Cave Tubing was not that great

[SMNYCruise]

After cave tubing a few weeks ago, I really don't understand why everyone raves about it. It wasn't terrible...just not that much fun. A group of 8 of us were "hooked together" with feet under arm pits and then pulled into the cave, which was very crowded. It was quite loud inside and really not much to see. The water was shallow and we were stuck periodically. Some groups were actually walking through the cave carrying their tubes. There were very few rapids. My whole group found it boring.

[Jeanne B]

I'm with you, there was a group of us cruising together last March and I booked the cave-tubing for everyone (privately, not through the ship) after reading so many rave reviews about it but all of us that want thought it was just okay. I'd say it's worth doing once but we wouldn't bother doing it a second time.

 

We're spending a week in Belize in April and we're looking forward to doing some other excursions...but cave tubing won't be one of them.:)

[glendon3281]

We did cave tubing thru a private operator and have only great things to say about their service. However, I had seen a lot of reviews that said cave tubing was an 'awesome' experience, so we HAD to try it. It was good and glad we did it it once but didn't feel it was "awesome" and I wouldn't do it a second time.

 

The walk was a little longer than we had anticipated. A few of the senior parents in our cruise group were considering going but didn't and now I KNOW they wouldn't have been able to do the jungle walk.

 

The walk was very scenic and our guides told us interesting facts along the way. We stopped at a 'hive' of termites and our guide said they are good to eat and he ate one. The men in our group had to eat them also......YUCK, I couldn't watch! I HATE "Fear Factor" on TV let alone having to watch it LIVE.

 

Our private tour was MUCH better than the cruise ship's tour. As I had read, they ARE left to fend for themsleves in the river and paddle most of the way since the water was low. Our guides pulled our 'train' of 8x linked together the whole way. It WAS relaxing and I COULD have fell asleep in my tube but NOT because I was bored. A few cruise ship tubers even tried to latch onto us as to also get pulled by OUR guide. We said sorry.

 

BTW...An "awesome" experience for me was swimming with the stingrays with Capt. Marvins in Grand Cayman. We've done it a few times and would do it again.

 

I am NOT trying to talk anyone out of this excursion in any way....just wanted to say I didn't think it was awesome.

[gatorclaw]

For me it's not so much an "awesome" experience as it is a "unique" experience. I mean, you are in the middle of a Belizian jungle floating through dark caves in a river. It's not thrilling, but it's certainly a nice, peaceful afternoon.

 

Go ziplining for "awesome." :D

[GORDONCHICK]

After cave tubing a few weeks ago, I really don't understand why everyone raves about it. It wasn't terrible...just not that much fun. A group of 8 of us were "hooked together" with feet under arm pits and then pulled into the cave, which was very crowded. It was quite loud inside and really not much to see. The water was shallow and we were stuck periodically. Some groups were actually walking through the cave carrying their tubes. There were very few rapids. My whole group found it boring.

 

 

Did you book through the ship or a private company? This can make a world of difference, not in the river itself, but if you are linked together, if it's crowded, etc.

[DarkJedi]

We did this and had an excellent time. I don't know that I would classify it as an "awesome" time, but as an awesome experience. It was what I expected, tubing through caves. I enjoyed being hooked together and having a tour guide direct each small group since that meant we had more time to look around at the natural formations.

If you have never been free tubing (as opposed to behind a boat) then you might not have known what you were in for.

But if you enjoy a nice relaxed trip, being out in nature, and seeing wonderful aspects of nature than this can be classified as "awesome" experience.

If you are looking for something more active or with motors involved, tubing most likely isn't for you.

[SMNYCruise]

We used cave-tubing.com. They were good....much better than the ship excursions.

[babs125]

After cave tubing a few weeks ago, I really don't understand why everyone raves about it. It wasn't terrible...just not that much fun. A group of 8 of us were "hooked together" with feet under arm pits and then pulled into the cave, which was very crowded. It was quite loud inside and really not much to see. The water was shallow and we were stuck periodically. Some groups were actually walking through the cave carrying their tubes. There were very few rapids. My whole group found it boring.

I'm glad to know that my 18 year old daughter and I aren't the only ones who feel this way. We were bored, too--actually enjoyed the walk through the rainforest more. It was a unique experience but not very exciting like we thought it would be.

[kujobie]

I agree. It was ok. It was nice going thru the caves, seeing bats, seeing monkeys in the trees. When we went, the water was shallow, we had to get up and walk part of the time in the river, butts up wasn't cutting it.. And the hike to the drop in point was long, and not easy. And I'm in pretty good shape. I don't know if I would reccomend it to someone who is very old or very young. If you are between the ages of 7 and 67, and are pretty healthy, it's worth doing. We went with cave-tubing.com and they were great. If you're gonna do this, I would go with them over the ship tour. But you have to be in at least decent shape to do this. If you're an 80 year old, 350 pound smoker, don't do this tour. It's almost as physically demanding, but not quite, as climbing Dunn's River falls in Jamaica.

[KAWS]

I thought the experience was unlike anything else. When I sat back in that tube and just looked up there was one point where I gasped right our loud and uttered "oh-my-gawd" because I realized that what I was seeing was not a man made thing but totally natural. Incredible.

 

No floating on a tube isn't "exciting" per se, but I think it was the whole experience and doing something so totally different and seeing things we'd never ever see at home.

 

We're going back in October and we'll do the cave tubing again (one of the people in our group has never been so we want her to see too) but this time we'll add in the ATV tour to go with it so that we get something new this time around as well.

[MSUcruiser]

We went in April of 2006 and had a great guide (Nathan from X-stream marketing). We did the combo zip-line and cave-tube. The zip was fantastic and our whole party loved that part of the excursion. The cave-tubing was really slow and the water was cool. We had to lift our bottoms up out of the tube for quite a portion of the river (outside of the caves) and finally got up and carried the tubes through several sections were the water was only up to our ankles. All eight of us said once was enough for the caves!