dukes creek gold & ruby mines

Though it's a kids' activity, we were excited to do it. Got a small bucket of gems and got dirty finding them. Great stones, the apache tear was the most interesting probably. Don't expect to find a nice restroom though, fyi

This was a recommendation by the hotel staff and the kids loved it. We got a $20 bucket filled with little treasures throughout. Our girls still take out their colorful rocks and crystals and admire them and the fun they had "panning" for them.

Got some neat gemstones and got to cool off for a bit. Just outside Helen so not too crowded, Beautiful artwork in the shop, lovely staff!

I am glad we did this. My kids had fun, but it was short fun. When you arrive, you choose which bucket to use. They are prefilled w sand and stones, gems, fossils, or whatever you choose. You then are sent to a water table with a shovel, a bag, and your bucket. The owner is very nice but too busy to help figure out how to actually so the excavation properly. You can look around and figure that out though by watching others. My kids both chose the $11 bucket and had fun discovering the stones they found. That being said, it only took thirty minutes. If you want it to take a little longer, you need to but a bigger bucket ($20). Also if you are afraid or allergic to cats, be warned. There are about four of them wandering around and jumping up on counters.I would say it is worth going once! Both my kids loved it.

We stopped buy and bought the gem bucket. Left with both hands full of large gems from just one bucket.

The girls loved it as they love to gem mine. There wasn't anything spectacular about it but it was a whole lot better than Gold 'N Gem Grubbin'. You get a larger bucket for the same price as GnGG and the gems are in sand so you know what's a gem (unlike GnGG, which has the gems in a smaller bucket of rocks and pebbles). This is definitely the better of the two.

Not so great. They were out of gold buckets. You don't really learn to pan. Your just given the bucket and pan. You can screen for gems as well.

fun and addictive, Del is very helpful and funny, we panned for gold and gems and were not disappointed

What kid does not want to find gold, gems, and/or fossils.....especially when they magically appear when the small shovel full of sand is sifted through water? The buckets range in price from $10 on up, depending on the sort of objects you are looking for and the size of the bucket. Although adults tend to impatiently get through buckets quickly, kids can go slowly and enjoy their treasures, small scoop after small scoop. Our daughter is 10 and had a great half hour----as did the nearby girl. It was well worth the 2 bucket price.

Probably seeded but fun for kids....good chance of finding gold flects and they may be worth something... just fun activity

5 minutes with a sand and rock filled bucket can be entertaining but if you want to see a real mine and experience what mining may actually be like this is not it. Pick your bucket and wash off the sand. That's it...

Great fun if your kids are into rocks and minerals. A much better value than similar places in Dahlonega, and the owners are very friendly, helpful and honest. Each of our kids chose their own $10 bucket and ended up with roughly the same number and types of rocks & gems, which was great because they weren't fighting about who got more/better ones. The flumes for panning/sorting are covered, perfect if it's raining or super hot & sunny.

We stopped by on a Sunday afternoon. The prices seemed pretty good, and the teenagers had fun sifting for stones. We had done the same thing during a vacation to North Carolina. The stones they were finding here were MUCH larger than the stones they found in NC. And there was a variety in each bucket. The kids did the mixed gem bucket and both had a large haul to take home. I chose the sapphire and ruby bucket and found a mix of gems. Duke was there and was friendly, but not overly. He was willing to answer questions, and came around once to see what the kids were getting, but he didn't hover. The cats were friendly as well. The kids wanted to go back and try their hand at the gold panning, but we didn't get a chance. I would recommend this as something to do to fill in an afternoon or morning.

The kids really enjoyed it - and everyone got some cool gems in their buckets. Del was very knowledgable and told the kids about each of their findings.Didn't last very long but well worth the visit.

We went here at the recommendation of the motel owner and the man gave us a discount and showed us how to pan for gold. Then he also spent some time checking out some gems we had that we didn't know what they were. He helped us figure them out and label them too. Nice way to spend a couple of hours