Garden Maze

This was our second shot at it. This time with our daughter. other then the heat it is a great way to have fun with the family! You have to do the maze if you go.

The idea of the Garden Maze at Luray is kind of bizarre if you think about it.
I wish I could have been in on the meeting to see what possessed the powers that be to put in an English style garden maze with eight foot tall shrubbery right smack dab in the middle of no man’s land Virginia. The maze idea in and of itself screams serious cheese let alone with you combine it with Luray’s campus of activities because now you’re talking a melt.
Others have explained the maze well enough that I’m not going to beat a dead horse except to say that quite honestly if you’re only there for a short time/​if you had to choose either the cavern or the maze you should pick the maze. Price wise it’s still a ripoff but at least it’s fun, it’s not cattle herd rushed like the cavern tour is and if you want you can go around as many times as you need to scratch that garden maze itch (although why you would want to do it more than once is beyond me).
The only point that I will disagree on is the whole forty-​five minute thing that I see a lot of other Unilocalers saying is how long it took them because honestly, how did that happen? I suppose if you’re trying to map out every shrub, nook, cranny and crevice then I get it but if you’re just trying to find the four «goal points» along with getting out it should take you tops thirty minutes.
Either way it was fun to do once and if you’re on vacation it’ll go down as one of those kitschy things that are neat to say that you’ve seen/​done because you could/​it was there.
If you go: The Garden Maze is open daily starting in March until (I don’t know as I’ve seen different times) either September or October starting at 10:30 until either 5:15 or 6:15. They also are open in the winter of certain weekends only so it would be wise to call or hit them up on FB if you intend to come at that time.
The price is $ 9 for adults and $ 7 for ages 6 – 12 with 5 and under being free. As others have mentioned, you can save a dollar per person on admission if you buy the maze tickets in conjunction with cavern tickets at the main cavern entrance. If you go to the maze entrance and buy tickets ala carte or if you come just for the maze there is no discount. Of course the website for the Garden Maze itself explains none of this as this information is stated only on the website for the cavern.

My family and I took our first trip to Luray Caverns this past weekend. All in one place is the caverns, a toy museum, a car museum, a high ropes course, and a garden maze. We did all of them. For a family of four, with a Giant card, we paid $ 141.00. The garden maze wasn’t difficult, but it was fun. It took us about thirty minutes to complete, but for some people with younger kids or if you walk at a slower pace it could take about 45 minutes. There are dead ends and signs that tell you to go this way, but they are wrong, and there are four stations to stamp your paper at that they give you when you come in. We have done corn mazes before and we all agreed this was more fun. There is a gift shop at the end, so if you don’t want to spend any money make sure you leave right away before your kids start looking around.

This add-​on activity to the Luray Caverns tour was well work the price. The maze was a ton of fun for the whole family. It took a while, giving us our money’s worth, and the pine bushes it’s made of smelled wonderful. Highly recommend.

We were looking to kill time because it had been raining earlier so we had to delay our hike. Admission is $ 9 a ticket for adults and it’s honestly a pretty fun maze. It was really hot out but there were mist sprinklers throughout so it was nice to be able to cool off. You have to find four goals and you don’t have to but it is kind of fun, you may as well. My favorite part of this property is actually the grounds across the street from the maze. It’s free and interesting, there’s an old school building set in a museum format and a blacksmith building, amongst other things. There’s only one place for food and all they have are chips and pre packaged sandwiches so maybe make plans for meals before or after you visit. There were lots of kids who really seemed to be enjoying it but we had a lot of fun too to be honest.

Honestly, this maze will probably be more memorable than the caverns. But who doesn’t love hedge mazes? (Waiting…waiting…) Yeah, that’s what I thought.
The amazing thing is that all of these reviews mention that it took around 45 minutes. And that’s how long it took us, too. How is it that we all figure this out in about the same length of time? Is there some deep psychological truth underlying it all?
We ended at closing time, but they kept the gift shop open for us (why, how thoughtful!). And I bought my kids two t-​shirts, because they had a cool overhead layout of the maze and at $ 10 weren’t the gouge I was expecting.
Lemme say, I endorse both the caverns and the maze, but if you’re stuck with just one hour in Luray, I’d steer here.

The garden maze at Luray Caverns is a lot of fun! My family and I spent the better part of an hour trying to navigate our way through the English themed garden maze, and collect all the stamps hidden within its pathways. This Maze has a small cave as well as some great misters to keep you cool, and a beautiful fountain in the middle. Overall we had a great time visiting the Garden Maze at Luray Caverns.

I think it cost $ 8 a kid. The kids had a blast. It took about 30 minutes to walk through.
The gift shop was full of garbage though

We did not go to Luray Caverns but definitely made time for the Garden Maze! At $ 9 for adult admission, it was a fraction of entry into Luray but just as fun. This is a moderately difficult maze with 4 goal points. They give you a mission card with when you purchase your ticket, and you stamp your card when you encounter each of the goal points. It should take about 30 – 40 minutes to complete. Of course, you can go through the maze without completing the mission card, but that’s all part of the fun! After completing the maze, you have another opportunity to go through again.
As a 5’1″ shortie, I can stay in the shade of the hedges and remain somewhat cool, but my 6’2″ boyfriend suffered in the heat. I recommend wearing a hat if you go on a sunny day, and don’t forget your sunscreen! For those hot days, there is a water fountain in the maze, but I think you can bring in outside beverages, as I saw people with water bottles.

This is pretty much the coolest thing ever! We hit the maze after touring Luray and I think I actually had more fun doing the maze. Basically you get a card with 4 boxes on it and the first person to get all four stamps wins. You run along the paths with signs mocking you as you hit dead ends. There are lots of cute little corners with pretty flowers or fountains. The misters work hard to keep you cool as you run around in the maze. Be sure to take the time to visit. It’s well worth it!

The maze is attached to Luray caverns, but is a separate admission.
The maze is elaborate and very well maintained, with 4 quest locations that give you something to search for. There are landmarks through the maze to help you realize when you are going in circles, but nothing that gives away the path through.
My kids, 6 & 2, and I all had a great time. Well worth the $ 6,

After finishing up our Luray Caverns tour, we hit up the Garden Maze. This is something I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do – I wanted to feel a little like Alice in Wonderland or whatever and get lost in a hedge maze.
The maze is $ 7 per person, but you can get it for $ 6 if you buy it at the time of purchase with your cave tour. We didn’t do that, because we had people in our party who did not want to do the maze (one person was paying for our tickets).
We went on a SWELTERING summer Saturday. I’m talkin’ 100+ degrees and HUMID. I expected this maze to be crawling with kids but it wasn’t. There wasn’t very many people in here, and the people we saw were… adults, just like us.
Like other reviews state, there are four goals. When you buy your tickets, you receive a card that you stamp at each goal station. Of course, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to but it gives the maze a purpose and makes it more fun.
Because it was a hot day, they had water misters going all around the maze, but they’re easy to avoid if you don’t want to get wet. Because we were navigating the maze with our DSLR cameras, we couldn’t partake in the cool misty fun.
I thought the maze was difficult and honestly, if it wouldn’t have been for my sister, I’d probably still be in there! For dolts like me, they have signs you can lift up if you need a «spoiler.» We found the 3 of the 4 goals in order, but we spotted the exit before finding the fourth goal, so we turned around and went back to get our last stamp.
If you think that this is a kids-​only thing, think again. Go go go go GO!

So when you are done with the caverns, this is a great place to check out for some greenery and sun! If you are a gardener or just a green-​thumber in general you will really appreciate all the work they do to maintain the hedges for this maze.
They do have several secret places for you to find, but that requires for you to wander aimlessly in the maze and not accomplishing the objective to get out. For us, after about 15 min of being in there, we were hungry so food drove us to find the exit and hit the road for some yummy goodness.
All in all this was alot of fun for adults as well as kids. It’s also kinda romantic. I can see why a good friend of mine proposed to his wife here.

Beautiful garden maze made fun for the whole family. There were 4 goals to find throughout the maze. At each goal, there was a stamper to indicate that you reached the goal. There was a lot of repeating and running back and forth, but at the end, I felt a sense of accomplishment for finishing the maze.
I would not recommend this on a very hot day because of all the running around you have to do.
My daughter said that it was her favorite part of her day, even more so than the caverns we visited just before trying out the maze.

This was a great way to start a hot day. Note that I said «Start» the day. Big piece of advice here: Come early before all the kiddos get out of the caverns’ first tour. We came at about 10:15 and had the first half of the maze to ourselves before seeing anyone else.
It takes about 40 minutes to do the entire maze, and along the way, you can get Stamps (there are 4) and various checkpoints. they also have a fountain in the middle, and misters in the arbor, which was refreshing.
After we did the maze once and got the checkpoints, you can go back through again — which we did, to see how long it took us. We got our time down from 40 minutes to 6.5. Woohoo!

Would have been 5 stars but when we went to the cavern we found out we could have saved $ 1 each… otherwise it was very fun and something definitely out of the norm. Go for it, just buy your tickets with the cavern tickets to save a couple bucks.

The Garden Maze is approximately one acre of labyrinth. I am in my twenties, and am a college graduate and this maze was still difficult. The object of the maze is not to simply get from Point A to Point B but instead to find four goals where one receives a stamp. Each stamp contains a word and will create a sentence. The sentence unveils the theme of the maze. There are also some clues along the way but I ended up asking eight year-​olds if I was heading in the right direction. Pretty lame, huh? It took us about 40 minutes and we were the last ones to leave the Garden Maze.
Two money saving tips
–If you’re visiting Luray Caverns, be sure to pick up the Combo Ticket at the Caverns and you’ll save a couple bucks
–Online you can find a coupon for a free poster. It’s a cheesy poster but I worked hard for it!