Cave Tubing with Yhony

[dsd787]

I thought I'd write a few things about our cave tubing experience.

First, We sailed the NCL Sea on the 6/25-7/2 cruise. There were 6 of us tubing in Belize The morning of our Belize excursion we heard all cavetubing had been cancelled due to heavy rains the previous days. The ship cavetubing was cancelled, so when we went to shore on the tenders we didn't know what our plans were. We left the gated area, and found Yhony right outside with our name on a sign. another guide Junior was also with Yhony that day. He had a call into the park where you tube to see if they were going to open. Our back up plan would for them to be a guide for the day for our group at a reduced rate. After a 30 minute wait we were cleared to go tubing! It's about a 45 minute drive on asphalt, and another 20 minutes on a very rocky gravel road.

We arrived, and were the only people in the park!

The water was swift where you cross the river to begin your walk upstream.

Yhony, and Junior helped all of us cross. The walk through the rainforest is incredible. Mahogony trees 200 feet tall. The tubing part took 25 minutes to complete. It normally takes over an hour. That's how fast the river was moving. It was extreme tubing! We ate lunch at the park. $5 for a great meal of chicken, slaw, plantain, rice, bread, and a muffin. There was real fruit juice served as well. A highlight meal of the trip we thought.

Yhony and Junior dropped some of us at the Casino in town, and the rest at the dock.

We really had a good time, and a safe tubing experience. Because Yhony knows the river, and all the right people we were able to tube that day completely alone.

[sewfunmom]

Do you feel conditions were safe for a 13 year old and 10 year old to tube? We will be in Belize next week and would love to go tubing but have heard the water conditions can be tricky this time of year.

[BunnyFooFoo]

Do you feel conditions were safe for a 13 year old and 10 year old to tube? We will be in Belize next week and would love to go tubing but have heard the water conditions can be tricky this time of year.

 

We just got back from sailing on the Miracle. The river is swift and high right now. My son is 11 and he loved it. Everyone wore life jackets, we linked tubes in two lines each person's feet hooked into the tube in front and during the swift parts, we made double lines and hooked arms with the people on the side. There was only one section that we got out of the water and crossed on foot because of debris in the river making that one section to dangerous to manouver through. There are "river rats" (guides) posted all along the river to help keep you from crashing into rocks. We booked through X-treme and had 14 people in our group. We got to go up to cave #4 and tube through. The cruise ships only go up to cave #3 and look like cattle lots coming through. At cave #4 you can walk into the water or you may jump off the cliff. We opted for the cliff. Charlie Chan was our guide and he was very conscience of your safety, knowledgable of the trees in the rain forest, and history of Belize. He will stop along the trail and make sure everyone is comfortable with the pace.

 

The only recommendations I have are wear comfortable shoes, no flip flops. There were parts of the trail that were underwater and other places were very slippery with mud. Wear water proof mosquito repellant, the mosquitos were the size of volkswagons. I recommend Backwoods Cutter, it is water resistant and lasts for 8 hours, and has 23% deet. Sunscreen is not necessary the trail is shaded, the caves are dark and you are exposed to sunlight only about 10 -15 minutes of the tubing.

 

The meal we ate afterwards was a bar-b-que chicken with rice pilaf, some sort of slaw, home made bread and a bananna or chocolate muffin and fruit punch. This was by far the best meal we had on the entire cruise.

 

We did Stingray city in Grand Cayman, Mayan ruins in Costa Maya and Chankanaab in Cozumel. This excursion was without a doubt the best we had this vacation. We will be checking into going back to Belize just to book the longer cave tubing excursion. They have one that is 7 hours. I just don't have the words to described what a wonderful experience this was.