Which tubing company? Help!

[casey26]

We are going to be in Belize the 23rd of December so with much interest I have been reading the posts on tubing. I am now thoroughly confused as to who I should book a tubing excursion with? There have been good comments about Regie, Yhony, Coral Breeze , ***** and seabelize.com. What is a person to do with so many suggestions? Advice anyone on narrowing down these choices? I usually book the excursions on board but think this might be a good time to pick one on my own. Thanks.

[David_Zen]

Hey Casey, I don't think it's really that confusing. I'm sure you will have a good time with whomever you choose. But if you want me to pick one for you, my first choice is cave-tubing.com (Yhony and company). I've gone tubing with them on 2 seperate ocasions and had just as much fun the second time as I did the first. The first time out we had Yhony as our guide. Yhony is a really nice guy and goes the extra mile to give you more than your money's worth. The second time arround we had Timmy as our guide. He's a real comedian. He really makes the tour entertaining from the minute you get in the van to the moment you return to the dock. At the same time it's super educational with all the information he gives you about the rainforest, the caves, and the country. Even if you are not much of a nature lover you'll definitely come back from this tour with a new found appreciation for the rainforest. By the way, with cave-tubing.com you don't have to pay until you return to the dock and they only charge $45 per person.

 

David

[Bunkie103]

We were cave tubing with Coral Breeze last week and thought they were great. Our guide was "speedy" Gonzales and he was a riot. Lunch was wonderful too.

I will tell you it's hard to tube and giggle at the same time!

:D

[airhead22]

I vote for Coral Breeze. Ivar was great on our tour in October.We had a blast!!

[Budget Queen]

And I will pipe in with high recommendations for Reggie, I just met up with him again last week and sent my room mate off with him, I'd gone a couple years ago. Still an excellent tour!!!!

[ImdaMOM]

We just came back from Belize last week and have nothing but raves for the ACTION BELIZE tour for cave tubing. They made it so personal by

meeting us at the pier with a sign and having our own personal van, driver and very knowledgeable tour guide "Vitamin". We were made to wait on the ship in line for over an hour if you don't book a carnival excursion, but

they waited patiently for us. We were worried about having enough time

since we didn't get to the pier til 11am and had to be back by 4pm. We

arrived at the tubing area with all our friends that booked the carnival

excursion for $99pp, and we only paid $45pp for 2 families of 4. Our driver

"Jerome" even brought us back in time for some shopping at the Belizean

museum of arts and crafts for souveniers. It was such a memorable experience that our family will never forget.

[Susky]

I have a personal preference for Coral Breeze, but as you can see, there are lots of opinions. If you can't decide, just pick a couple of them that are getting regular raves, and flip a coin! :D

[Bob7]

We like that NCQ, Cave-Tubing.com, and ***** don't require a deposit, no need to send yer credit card over the net. Coral Breeze and WetNWild want yer card.

[papermandiddy]

We went with "Wet N' Wild" and cannot stop talking about our experience, certainly we had a great time! I think that companies with great business experience know that the customer comes first, therefore a comitment has to be establish by both parties, we felt that our personal information (credit card) was professionally handled we were charged exactly what we were supposed to and on arrival we paid the balance in cash.

Just back from the Legend. used wet and wild Ask for Charlie Chan Tell him you Belize in good times. Very great tour guide. Also great lunch at tour end. not all give lunch.

[BethCarp]

does anyone know if there is a minimum age for any of these. I've searched a couple of sites that were mentioned. I see small children in the pictures, but none as young as 2 (my son's age).

[Budget Queen]

does anyone know if there is a minimum age for any of these. I've searched a couple of sites that were mentioned. I see small children in the pictures, but none as young as 2 (my son's age).

 

 

I would not consider taking kids under 10. They need to be totally independent, able to carry their tube (unless you want to carry two).

[rxcruise]

We're not sure what we want to do...and don't want to lock ourselves in by making reservations ahead of time. Can we just pick up a tubing tour when we arrive at the tourist village?

[Crazy for Cruisin']

What type of transport does major tom (*****) have - is it reliable? The cave-tubing.com vans look pretty good? Is there a difference between these two?

[dosomething]

we booked with ***** and Dennis was our guide, we had lots of fun, he even stopped at different shops in the center of town. The caves were awesome, so every minute was worth it. their price was also $45.

 

Great tour

[brodie]

I used Yhony (cave-tubing.com) last week and we had a blast. Yhony halls tail to get you there so that you can do two caves and still have time for lunch afterwards. Just make sure you sneak onto the first tender to get off the boat. One of the Carnival guys named Jared was a real ass when he found out that we were not on a Carnival excurison.

[pmckibben]

What type of transport does major tom (*****) have - is it reliable? The cave-tubing.com vans look pretty good? Is there a difference between these two?

 

My wife and I went on a cave tubing excursion with *****/Major Tom and his 16-year-old son, Tom Jr., almost 2 weeks ago (Wed, Nov. 2). They are truly wonderful people! One of the people in our party needed a camera battery, and we stopped at 2 different stores until we found the kind she needed (Tom Jr. accompanied her in the store each time). It seems like Tom will stop at nothing to make sure everyone is happy.

 

As for transportation, Major Tom's van had no trouble at all (we passed by another broken-down cave tubing van on the side of the road--it had a web address with "cave tubing" in the name, but I can't remember whether it was cave-tubing.com). Also, Tom carries a cell phone in case anything goes wrong.

 

The river was unusually high and fast when we went because of recent rains, and the Toms handled it very professionally and got us down the river safely. They also stopped in the crystal chamber as another poster mentioned, and Tom described the stalagmite/stalactite formations as the Mayans interpreted them. Incidentally, Tom is of Mayan descent, and he tells a considerable amount of history about Belize, and about how the Mayans lived in the caves for a period of time.

 

The $53 price they quote includes park entrance and lunch, but you pay the park entrance ($5) and lunch ($5) yourself, and then pay Tom $43 at the end of the tour.

 

Regardless of who you choose, I'm sure you'll have a great time (especially considering the feedback for other cave-tubing operations I've seen), but I can truly recommend Major Tom/***** from my own personal experience.

 

Have a good trip!

[KCGreg]

We went with cave-tubing.com (Yhony) because the price was half that of the cruise ship excursion. To our delight we discovered that Yhony gives you twice the tour for half the price, so we were pleased. Yhony and his crew are fun-loving people who really like what they do, and they try very hard to make your experience good because they get all their business from Cruise Critic and they want people like me to give a good recommendation. Overall we had a great time. We stopped at a very nice open-air restaurant and had a great $5 meal, and they got us back to the tender with plenty of time to spare. A very interesting experience in the middle of the Belizian jungle. I don't think I would take young children, however, probably no one under 11 or 12, because you have to hike while carrying a big tube and it's necessary to ford a swift-moving stream.

[augustrain]

I'll echo the reviews of David Zen and KCGreg. We chose cave-tubing.com and were extremely happy with them. Our tour guide was Kingsley. He's been doing tours for about 2 years and was a great guide and a lot of fun. There were 22 of us on our tour and another whole group that went with Yhony. As this has turned into a very popular excursion, there were A LOT of people and you have to try and keep up with your group. Make sure you stay away from the walls so you don't fall in and even if you can swim, where the lifevest. I found that out the hard way. The excursions booked separate from the boat get an extra cave out of the experience. One of the highlights of our most recent cruise! You won't be disappointed!

[stacybbb]

Yhony emailed me to say it's safe for my husband and I and our 3 kids 8, 11 and 14. What's the general consensus? How is the hike.....Yhony says 25 minutes....how far do you think?

[Sweetd]

I was on same trip as PMCkibben's and really enjoyed Tom & Tom Jr. They were very professional & accommodating and were always looking out for our safety. Some of the other groups took chances but we took it very safe and still had a great time. Lunch was very good & tasty. I understand that the other operators are also very good and everyone knows everyone else. Tom is very knowledgeable about the history and area and a good driver. Would highly recommend this trip to all.

Regards,

Cory Lynn

[Tarheelbelle]

My friend and I had a great experience with X-treme on 11/26. There were just 4 of us [all adults] with a guide named Carlos and he was excellent. We hiked 40 min. to and then through a dry cave which was very interesting, then tubed through 2 caves and down the river. He was very knowledgeable and I felt completely safe with him. Lunch after was great too.

[DKS]

We took our 3 kids ages 10, 7 and 3 with us. We booked with Yhoni and t was wonderful. Yhoni carried my husbands tube and my husband carried the 3 yr. old on his shoulders. Yhoni took extra care with the kids...warned us when the river gets a little strong and would et out of his tube and swim in the river to keep every one on track. My post has more details, but all 3 kids LOVED this. Plus its quite the family bonding exercise.