It really breaks my heart to give Bochnia less than 5 starts. I give one star for the chappel and the other star for the train ride. If I was on tripAdvisor in 2010 I would recommend Bochnia without hesitation. We had an amazing tour guide at that time (in Polish) and the whole experience was so much fun with lots of history.
I was so excited to take my boyfriend to Bochnia this summer. Unfortunately, from the very beginning it was apparent that this is not the same place from 5 years ago.
1: "The Ferry" No more underground ferry crossing? On the website it's still being advertised but while buying a ticket for the tour (in English) no one has mentioned anything about buying a separate ticket for the ferry. I bought a regular ticket and did not even see the water. They were not allowing an overnight stay at the time so this should still be included.
2: "The underground slide" I remember taking that as part of the tour in 2010 and it was so much fur for the adults and kids but now...sure you can go on the slide but in your own free time! (between the bathroom break and your possible meal). You can walk back up the 320 steps to take the slide (among all the young kids) just to walk up those 320 steps again when exiting the Mine. Ahm, yeah, that's not fun, I think I'll pass. So instead of the slide we had to take the other "fun" option...walk down those 320 steps.
3. "Underground multimedia exposition" or as I call it "I don't feel like talking to you people, so here is a video...enjoy". The most entertaining part of the multimedia was watching boyfriend fall asleep standing up (I'm not kidding).
4. "The new artwork". I understand that they want to build more and make more but use salt! The whole appeal of seeing the artwork in a salt mine is the fact that they're usually made by the Miners and they are carved out of salt. I can see a nice religious carving in the 1000s of churches around Poland so I was very confused to say the least.
Now, there are still some positives like; the fun train ride, the nice chapel and the history (if it's told right) but I wouldn't go out of my way again just to visit.
