the tour that was also interesting. The gift shop was reasonably priced too. There are stairs up to the entrance of the cave, but once you get past them, it is a very easy walking tour. This is a great place to spend an hour or so with your kids or grandkids!

We were traveling to Hot Springs, AR for vacation and stopped at the Bluff Dwellers Cavern in Noel, MO. It was the first time through a cave for my daughters, 9 and 6, and they LOVED it! It is a great cave to take a walking tour through!!

I LOVED IT! You need to go. The cave was big. The tour guide was nice too. We saw animals. You REALLY need to go!

We came across Bluff Dwellers Cavern while driving from Joplin. It was a WONDERFUL surprise. The tour takes about 45 minutes and is easy to navigate. The mineral features in the cave are breathtaking. Along with the gorgeous mineral formations, we saw tiny bats and salamanders as well as frogs. My 12 year old son says "It was spectacular!" He really enjoyed listening to the natural mineral chimes. The gift shop and museum contained a rock collection any geologist would drool over. Our tour guide, Jennifer, was a gem. She really made the tour fun. If you are in the area or anywhere near it, be sure to make time to visit Bluff Dweller Caverns.

I really enjoyed this show cave. This was the first cave I've gone to in quite awhile mainly due to the usually high price, but this cave was only $10 to enter with the coupon from their website. It wasn't a very busy day, but they still had two guides there, so as soon as I got there, one of the guides was ready to take me in. It was just me at first and the guide was perfectly fine with taking in just one person, but we heard a couple outside once we got in, so she let that group join in which was perfectly fine. Aside from the lights and a few rails, this cave has been left untouched. The guide was great and made the tour even more entertaining. The small museum outside the cave also had several different geological items from around the country. It's minutes from Noel, MO which takes in MANY river floaters each year, so if you are one of them, make sure to visit the cave.

I've toured several caves since I was a kid, and this was easily the best cave experience I've ever had. My kids - ages 15, 12 & 9 - were awestruck and can't wait to go back, which is quite something, especially for the 15-year-old. Unlike most caves I've toured that have been modified (made larger in areas) to more easily tour, this cave has barely been modified at all. It has beautiful, well-integrated lighting, and that's about it. There were long passages where I had to turn sideways and duck to get through. I was impressed before we entered, because the facade is just gorgeous. When you drive up, there are some steep steps (the most difficult part of the tour) that lead to a beautifully landscaped cliff where the entrance of the cave is. There's a super fun museum to tour while you're waiting to enter the cave, which is the personal rock/antique collection of the former owner. The whole thing is still owned by the same family who discovered it, and it's obviously been well cared for. Our tour guide was amazingly friendly to the point that she was patient with my 12-year-old's mini meltdown just before we were supposed to go in. She pointed out lots of formations in an educational but really interesting way. My kids are still talking about the giant slab that is perfectly balanced on two pivot points that can be moved with one finger. We went 900 feet back and were 110 feet underground at one point. It's an active cave, so there's a lot of water dripping, which my kids found fun, but some might not enjoy. We waited about 20 minutes for the tour to start, then took about 50 minutes to tour. Our tour guide insisted on taking photos of my family *with me in the photo,* which was incredibly kind, because I'm in zero of the photos I take with my kids on our adventures. This place is 1.5 - 2 hours from Tulsa (where we live), but we were already at Natural Falls State Park when we decided to visit, so it was only a 45 minute drive, and well worth it. Before we'd been through half the cave, my oldest was telling me she wanted to go back. And, yes it's worth the $12 you pay for anyone 12 and up. There's a coupon on the website that we were not smart enough to find before we got there, which knocks of $2 for adults and $1 for kids. It was well worth the drive and the entrance fee, and we'll be back.

This is an amazing cave experience! Up close, personal, unique cave formations, excellent tour guide ...guaranteed to give you an intimate living cave experience...cave kisses included! ;) Because this cave is off the beaten path it sadly doesn't get the traffic that it deserves, but it means that you will most likely get a small tour group which makes for a more personalized tour, photos etc. This operation is a one woman show, literally one person greets you, receives your payment (look on their website for coupons or even just mention it), takes you on the tour, takes a group photo for you, and opens the museum and gift shop for you afterwards. The tour runs roughly 45min. to 1 hour in length, at one point she checks to see if others have shown up, so they can join the current tour. While there are very few stairs inside the cave, you will pass through a few narrow areas and you might even have to duck your head a few times in certain areas. If you pack a picnic lunch there is a park with playground and creek 5 min. south in Sulphur Springs that you can eat at before or after. There are other dining options in Noel, including a little bakery at the foot of the cavern parking lot. Adults and kids off ALL ages will enjoy this cave tour!

Not only is the cave one of the best I've seen (which includes basically the Silver Dollar City humongous cave tour in Branson), but it's also got one of the most fun tour guides. If you're in the area and think about passing this place up, reconsider. Family owned too.