Grand Avenue Tour - How ';difficult'; is it?

I%26#39;m looking at the reservations page, and they have tours like Broadway Tour listed as ';Moderate'; and Frozen Niagara is listed as ';Easy'; but the Grand Avenue Tour is listed as ';Difficult'; (same rating as the Wild Cave Tour, where you crawl around through tight spots)!

As a kid I remember taking a tour where we had lunch in the Snowball room, so I%26#39;m thinking I did something comparable to this Grand Avenue tour (since it looks like this is the only one that has a planned lunch stop at the Snowball Room, other than the Snowball Tour), and I don%26#39;t remember it being particularly tough.

Is it difficult just because it%26#39;s long or is there something uniquely challenging about this one?

Grand Avenue Tour - How ';difficult'; is it?

It%26#39;s not that bad. I saw some pretty out of shape people doing it...plus they schedule rest stops. They rate it difficult because of the time factor, but I thought it was easy and so did my kids who were 8 and 12 at the time. Our guide was a retiree in his 70%26#39;s and in great shape!

ps...wear closed toe shoes and bring a light jacket. Although it%26#39;s 50 something in there I did get a little cold during the lunch stop. You might want to pack your own lunch as well. The Snowball room had crappy lunch..

Grand Avenue Tour - How ';difficult'; is it?

I agree with all the above (including packing your own lunch). Glad I didn%26#39;t know it was rated like that or it may have scared me away from a great tour.

Thank you both for your replies - that%26#39;s what I kind of figured, but I didn%26#39;t want to make any foolish assumptions.

I%26#39;m signing up for this one tonight.

Not sure if you%26#39;ve already gone already, but when I took this tour last summer, no one was permitted to carry ANYTHING inside the cave beyond a camera. That included food and drinks. Unless they%26#39;ve relaxed their rules, you might want to eat right before boarding the bus for the tour.

I just did this tour on 8/1/08. You are not allowed to bring food, day packs, back packs or a handbag. The only thing people carried in were cameras.

The tour starts very level and the snowball room was the first stop. Nothing fancy here but for $7.50 your get a sandwich, drink, chips, a cookie and a pint of hot soup. Everything was fresh. You are in this area for about 25-30 mins. My husband and I shared the meal and purchased an extra drink. We weren%26#39;t really hungry but we knew it would be three hours or so before we came out and wanted to snack on something. There are also bathrooms at this stop.

As you continue on the tour the slope changes and there are areas where you hold onto the bannisters to prevent yourself from falling forward or backward into the other people. There are many, many stairs on this tour. The other two breaks are brief, maybe 15 mins. There were people struggling to keep up. If you%26#39;re not used to walking for any distance do not take this tour. The stated distance is four miles but they say it is really more like six when you consider all the stairs.

It was fun. I%26#39;m glad I did it but I walk all the time so I was OK. I was tired when I got out and was happy to go back to the hotel and put my feet up.

There are 670 steps and the elevation change is up to 300 feet. Grade changes abruptly more than 60 feet at several places between 2.5-mile point and the exit. This info is from the Mammoth Cave website.