My girls have been fascinated with sparky jewels lately, so I decided it was time to let them do a little gemstone panning! We visited Blue Diamond Gemstone Panning in Cary and found quite a haul of rocks and crystals to take home!

Panning Station

If I must be honest, one of the BEST things about panning for gemstones was that it was a great way to beat the heat! I know that sounds crazy, but we were there on a hot, humid day in July. However, under the tent with the fan blowing on us and the flowing water trough… it was a nice cool way to spend our afternoon!

Now if you ask my kids what their favorite part of gemstone panning was, you will get a vastly different answer! My 5 and 4 year old loved finding sparkly jewels, while my 2 year old boy just loved splashing in the water! We actually made him our waste management station. He threw all of our discarded rocks down the water trough and listened to them clang all the way down! It was a great way to keep him occupied whole we worked with the older kids.

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I enjoyed that the owner came out and spoke with us frequently. She told us about the rocks we were finding, and even pointed out some rocks we didn’t initially see. She helped us find lots of great stones that we would have discarded otherwise. Plus, her wealth of knowledge was very educational!

Gift Shop

After we had our fill of panning, we went inside to browse through the gift shop. There is a local artist that turns some of the found stones into beautiful jewelry that is available for purchase.

The highlight for the kids was picking out a geode and crushing it in this handy machine! One of our geodes was really hard and exploded with a loud boom when it was crushed! The explosion was all perfectly safe inside the box, and the kids loved seeing the sparkly crystals inside once it was opened.

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Cave

The cave was a feature that I think my kids would have loved, but unfortunately they have it closed during the pandemic. When open, the kids can run inside and dig for stones, then bring them back to the water trough and pan their haul. The owner said this usually keeps kids occupied for quite a while, and I totally believe it!

Playground

Another feature closed during the pandemic was this small playground with lots of homemade structures to explore. Between this, the cave, and panning stones, your kids will love visiting Blue Diamond!

Birthday Parties

Blue diamond gemstone panning offers affordable birthday party packages for your rock lovers. They are booking private parties during the pandemic, so checkout their options on their website!

COVID-19 Policies and Pricing

Pricing is a little bit different during the pandemic. Since capacity is limited, you must reserve your spot online in advance. Cost is $5 per person attending, but that cost goes directly towards a gem bag and is not an extra cost. For example, we had 5 people going so we paid $25 up front to reserve our spot. Gem bags are $18 a piece and fossil bags are $10. We bought one of each, and since we already spent $25 we only paid an extra $3 to cover the difference.

We spent over an hour panning through all of our rocks, exploring the gift shop, and breaking geodes, so not a terrible deal for a family of 5. My kids are already asking when they can go back!

For more tot spots near Cary check out our map!