River Tubing at Seven Color Lagoon

[LPCKG]

We sail last June last this year and this excursion has recently appeared but very little detail/pictures - does any have any direct knowledge or been on this trip?

We're sailing onboard Equinox.  Thanks

[MacyDoll]

I was hoping to find out this same information. Have you found anything?

[casone]

I am also waiting to hear about this excursion!

[cruise13girl]

Me too.  If anyone has done this please post.  Cruise is in March

 

[betsybug]

This is a link to 2018 Cruise Critic post on Cruise on the 7 Lagoon tubing on the Enchantment (Celebrity).

7 Color Lagoon

 

It didn't sound like classic tubing to me--like in Texas, Jamaica, or Belize. Based on two posts on Trip Advisor, I think this is a float in a calm lake on a pontoon boat, with minimal rapids at one point where a canal enters the lake. The rest of the actitivity is 3 swimming stops. One post said some people found it difficult to get back into the pontoon. Kayaks were mentioned much more than any other water travel.

 

Never the less, the online descriptions and high praise of this beautiful, warm, sandy-bottomed lake is enough for me to sign up for the excursion. We probably will book a Chacchoben Extreme Ruins + 7 Color Lagoon from Native Choice to get less people and cost.

 

 

 

[Cjgrier]

PLEASE READ!!!!!! I would hate to have anymore vacationers ruin their time in Costa Maya with this excursion. My family and I took the River Tubing at Seven Color Lagoon excursion a week or so ago on the Allure of The Seas (great ship by the way). Now, I booked the excursion online because the description said it was a 5 hour excursion, and essentially made it sound like you spend a couple hours tubing down a nice river into the lagoon and have a beach day for a few hours there. THIS COULD NOT BE ANY LESS ACCURATE!!!! I do admit, the tour guides were very informed and friendly and the lagoon and river are both absolutely beautiful, but that is almost made irrelevant. For starters, the ride to the location where you first enter the water IS AN HOUR AND A HALF bus ride, and nowhere online was this mentioned. When you finally do get to the area by the river, there is time to use the bathroom, put sunscreen on, etc. and I feel it is necessary to note that neither the ladies or men's rooms ("rooms" were pretty much wooden stalls) had toilet seats. There were people who ended up going in the woods instead, so heads up for that one! Before you actually begin any tubing, everyone gets in their own tube and is attached to a rope in a line and is pulled slowly by a tiny fishing boat through the water to the opening of the river. When you finally get there, you are detached from the rope and are actually allowed to float down the river, but its not as simple as it sounds. Now you may think of a relaxing float down the river, but it really isn't that. Before you enter the water you are given a paddle to keep yourself in the center of the river, so you can never really just sit back and relax in the tube because you are almost constantly paddling to keep yourself away from the edges of the river. You eventually make it down the river into the lagoon where you are re-attached to the rope and pulled by the fishing boat again to an area on the lagoon where you can take some photos, and possibly swim for a LITTLE while because you do not have very much time there, it is NOT a beach. It is essentially a hut in the woods, on the water, ran on a generator. They make you an authentic meal, which I thought was very good, but it did give my mother food poisoning later on. After this, you have another hour and a half bus ride BACK to the port. So to sum up the "5 hour" excursion: 3 hours of it are spent on a bus ride, and it is not some tour or vista filled ride, it is pretty much a straight shot, roughly 45 minutes are spent being pulled by a fishing boat that was never mentioned in the description, about a half hour is spent actually tubing down the river (with a paddle in hand), and the rest of the time is spent in the area on the lagoon with the hut and the meal. You are also in a life jacket for the entire time you're on the water. I do not recommend this excursion, do yourself a favor and find one of the many other things to do in Costa Maya.

[Ranger28]

On 3/13/2019 at 3:21 PM, Cjgrier said:

PLEASE READ!!!!!! I would hate to have anymore vacationers ruin their time in Costa Maya with this excursion. My family and I took the River Tubing at Seven Color Lagoon excursion a week or so ago on the Allure of The Seas (great ship by the way). Now, I booked the excursion online because the description said it was a 5 hour excursion, and essentially made it sound like you spend a couple hours tubing down a nice river into the lagoon and have a beach day for a few hours there. THIS COULD NOT BE ANY LESS ACCURATE!!!! I do admit, the tour guides were very informed and friendly and the lagoon and river are both absolutely beautiful, but that is almost made irrelevant. For starters, the ride to the location where you first enter the water IS AN HOUR AND A HALF bus ride, and nowhere online was this mentioned. When you finally do get to the area by the river, there is time to use the bathroom, put sunscreen on, etc. and I feel it is necessary to note that neither the ladies or men's rooms ("rooms" were pretty much wooden stalls) had toilet seats. There were people who ended up going in the woods instead, so heads up for that one! Before you actually begin any tubing, everyone gets in their own tube and is attached to a rope in a line and is pulled slowly by a tiny fishing boat through the water to the opening of the river. When you finally get there, you are detached from the rope and are actually allowed to float down the river, but its not as simple as it sounds. Now you may think of a relaxing float down the river, but it really isn't that. Before you enter the water you are given a paddle to keep yourself in the center of the river, so you can never really just sit back and relax in the tube because you are almost constantly paddling to keep yourself away from the edges of the river. You eventually make it down the river into the lagoon where you are re-attached to the rope and pulled by the fishing boat again to an area on the lagoon where you can take some photos, and possibly swim for a LITTLE while because you do not have very much time there, it is NOT a beach. It is essentially a hut in the woods, on the water, ran on a generator. They make you an authentic meal, which I thought was very good, but it did give my mother food poisoning later on. After this, you have another hour and a half bus ride BACK to the port. So to sum up the "5 hour" excursion: 3 hours of it are spent on a bus ride, and it is not some tour or vista filled ride, it is pretty much a straight shot, roughly 45 minutes are spent being pulled by a fishing boat that was never mentioned in the description, about a half hour is spent actually tubing down the river (with a paddle in hand), and the rest of the time is spent in the area on the lagoon with the hut and the meal. You are also in a life jacket for the entire time you're on the water. I do not recommend this excursion, do yourself a favor and find one of the many other things to do in Costa Maya.

ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON!!  I wish I had read your review before we booked this excursion through Norwegian. We just did this today and we were SHOCKED when the tour guide told us we would be traveling in the van for 11/2 hours each way. We spent our entire time in Costa Maya waiting in a line, traveling on the bus, and floating down the river for about an hour. The river part was great. I could tell they were doing their best at the “restaurant” but it was very low quality and they charged us $20 for 3 glasses of approx 8oz of margarita. We were given 1 bottle of water and a glass of lemonade at lunch but that was it. You are gone six hours. Everyone was really hungry by the time we had “lunch”around 4:15. The other van on our excursion had three people who had their money stolen and credit cards rifled through. I would never do this excursion again.

[lifes-a-beach]

Thank you both for the heads up and the detail.  Lots of us will benefit from this.  

[c-leg5]

I realize this is a revived thread from 4 years ago and I cannot attest to the description from NCL but our upcoming Allure sailing clearly states transport time so perhaps description on Royal site has been amended.

 

However I am always surprised when people take excursions without looking on a map as to where they are going not least from a safety and planning standpoint. Total excursion time is always stated and it usually states if food and drink is included or available for purchase. If not, and it is important to you, I would have thought you could confirm with excursion desk on board?

 

We usually book independently so perhaps that is why I am more in inclined to do my own research but we have booked cruise line excursions on occasions and I always look up where they are going. I have often considered a trip to Bacalar but distance and travel have always been the main reason that we haven’t done it.

[EllieinNJ]

I saw the video of this tour on you tube by a very popular blogger, Para DJ, who went.  He said he really enjoyed it but at MSC's price of $129pp I think I'll look for something else.