Postojna Cave tickets: which trips include them and which do not

Search Postojna Cave tickets and you get two quite different products mixed together. One is entry to the cave itself. The other is a day trip out of Ljubljana that drives you there, and may or may not have bought that entry on your behalf. Both are sold, both are legitimate, and the price difference between two trips that look identical is very often nothing more than this one line in the inclusions.

There is a second complication, and it is the reason Postojna Cave & Predjama Castle is searched as one phrase. These are two separate sites with two separate entrances, several kilometres apart, and almost every day trip from Ljubljana visits both. So there are two tickets in play, not one. A listing that includes the cave does not automatically include the castle. The ones that include both say so explicitly: $131 lists entrance to Postojna Cave and entrance to Predjama Castle as separate lines, plus an audio guide at the castle. $160 goes further and describes what each ticket covers — the Postojna entry including the train ride and the guided cave tour, the Predjama entry with its audio guide.

Then there is the middle arrangement, which surprises people. Three operators do not include the tickets but sell them to you at a discount through their own agency: $74 and $113 both state ten per cent off the cave and castle tickets, and $137 states thirteen. You still pay for entry, but not at the counter price, and the operator handles it. That is a real saving and it is also a real extra payment, which is exactly the thing a fare comparison hides if you only look at the headline number.

Hungarian visitors searching Postojna cave jegyek land in the same three buckets, because the split is in the listings rather than in the language: the fare either includes entry, discounts it, or does not mention it. Whatever you type, the line to read is the inclusions list, and the line to look for is the word entrance.

Below, every trip on the site sorted into the three arrangements, with the inclusions as the listings state them. The table that follows adds the fares, the lengths and the ratings.

Entry included: four trips. $131 is our top pick and the cleanest version of this: six hours, transport, an English-speaking driver-guide, entrance to Postojna Cave, entrance to Predjama Castle, an audio guide at the castle, skip-the-line service and pickup and drop-off at designated points inside Ljubljana, rated 4.8 across 2,655 reviews. $122 is the lowest fare with entry in it: five and a half hours in a small group, with comfortable transport, an English-speaking guide, tour organisation and the entrance fee for both the cave and the castle; 166 reviews at 4.8. $160 is the ten-hour day that adds Piran and states both tickets in full, including what the Postojna one covers; 43 reviews at 4.7. And $194, the highest fare on the site at eleven and a half hours, includes entry to Postojna Cave, Predjama Castle and Bled Castle, with a Bled cream cake and a driver-guide; 852 reviews at 4.8.

Agency discount: three trips. $74 is five and a half hours with professional licensed driver-guides, skip-the-line, air-conditioned transport for up to eight people, and ten per cent off the cave and castle tickets through the operator’s agency; 413 reviews at 4.9 and the best-rated of the short trips. $113 runs ten hours to the cave, the castle and Piran, with the same ten per cent discount and a scenic stop at the Piran city walls; 392 reviews at 4.9. $137 is the eleven-hour Lake Bled day with a licensed English-speaking guide, a guided tour of Bled, transfers to the lake viewpoints, cream cake and coffee for guests visiting Bled Castle, and thirteen per cent off the Postojna and Predjama tickets; 135 reviews at 5.0, the highest rating on the site.

Transport and guide only: six trips. These cover getting you there and telling you what you are looking at, and the entry is yours to buy. $57 is the lowest fare on the site: six hours, a minivan of eight, a driver and a central pickup point, 37 reviews at 4.9. $78 is five hours with a professional English-speaking guide, an air-conditioned minivan capped at eight and central Ljubljana pickup, 32 reviews at 4.9. $83 is six hours with a driver-guide, a multilingual audio guide and WiFi on board, 202 reviews at 4.7. On the long days, $132 gives you ten hours with a professional English-speaking guide and an air-conditioned minivan, $166 eleven and a half hours with hotel pickup and a driver-guide, and $103 eleven hours with an English-speaking driver and a central meeting point.

If you want everything settled in one payment, book $131. Our top pick, and the reason is not subtle: entrance to the cave, entrance to Predjama Castle, an audio guide at the castle, skip-the-line service, an English-speaking driver-guide and pickup inside Ljubljana, in six hours, with 2,655 reviews at 4.8 behind it. Arrive, ride, walk, drive to the castle, come home.

If you want entry included for less, book $122. Five and a half hours in a small group, with the entrance fee for Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle stated in the inclusions alongside transport, an English-speaking guide and the tour organisation; 166 reviews at 4.8. It is the lowest fare here that still covers both entries.

If you are comparing on the headline number, book $74 rather than a bare transfer. Five and a half hours, a licensed driver-guide, skip-the-line, air-conditioned transport for up to eight and ten per cent off both tickets through the agency, rated 4.9 across 413 reviews. You pay for entry separately, but at a discount and with the queue handled.

If the fare is the whole decision, book $57 or $78. Six hours and five hours respectively, minivans capped at eight, both rated 4.9. Neither lists the entry tickets, so add them to your own budget and compare the total rather than the fare.

If the day is going to Lake Bled or the coast anyway, book $194 or $160. Both state the entry tickets in the fare on a long day — eleven and a half hours with Bled Castle and the cream cake on the first, ten hours with a walking tour of Piran on the second.