Luray Caverns, in Luray, Virginia, are the largest and most visited caverns in the eastern US. It’s a great destination for groups of all kinds. In addition to the caverns, next door is the Car & Carriage Caravan Museum, an outstanding collection of antique cars, trucks, bicycles and a couple of other modes of transportation. You can purchase admission to both the caverns and the museum on one ticket. Although the caverns are the claim to fame here (and rightly so), I highly recommend the car museum — it’s my favorite spot at this stop. There is also a cafe, and a fudge shop by the entrance to the museum.

A greeter was standing on the sidewalk at the bus drop-off as we pulled in yesterday, waiting to meet my group with their information as well as a meal ticket for me (discount at the cafe). The cafe is basically a fast food operation, but reasonably good food (try the Pork BBQ sandwich — delicious), and can handle bus-size groups easily if they know you’re coming. Public restrooms are right by the bus drop-off, very convenient for bus groups.

I’ve joined groups before on their guided tour though the caverns, so this trip I went once again to the museum where I always seem to see something I hadn’t seen before.

The parking lot is huge, with dedicated bus parking at the far end (bottom) of the lot. That’s my only (minor) gripe here — it’s a long way up the hill to rejoin the group or get something to eat. But it’s worth it. This is an excellent stop, especially if your group hasn’t been here before. It gets my 5-star rating.

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I had a group of 8th grade students to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, VA yesterday. The group had an 8 AM appointment, first one of the day, and had been instructed to be there 30 minutes early. That meant leaving our hotel really early, but at the direction of our conscientious group leader, we dutifully arrived on time as instructed. And guess what … the parking lot was empty, not even the staff arrive that early! We wished we had been able to sleep in a little longer.

But the rest of the visit went smoothly. They began their tour at the appointed time, had a competent tour guide, and enjoyed their visit.

New Visitor Center

The new Visitor Center opened just recently, and is fairly impressive. Although the ticket area is at the front right corner of the Visitor Center where you’d expect it, group leaders must go down one level below the ticket area to check in their group — seems like poor planning to me, but I didn’t have a chance to fully check that out. The new cafe, public restrooms, and gift shop are already open. However the new theater and museum areas will not open until the Center’s grand opening on April 15, 2009. We were just a couple of weeks too early to see those.

Bus Info

Bus parking is unchanged from previously, except it appears they’ve eliminated the parking spots for motor homes just behind the buses, where they often made it very difficult for buses to back out of their spaces. Buses drop off and pick up at their parking spots, not in the new, small circle in front of the Visitor Center. There are no trash cans in the bus parking area where they used to be, and I didn’t see any exit signs from the bus parking area — good thing I had been there before, or I could have easily got in a situation where I’d have had to back up in their parking lot (exit right when leaving the bus parking area). Drivers do not get a break for food or coffee, there is no driver’s lounge, but drivers can usually walk along with their group on a tour of the house if they’d like. Their website has no bus specific information that I could find, but does include specific directions for driving.

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1. Virginia to Reopen Closed Rest Stops

Drop off area at the Mount Vernon Circle

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