Wet N Wild Cave Tubing How Difficult is the Walk?

[bcdb11]

Can anyone shed some light on this? Is it reasonably flat? Strenuous? Thanks.:confused:

[DonnaLill]

Reasonably flat. There are a couple of places where you walk up a small set of stairs. It can be a little muddy, depending on weather. It is not a hike.

[cruisinhs]

Definately not a hike! I can't see anyone who walks unassisted having trouble with the walk through the rainforrest. The sets of steps have about 3-4 steps at the most and because that it is a rainforrest it is somewhat damp, but like walking on moist clay. Hope this helps you!

[bcdb11]

Reasonably flat. There are a couple of places where you walk up a small set of stairs. It can be a little muddy, depending on weather. It is not a hike.

 

What about the tubing itself? I assume its not too physical. Am I correct?

[DonnaLill]

There are some times you need to paddle yourself along with your arms, but not a workout or too hard. There were small rapids, really small, and they had a guide there to push you through if needed. Most of the time you ar just floating and looking at the scenery. You are in the water about an hour. It goes really quickly. Lugging your luggage around is more of a workout than this excursion. Have fun!

[cruisinhs]

Not to mention, the guides usually form a train where everyone hooks their legs under the tube of the person in front of them and the guide will do the majority of the work so you can enjoy the view!

[harry0]

We will be doing this tour in Feb. My wife is concerned about the water temp. in Feb. I told her we will be in the tropics and it is probably the same year round-anyone have any input on this-Harry

[M&M cruiseaholics]

We were just there on Jan 12th. Water Temp. 73. It was great. No problem. The Caves had just reopened that Morning from being closed for 4 days because of heavy rain. The Water Table was really high. We experienced more of a white water tubing adventure than a relaxing wade through the Caves. As a matter of fact, all the Ship Excursions to the Cave were cancelled due to the height of the water.

We went with XTreme. No locking tubes together. It was like every man for himself. A bit scarry at times given how fast the water was moving. Because of the speed of the Water, there was very little time to look at the wonders inside the Cave. The tubes moved pretty fast and you had to concentrate on keeping your tubes off rocks and brush that are normally not covered in water. I had a blast and would do it again in a minute. My Husband would probably prefer an interlocking tube expereince next time, if I could get him to go back at all..

[csk47]

We just returned from our Enchantment of the Seas cruise and the cave tubing adventure. We easily found Marvin's little building after arriving from the tender. We went with Marvin/Eco Tours..$60 as compared to the ship tour's price of $96 and our tour gave us more floating time than the ship's. Please note that the final price, over the 20% deposit, will have 5% added if you use a charge card instead of cash.

We had a very fun experience. As we were traveling to the launch site Charlie and Junior, our guides, told us the water temp would be 74. To us that seemed awfully cold but once we got into the water we adjusted easily and it was not a problem. For us, the only parts of our body hitting the water were our arms and butts.

However, we did find ourselves paddling a lot to keep up (DW and I are 57 and are in reasonably decent shape). While Junior was there to help us along we felt that the pace was a little too fast and we were a bit uneasy trying to keep up. Now that being said, the float was the highlight of our cruise. Floating through the caves was awesome..could see stalactites and even some bats. They give you miner's lamps that strap to your head. The walk from the van took about forty minutes. I would suggest that you take an old pair of tennis shoes rather than flimsy water shoes because you are walking parts of the time on flat river stones. The inclines are not steep at all and we did not get out of breath at all. Charlie's walking pace was slow enough for all to keep up. His commentary on various trees, plants, and the ecosystem was very informative and helped make the walk and drive pleasant. Charlie has a degree in Natural Resources. When you finally arrive at the river you have a choice on how to enter the water...jump into about 12' of water from about a ten foot cliff or ease yourself into the tube from the bank. We chose the later and had no problems getting in. The younger members of our group did the dive-in thing and really enjoyed it. You actually spend 80% of your float in the caves and our float lasted about one and a half hours. As a previous poster stated, the rapids are not really fast at all..nothing to fear there. Sometimes you get going a little fast and might head towards a rock, but you can just bounce off using your feet..really no problem at all.

After the float you have a five minute walk back to the parking lot. The restrooms are clean and well maintained and there even is a little bar and souvenir shop.

You will be on a two lane "highway" for about forty minutes. The clean twenty passenger van you ride in is just like a airport shuttle bus. The shock absorbtion system is basic at best. The final twenty minutes are on a washboard dirt and gravel road that will really bounce you...the driver can go only 20mph. No huge potholes but just very bumpy. Be prepared to see a very poor country...rickedy, ramshackle shacks, many with bars on the windows. Only 18% of the people own cars. I think that tourism might be the only thing keeping the country afloat (pardon the pun).

After our tour we stopped at a very nice restaurant along the highway and had a delicious chicken dinner before heading back to the city.

My wife and I both agreed that we would go again if we belize was a stop on a future cruise. It definitely was fun, despite the bumpy roads.

[mnsawyer]

Great review with some excellent tips! Thank you. Glad you had a nice time. What time did you meet Marvin at the pier? Did you have to wait for others? What time did you get back?

[csk47]

The tour was to start at 9:00am but some of the ships were late in arriving so we actually left around 9:15. Not bad. I think we were back at the docks by 3:30pm. I know that Marvin is very careful to have everyone back so as not to miss the boat. I wouldn't worry about that. We had almost an hour and a half till the last tender left. The only potential problem you could have would be if the van broke down and then getting a replacement one out to you. If you take a ship sponsored tour the ship will wait for you if a breakdown happens but not on a privately booked tour. Marvin's van was in very good shape but the unexpected can happen.