cave-tubing.com...anyone miss the ship?

[cruzn buckeye]

I have read so many great reviews about Yhony and his cave-tubing!

I booked with him for August and can't wait! I know it's going to be alot of fun!

 

Here's my question for those of you that have taken his cave-tubing tour.

Any of you missed the ship? If so, how did you catch up and how much did it cost?

 

Thanks!

[Bribrittmom]

The independent tour operators make their money on cruise passengers and are very aware of the ships departure time. We just did cave tubing and zip lining with extreme-cave tubing and it was great. The small size of the independent tours make it a much more personal experience. The only thing we didn't enjoy and not the tour operators fault was that the river level was very low and was too shallow to float in some places. Our arms were tired after zip lining and we had to paddle quite a bit as the current was very,very slow. We were on the Enchantment in Belize June 8th.

[cruzn buckeye]

Thanks Bribrittmom...

I understand that they depend on tourists and do a very good job, but the possibility still exists....

Just checking to see if anyone that did their cave-tubing with cave-tubing.com ever missed the ship and how did they get back to it.

[dlhamlten]

Somewhere, sometime ago on these Threads I thought I read that the various Independent cave-tubing Operators are all familiar and friendly with each other. In this age of GPS and cell phones, I wouldn't be surprised that they communicate with each other in any breakdown emergency.

 

I do recall feeling more comfortable about the lessened risk of missing the Ship when I learned that there are private boats available to the Operators. They pay for your transport if you miss the last tender from the cruiseline. Hope that is true. Maybe you can EMail Yhony and ask him.

 

Wouldn't sweating out that method of getting back onboard be an exciting way to end the cave tubing adventure !

 

Anybody ever done that ?

[bishop35]

We went to visit Altun Ha ruins last time we were in Belize, and our Chevy SUV had a leak in the radiator:eek: . All of the antifreeze leaked out. My wife was so worried about getting back to the ship. There was another company there also and they offered to take us back to the ship for no charge. Of course we said YES. It all worked out fine but it did give us a memory about Belize that we will talk about for a long time. I am sure if there was a problem, someone would get you back to the ship on time.

[cruzn buckeye]

Great to hear that they look out for each other! and us! I have to say, though, that I have seen the harbor pilots jumping off the ship onto their boat and onto the cruise ship from their boat...pretty sure I would just fall in and drown!

[Yadkin]

Hi cruzin buckeye,

We did cavetubing the first week of June with cavetubing.com. Yhonny assured us we would get back in time no matter what. He had a back up plan for transportation in case the bus broke down and a back up to his back up. If all else failed he said he had someone that would take us to the next port for him. We had a great time & were not at all concerned about not making it back! :)

.

[silentbob007]

When our van broke down (not with Yhony), the comment by the driver was ... there's always another van. :)

[jenischmeni]

I cave tubed with Yhonny's group last week. We did manage to get off on an early tender and ended up being back to the pier with time for lunch and shopping. (And STILL had time to spare!)

 

Yes, they are all very familiar with each other. You can tell as you hike to the cave. The other guides will let you pass and often have friendly words with Yhonny's guides.

 

Since most all of their business comes from these boards, they're well aware that their reputation would be ruined from a bad post (or two).

 

It would not surprise me in the least if another tour picked up some people that were experiencing mechanical failures. These fellow guides are probably their friends and neighbors (and maybe even relatives).

 

I'm postitive that the last thing they'd want to do is ruin their business by not getting passengers back in time.

[akcruz]

We did the cave tubing with yhonny last week and while our group made it back to the ship with plenty of time to spare, there were two women (not sure if they did a tour or not or just explored) did miss the ship. We left the port at 5 as planned and about 5:30 one of the faster 'tender type' boats was along side waving at the ship. We slowed down and the two women got on board that had missed the ship :eek: . Again, can't say costs, but yes it does happen if you don't pay attention.

 

For any of those doing tours on your own, a suggestion is to make sure you have something in writing from the tour operator stating the time the tour is to leave (in ship time, stating it is ship time). Show this to the staff on the ship and they will make sure you get off in time. I had my confirmation from yhonny and took it to the shore excursion desk the night before. The manager made sure we were on the first tender out, of course he played it low until it was time to leave in the morning, but he did come through. Since we managed to get off early as well as two others from our tour, we also got a tour of the city while we were waiting for the others to show. We came back to the terminal and since they were not there, we left for our tour.

 

As stated before, this is how these guys make their money, they will do everything possible to get you back on time, but you also need to do your part to get off the ship as early as possible to make sure you enjoy your tour and are not overly rushed.

[odiesam]

Just back from cave-tubing with this group. It was the highlight of our trip! Initially we had doubts as my family is basically a group of prima donnas so booking an independent tour is way out of our comfort zone but I had read so many good thing s about Yhonni and his group here on cruisecritic plus their price was so much lower than Carnival's we thought we would give it a try. Like I said it was great and like others have said we got to do an extra cave without the crowds from the cruiseline excursions. Our guide was Richard who had a ton of personality and always made us feel safe. We had kids in our group, one as young as 9 and never at any time did we feel unsafe. We never feared getting back to the ship on time. It was a great time and I would highly recommend them!!!!

[Twistergirrl]

Yhoni is great, it took for ever before we were able to get off the ship, and he had his people waiting for us. We only got to see one cave, but it was still an experience of a life time. I would not go visit Belize without some kind of guide. Abject poverty is the norm, I was nervous in the port area itself. There is an undercurrent of desperation, and the police with the M-16s diddnt do much to make me feel safe. That being said... If you go, make sure its with someone like Yhoni. I never felt unsafe with the guides, and they made sure that we had a good time.