NCQadventures or Jaguar Paw

[Fauna]

It looks like both use the Jaguar Paw resort as the jumping off point. NCQ is $75 Jaguar Paw $45 for the cave tubing.

Any insights as to the two companies would be appreciated, we leave on our cruise dec 27th and this is the last excursion I need to nail down.

[2nice]

I too would like to know.

[ARHeath]

For the combined Zipline/Cave Tubing tour, Jaguar Paw at $70 seems like a great price compared to $125 with NCQ. I just hope we don't get what we pay for. :) Both tours include lunch, and I've heard a lot of good reviews about starting from the Jaguar Paw Resort, but when reading the reviews I haven't been able to tell which tour company was being reviewed - NCQadventures dot com or JaguarPaw dot com.

 

Anyway, I just emailed Jaguar Paw and asked about doing a combined tour (zipline and tubing) and not being rushed through in order to get back to the ship in time. We're going next week.

 

Alison & Renee

[2nice]

I'm leaning towards Jaguar Paw as well. Also hoping this is not a get what you pay for. My theory is that Jaguar Paw might be charging NCQ some $ to have the same starting point because all of the other tour companies seem to have a much further starting point (which equals more walking).

 

ARHealth - let me know how it is!

[BTLBCorb]

Hi,

 

We are on the same cruise and have signed on to go with Jaguar Paw. I read all the reviews here, and went with JP. We are scheduled for 8am cave tubing and zipline. It looks like it should be a great time.

 

Take care,

Tracey

[ARHeath]

Edwin from JP replied to my email and said we'd have plenty of time to get back before the last tender leaves for the ship. I just hope there aren't delays getting off the boat in the morning.

 

I'll report back after the trip!

 

Alison

[debnjoe1438]

Edwin from JP replied to my email and said we'd have plenty of time to get back before the last tender leaves for the ship. I just hope there aren't delays getting off the boat in the morning.

 

I'll report back after the trip!

 

Alison

 

 

Please report back after your cruise. I am thinking of JP in a couple of months.

[ARHeath]

We had a great time using Jaguar Paw. There were 6 of us in the group (Hi Tracey).

 

Our guide was Omar, and he was very polite and informative. One interesting note: Omar is an "independent contractor" hired out by JP. After we arrived from the tender around 9am, Omar was waiting for us as promised outside the port terminal (we had to walk 3 minutes to the Radisson, which I didn't like, but it was uneventful). The ride to Jaguar Paw Resort was a little over an hour in an air-conditioned mini-van (Omar's vehicle). He told us a little about Belize on the way and answered any questions we had.

 

Omar wasn't our guide for the zipline. He brought us there and passed us off to the experienced guides at JP. We felt very safe with them. The ziplining equipment is top-notch and they use 3 lines of safety at all times. My only complaint is that we only got to do 5 runs (I expected more), but this might be something specific to a combined tour to save time - not sure. And be prepared to repel at the end from the last platform. If you have a problem with heights, this is the scariest part of the whole experience.

 

Omar met us at the end of the ziplining and brought us to the cave-tubing part, where we had a place to change if we needed. Whenever we were ziplining or cave-tubing, Omar let us leave all of our things in his locked mini-van and our bags were never touched. The walk to the caves with the tubes was only about 20 minutes (though Omar said it would be over 30 minutes). I guess it depends on how fast you walk, but I didn't find it long at all. Omar said the other tours will walk longer, but they also tube longer (because you are walking up-stream and finish where you started walking from). He was our guide for the tubing. Because we were in a small group, he gave us a choice to link together or float individually. We chose individually. Other groups were linked together, and their guide was pulling them through the caves, so if you don't want to do any work paddling, choose to link up. :)

 

The caves themselves weren't spectacular, but the experience on the whole was great, and very refreshing after the zipline. We had headlamps to see any formations in the caves, and there's a cool sink hole that you pass on the way. I think we were in the tubes about an hour? Not sure, as I didn't have my watch. You only walk about 2 minutes after you're done. Then you can change into dry clothes and you're seated in a restaurant for a large lunch of chicken, rice & beans and coleslaw, with a soda (no diet soda available). We were done with lunch by 1:45pm, back to the port by 3:00pm, and our last tender was at 4:00pm. It was nice because we never felt rushed the whole day.

 

Hope you guys find this info helpful. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Alison

[Seminole876]

Thank you for that review! We are booked with JP for next week. I too do not feel comfortable with the walk to the Radisson but hope it goes okay! Did you bring a digital camera or just a disposable, if any? We are not sure which to bring as we just bought a new digital camera and obviously don't want any chance of getting it wet.

 

I'm glad to hear you still had an hour before the last tender. I've been worried about the timing but hopefully we'll be back with just as much time! Your review has made me feel a little more comfortable with everything so thank you!! :)

[debnjoe1438]

Thanks for the review, am leaning towards JP

[ARHeath]

Did you bring a digital camera or just a disposable, if any?

 

We brought both our digital and a waterproof disposable. We used the digital on the zipline - as long as it has a strap of some sort, it's just fine.

 

For the tubing, we brought the waterproof disposable, but I'd recommend one with a flash (ours didn't have one) as the caves are very dark and the headlamps can interfere with the images.

 

BTW - the port/ship prices for waterproof cameras were pretty reasonable if you forget to buy one. We were surprised - priced between $10 - $15 US (with flash).

[Kailyn]

Thank you for that review! We are booked with JP for next week. I too do not feel comfortable with the walk to the Radisson but hope it goes okay!

 

Seminole, it looks like we are booking with JP too! Are you tubing only? We are going to do the combo with zip line. We may end up on the same tender over and therefore on the same walk to the Radisson :) I'm not worried. I have been in much, much, muuuuch worse situations in Russia, Eastern Europe, and parts of Mexico.

[Brazengrrl]

Here's my review for NCQ

http://www.ncqadventuretours.com/We just got off the valor. We went through NCQ. They were amazing !! *They actually called me in the phone to answer the questions I had emailed to them. *Nacho and Cynthia are beautiful people! They were very patient in waiting for us, we had a few late risers that missed the first tenders out. We had a total of 17 people in our group. We had two vans that catered to us *They kept us entertained on the ride in, and on the ride out we stopped and picked up some cashew wine. Their equipment was a great condition I took notice of the difference in some of the operations out there and although this was my first time cave tubing I saw that the life vests that were used were actual watersport vests not the orange ones tgat just wrap around your neck. The tubes were yellow and some were orange. They seemed bigger then some of the other tubes out there so our buts never dragged the bottom. We had amazing guides. They told us about the island, palm trees, termites and leaf cutter ants. They also did a good job in keeping us away from the sides of the caves. We had people in our group who's ages ranges from 18 to 40 and they interacted well with everyone. We had a delicious lunch with a huge variety of food, too much to finish actually. At the end we couldn't help but to hug Nacho and Cynthia and some even *hugged the guides (who's names I have forgotten but I do have pictures). Please feel free to email ne if you want to see them!!

[STARFISH*4]

thinking of going with either of these companies but i just found out that NCQ tour time doesnt work so now its down to Jaguar Paw between these two.

[kiraryker]

What is wrong with walking to the Radisson?