Carnival Cave Tubing Tour

[maggieworkman]

Has anyone been on Carnival's cave tubing tour recently? Is it a large group? Or do they have smaller groups where they link you together??

 

I'm trying to decide between the safety of having the ship wait for us if we are late from the excursion (Carnival tour) vs. the safety in the caves of having smaller, personalized excursion with one of the private tour companies.

 

I know about the price difference between booking with Carnival and booking independently.

 

Thanks,

Maggie

[floridacruzin]

In my opinion I would book private. We booked private and really enjoyed the fact that we had guides with us at all times to point out facts and ensurefour safety. When the people who went with the carnival tour went through it was a free for all.

[thesawch]

Book Major tom's tubing.He will look after you!! Great people and great price

[LynneL]

Although it wasn't very recently I went, when we went we booked privately.

 

Our experience: we had just our group of 9 people in a van & all stayed together going thru the cave. In fact a few non-swimmers in our group were apprehensive, even though we all wore lifevests, and I was getting concerned about out kids drifting a little away from me as we entered the cave. Our guide had us each loop our feet under the tube in front of us once we got into the cave. He got out of his tube, walked thru the water as far as he could until he was up to neck deep water, and held onto the first tube in our little train of tubes we had now formed. After that he made sure he held the first person's tube while he was in his so that those non-swimmers & all the kids in the group didn't drift off.

 

The cruiseline group: pulled into parking lot same time as us. Two big coach-style buses filled with people. We were on our way before they got those buses totally unloaded, people roaming to see where they'd get their tubes, who needed a bathroom stop (facilities are minimal). I can't imagine with that many people anyone leading them even knew if they had all people accounted for as they went thru the tour. I could be wrong on that assumption...I just know I wouldn't have felt as secure as I did with our own small group.

[Cruisin'Trooper]

We did both - Carnival and private.

 

Carnival's was a rip off and we felt jipped.

 

Cave-Tubbing.com was awesome, well worth every dime, and was longer than Carnivals.

[LynneL]

Cave-Tubbing.com was awesome' date=' well worth every dime, and was longer than Carnivals.[/quote']

 

I believe that is the company we used too.

[maggieworkman]

Can anyone give recent accounts of how many people per guide on the Carnival excursion? And do you hook up in the caves? And do they help pull you through or do you have to paddle?

 

Thanks,

Maggie

[mboatman]

My wife and myself will be doing this through carnival on our May 9th sailing, I will be giving an update when we return the following tuesday. Theres another post on here that I said I'll post it in, I'll try to get this one too.

[clarkrock7]

I've done this excursion three times, twice with cave-tubing.com and once directly through jaguar paw resort.

 

Unlike some of these folks, being an adventurous guy in late 20's I didn't want to do the link up and float together thing. On all three trips, the guides let me and my buddies go off doin our own thing, which was great. Some of the other folks in our group (less than 15 people total every time, with at least 2 guides) were a little bit older or kids or bad swimmers and the guides stayed with them and made sure everybody was safe and sound.

 

Basically, private=personalized experience, catered to what you want/expect from the guide.

 

The giant groups from the ships were in tube trains maybe 20 or more people long getting tugged through the caves.

 

As somebody else mentioned, cave-tubing.com's tour was longer and I would highly recommend them. Will be using them again in Sept.

[h8rade]

My wife and myself will be doing this through carnival on our May 9th sailing, I will be giving an update when we return the following tuesday. Theres another post on here that I said I'll post it in, I'll try to get this one too.

 

I'll be on the Legend too. I was wondering the same thing about the cave tubing.

[mboatman]

Just read the review by hamlettm, very informative, I'm glad i booked through Carnival.

[hamlettm]

Read my review here - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1173073 also included lots of pictures.

[navybaby1113]

We were thinking about going with Carnival on April 17th, but I'm now second guessing it. I was really looking forward to this excursion, but don't want to pay tons of money for something that's not very enjoyable.

[northernpike]

Just back from a Carnival cruise, but booked the excursion with Cynthia and Nacho. They were great. I was hesitent to book outside of Carnival, but after researching on this site, I did independent excusions in all 4 of our ports. All went fine with no stress of making it back to the ship. Cynthia and Nacho were our private guides for the day and our group of 6 did the cave tubing by ourselves. We linked together in two rows of 3(which was perfect for 3 adults and 3 kids). We passed huge groups on the trail and in the caves. They looked at us like we were VIP's or something.

While you are there, I would encourage doing the ziplining as well. It was at the same location and very convienent. Nacho had both arranged for us (plus lunch), and everything went perfect.

[leslieart]

When we went on Legend, Carnival wasn't offering cave tubing because of an accident that had happened on their excursion. We booked with Major Tom and had a fantastic time.

[DMaugle]

Northernpike- Who do Cynthia & Nacho work for? Thanks, DaveM

[nuttypretzel]

We did the Carnival tour in March. They had three bus loads of people. Each bus was separated as a group. When we arrived at the site, they transfer you to a school bus to get to the restrooms and locker site. Here they break the groups up into groups of 12 and each gets their own guide. You then get your gear and start your hike to the upper cave entrance. They have you link up all twelve tubes with the guide. The tour went through both caves, so the comments about it being a shorter tour is not correct. All of the independent tours were getting into the water in the open section between the two caves, so they only got to go through the lower cave. The tubes used by the Carnival operator were large water park type tubes with handels. The dotcom folks were riding in truck tire tubes. The guide stayed withus the entire time and he either towed us in the slow areas or held us back in the "fast" areas. The whole thing was slower than the lazy river at Disney's water parks.

I found the operation to be very professional and organized.

That said, with the water so low, it was just too long of a time on the tubes. The caves have minimal formations, so you spend alot of time staring at the rock ceiling. I agree with the statement that it is a once in a lifetime experience. My family won't be doing it again, and neither will many of the other people we talked to after the tour.

[tess51]

We went cave tubing several weeks ago with a private tour, Reggie's Tours. 4 people in our group. Very personal experience with a knowledgeable guide and a driver. No issues with getting back to the ship on time.