Weber's USA Trip 2018
Probably the most famous tourist attraction in the area of Carlsbad are the "Carlsbad Caverns". We heard a lot about them and how incredible they are, so we even booked a ranger guided tour at 10am. It should take 1.5 hours down into the deep.
We arrived early enough and even met a nice, friendly family from Alaska, who were also travelling with their RV. We chatted a bit and then went to the main building. We arrived right on time at 09:55am.... and got told we were too late. It turned out that in the US, if a tour starts at 10am, they expect you to be there at 09:30am. That was also written in the confirmation e-mail... but not in the header with the tour details, or in the "Tour Notes" below it... no.... all the way down, hidden in the fine print. A plain effrontery... and the worst part: you don't even get your money back, as "being too late" is not a reason good enough for a refund. In my eyes that's almost fraud. Why on earth can't they write in the tour details "Tour starts at 10am, meeting time 09:30am" or similar?
However, it's a government park and it's not worth to discuss with the rangers there. Instead we took the self guided tour and rented an audio guide in german. And that was a wise move.
The caves itself were breathtakingly impressive. I'm really at a loss of words to describe it. And the audio guide was amazing. Repeatedly there were stops and we learned exciting and informative about the caves, its history and details about his discoverer, Jim White. Time flew by and we stayed almost 4 hours in there. We were almost glad to have missed the guided tour, because I don't think we would have learned a lot more and being in a group of up to 40 people would probably be more "hectic" than being on our own. That way we often had the caves almost to ourselves and were able to gather the impressions. It was for sure one of the highlights of the whole trip.
Back on the camping ground we used the rest of the day individually. The kids played Basketball and looked around the store, I finally updated the blog and Nicole was taking care of our hunger. And everybody was enjoying a nice shower.
Tomorrow we're going to see if we can find some Aliens in Roswell!
Eugen Weber
78 chapters
15 Apr 2020
Thursday, 8th of march, 2018
Carlsbad, New Mexico
Probably the most famous tourist attraction in the area of Carlsbad are the "Carlsbad Caverns". We heard a lot about them and how incredible they are, so we even booked a ranger guided tour at 10am. It should take 1.5 hours down into the deep.
We arrived early enough and even met a nice, friendly family from Alaska, who were also travelling with their RV. We chatted a bit and then went to the main building. We arrived right on time at 09:55am.... and got told we were too late. It turned out that in the US, if a tour starts at 10am, they expect you to be there at 09:30am. That was also written in the confirmation e-mail... but not in the header with the tour details, or in the "Tour Notes" below it... no.... all the way down, hidden in the fine print. A plain effrontery... and the worst part: you don't even get your money back, as "being too late" is not a reason good enough for a refund. In my eyes that's almost fraud. Why on earth can't they write in the tour details "Tour starts at 10am, meeting time 09:30am" or similar?
However, it's a government park and it's not worth to discuss with the rangers there. Instead we took the self guided tour and rented an audio guide in german. And that was a wise move.
The caves itself were breathtakingly impressive. I'm really at a loss of words to describe it. And the audio guide was amazing. Repeatedly there were stops and we learned exciting and informative about the caves, its history and details about his discoverer, Jim White. Time flew by and we stayed almost 4 hours in there. We were almost glad to have missed the guided tour, because I don't think we would have learned a lot more and being in a group of up to 40 people would probably be more "hectic" than being on our own. That way we often had the caves almost to ourselves and were able to gather the impressions. It was for sure one of the highlights of the whole trip.
Back on the camping ground we used the rest of the day individually. The kids played Basketball and looked around the store, I finally updated the blog and Nicole was taking care of our hunger. And everybody was enjoying a nice shower.
Tomorrow we're going to see if we can find some Aliens in Roswell!
1.
Preparations
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Wednesday, 7th of february, 2018
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Thursday, 8th of february 2018
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Friday, 9th of february 2018
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Saturday, 10th of february, 2018
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Sunday, 11th of february 2018
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Tuesday, 24th of april, 2018
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