Carlsbad Caverns King’s Palace Tour Review
See why the Carlsbad Cavern’s King’s Palace Tour is a must do for your family in this review!
Get off the normal visitors path when you take this low cost, family friendly tour at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.
Not only will you be able to see natural formations not shown on the general self-guided tour, but you’ll also learn about the cave’s history, creation, and structure from an experienced park ranger.
You’ll also be able to see some of the deepest rooms in the entire cave system that are open to the public, with the tour sections being more than 150 feet deeper than the Big Room.
Below, you’ll discover why you should add this tour to your Carlsbad Caverns itinerary, what to expect on the tour, and 2 ways to nab tickets to this sought after experience!
Our guide in the King’s Palace room
What is the King’s Palace Tour?
The King’s Palace Tour is a ranger-led tour of 3 cave rooms that are not available to the regular visitor to Carlsbad Caverns.
The highlight of the tour is the titular King’s Palace room, which is highly decorated in natural formations and holds well preserved specimens from the cave’s earliest era.
The tour is ranger-led and lasts for about 1.5 hours.
Keep in mind that you’re already going to be doing a lot of walking in the cave, and this might seem like even more—but it is a fascinating addition to your time in Carlsbad Caverns.
The tour is an add-on feature to your admission cost, but at only $8 per adult and $4 per child, I felt that the experience was well worth the extra money.
I went on this tour with my dad and my 2 young children, and all of us felt that our time exploring Carlsbad Caverns was enhanced with this extra time in the cave.
The King’s Palace tour is offered twice a day, once at 10:30 AM and the other at 12 PM.
Since the tour is guided and discusses history, biology, and geology, kids ages 6 and up can go on this tour.
My 6 and 10 year olds did this tour, and both were able to keep up with the narration and walking.
>> For more insight on how to spend your time here, check out my 2 day Carlsbad Caverns National Park itinerary! <<
Is the King’s Palace Tour worth it if I’ve already done the self-guided tour?
Yes, the King’s Palace Tour is absolutely worth the extra time and money even if you plan to complete the general admission self-guided tour!
The 2 self-guided tours within the caverns do not cover any of the same areas that are covered on the King’s Palace Tour, so you’ll see new spaces by taking this tour.
While the signage of the 2 self-guided tours and the provided national park map is helpful, nothing replaces the experience of a live guide.
At the time of this writing, Carlsbad Caverns has still not reopened the majority of their ranger-led tours, so joining the King’s Palace Tour is one of the few ways to get a guided experience into a section of the cave system.
You’ll see new parts of the caverns with a small group and an engaging park ranger host.
Our ranger was also an avid spelunker with over a decade of caving experience, so having that additional expertise informing what we were seeing on the tour was incredible.
The brilliantly colored Green Grotto
Carlsbad Caverns King’s Palace Tour Review
Once you’ve arrived onsite, you’ll head to the ranger desk to check in for your tour and pay your general admission.
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You’ll have a receipt showing your chosen tour time—keep this receipt safe as it is the only physical ticket you’ll get for the tour.
If you lose this receipt, you will have to hope that there’s still space on a later tour. (And no one wants that kind of stress on your vacation!)
So, receipt in hand, you’ll head down into the caves from the front desk. I’d recommended using the elevators for this tour instead of approaching through the Natural Entrance.
The Natural Entrance is incredible and deserves its own time—you don’t want to be rushed for that experience.
Plus, you’ll have another 1.5 miles to walk before you get to the meeting place for the King’s Palace tour if you go this way.
If you take the elevators, you’ll be just steps away from where your guide will be waiting for you.
Once in the caverns, head to the stone benches near the retro-futuristic snack bar and gift shop area.
(NOTE: These aren’t always open, but you’ll still be able to see the structures.)
The Tour Begins
About 10 minutes before the start of the tour, your ranger guide will announce the tour and begin to check receipts.
Don’t wander too far, or you could miss this announcement.
The Camping Kiddos heading to the first room on the tour
Thankfully, the bathrooms in the caverns are just a few steps away from the meeting point, so you can quickly dart in and out. There aren’t any other facilities on the tour, so make sure your kids go before you leave the meeting area!
The tour starts with the guide introduction: we had an excellent ranger who had been spelunking and caving since 2009, with much of that experience being done in Carlsbad Caverns and the surrounding areas.
It was fascinating to hear his commentary throughout the tour on different areas that he had explored—and he even named a few areas!
My kids were amazed to hear these first hand accounts about caving, which helped bring the entire Carlsbad Caverns to life for them.
First Stop
From the meeting point, the tour group of around 20 people will head towards the Big Room and down the path typically followed by self-guided visitors coming from the Natural Entrance.
However, your group will get to go into a small, usually locked gate on the left of the path.
From here, you’ll go down (and down some more) and the tour begins in earnest.
Part of the Iceberg collapse in this section of the cave
One of our favorite parts of the tour was seeing evidence of a massive rock slide that nearly locked the cave away from ever being found. It is daunting to look at huge blocks weighing millions of pounds that are wedged in overhead.
Today, this section of rock is called the Iceberg, thanks to its unique triangular shape.
You’ll head into 3 separate areas on this tour: the King’s Palace, the Queen’s Chambers, and the Papoose Room—but the most awe-inspiring in the King’s Palace room.
This room has pristine evidence of when this cave system formed underwater over 250 million years ago.
Unlike formations in other caves like Mammoth Cave National Park, the caverns at Carlsbad were largely formed underwater through intricate chemical processes.
The ranger guide walked us through all of these geological, historical, and biological facts in a way that even my 6-year-old could mostly manage.
You will get to sit for a few moments on a stone bench in the King’s Palace room as the guide points out different features and shares the cave’s history.
This is the only time on the tour where you can sit down, so keep that in mind if you’re bringing younger children.
Queen’s Chamber and Papoose Room
Another high point on the tour is seeing tiny stalactites are being formed in areas of the cavern that were damaged.
That damage was done purposefully in an earlier era of the cave’s history, when guides widened an opening between the Queen’s Chambers and the Papoose Room.
There are also the beautiful Queen’s Draperies, which have been backlit for visitors to see the delicate veining through the thin rock formation.
The Papoose Room is oddly named, and the ranger noted that they’re not completely sure why it is named that. Perhaps it’s for the stone column in the middle of the room that might look like a mother holding her baby? (But that’s only if you really use your imagination!)
Towards the end of the tour, the guide will ask everyone to turn off and stow any electronics, glowing watches, and the like to see how dark the cave system is naturally.
There’s also an entertaining bit that follows this blackout where the guide shows the group what the earliest cave explorers saw via their dim oil lamps.
You’ll complete the loop between the 3 rooms at the end of the tour, and the ranger will walk any guests who’d like to follow back to the elevator area.
Otherwise, you’re free to explore the rest of the caves on your own.
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How Do I Get Tickets for the King’s Palace Tour?
There are 2 ways to get King’s Palace Tour tickets: through the Carlsbad Caverns National Park website or in-person.
Since the King’s Palace tour is limited to less than 15 people for each time slot, the tickets go very, very quickly, especially in peak season.
Adding to this rush is the fact that the majority of the Carlsbad Caverns ranger tours haven’t reopened after the pandemic. As of this writing, the King’s Palace Tour was the only ranger-led tour available at the national park.
This situation creates a bottleneck where the online tickets usually sell out within half an hour of them going live.
So, if you’re not lucky enough to nab one of those online tickets, what should you do?
There’s a second option: show up early to Carlsbad Caverns and ask the admissions desk about the first come, first served tour tickets.
The system holds back about half of the available tour spots (4-6) for each tour for those who aren’t lucky enough to get the online ones.
This is how we nabbed our tickets! We arrived at 8:30 AM on our first day at Carlsbad Caverns and were able to get 4 of the available tickets.
We were offered a spot on either tour, so there was availability on both that early in the day.
Is the King’s Palace Tour Kid-Friendly?
The Camping Kiddos on the King’s Palace tour (one of them refused to wear a sweatshirt and was cold!)
Yes, the King’s Palace tour is great for kids!
The national park limits this tour to kids 6 and up, and I think that’s fair given the amount of walking involved, the lack of available seating, and the in-depth information about the cave system provided.
Babies and toddlers would not get anything out of this tour and there’s simply not enough room to walk around them with them if they were allowed on the guided tour. (Kids of all ages are welcome on the stroller friendly Big Room self-guided tour, though!)
Make sure that your kids are aware of the walking involved: comfortable shoes are a must.
There is a bit of an incline going down to the first room on the tour and then back up again at the end of the tour, but my 6 year old managed that just fine.
The path throughout the tour is paved and smooth.
The cave can also be chilly as it stays at a constant 55 degrees year round. An extra layer can be helpful if your kids tend to run cool.
You will be walking nearly the entire time, which does help keep some of the chill off.
This tour has no small spaces or squeezes, so your child will be able to move freely at all times.
Finally, consider that the tour has one section of complete darkness to demonstrate the reality of this cave system minus the current technology that allows us to explore it freely.
If your kids are scared of the dark, you’ll need to talk with this about this portion of the tour—it is well telegraphed, so you can have them sit with you when the lights are turned out.
Overall, this tour is an excellent way for your child to learn about the unique cave system at Carlsbad Caverns, and it is an enriching add-on to your time in the national park.
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