A tour group gathers in Star Chamber on the Violet City Lantern Tour / NPS

To better track the amount of visitors, Mammoth Cave National Park is proposing charging admission fees to children under six, which currently get in for free. The park is seeking public comment about the fee. The park is well-prepared to handle any negative social media about the fee increase. 

Comments may be submitted from now through October 27 through the National Park Service’s Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) system at Proposed Recreational Fee Changes for Youth at Mammoth Cave National Park.

Mammoth Cave National Park cave tours are limited in the number people on each tour to improve visitors’ interpretive experience, protect natural and cultural resources inside the cave, and ensure the safety of passengers on tour transportation buses. Under the current recreational fee ticket rules, children under the age of six are free and are not required have a cave tour ticket. This means that during the ticket sale process, the park does not receive an accurate count of the number of people who will actually be on each cave tour. The lack of an accurate visitor count causes issues on tours, like the Historic Tour or Domes and Dripstones, where the number children under the age of six can cause visitor numbers to go over capacity by 20%. This overcrowding causes resource impacts to the cave, delays in the meticulously scheduled cave tour operation, and is a major safety concern for tours

involving transportation buses. Buses have limited seating and tours that are over capacity force visitors to stand in the aisles, sit large children on the laps of their parents or guardians, or wait for additional transportation which can delay the tour.

The proposed change will require cave tour tickets for all ages, thus providing an accurate visitor number count for all tours. There will be rates for adults (13+ years old), youths (6-12 years old), and children (0-5 years old). A specific list of the tours affected, and the proposed fees can be found on the park's Fees and Passes website. The change in ticket age requirement would begin on March 1, 2025.

Recreational fees at Mammoth Cave are collected under the 2004 Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. Any proposed changes to the fee structure are required to go through a public comment process. Recreational fees are used to fund projects that address deferred maintenance needs, enhance visitor programs and services, protect resources, and improve and rehabilitate visitor facilities. Fees were recently used by Mammoth Cave National Park to fund cave guides during the busy summer season, replace benches and audio-visual equipment in the park’s only outdoor amphitheater, and repair handrails at the Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave.

Comments are preferred to be submitted through the PEPC system at https://parkplanning.nps.gov/MACAYouthFees25. Instructions on how to submit your comments can be found at the bottom of the Project Home page.

Comments may also be mailed to: Mammoth Cave National Park, Attn: Proposed Recreational Fee Changes for Youth, P.O. Box 7, Mammoth Cave, KY 42259. All mail-in comments must be postmarked by October 27, 2024. Anonymous comments and comments submitted by e-mail will not be accepted. Bulk comments in any format submitted on behalf of others will not be accepted.