cavetubing.com question

[tootuff4u2]

I would like to book my family on the ATV and cave tubing thru this company. I do not need any stress on my vacation. Do I need to worry about getting back to Carnival Valor on time. We are in port from 8-5 but with a tender port I worry.:confused:

[PaulMedik]

I would like to book my family on the ATV and cave tubing thru this company. I do not need any stress on my vacation. Do I need to worry about getting back to Carnival Valor on time. We are in port from 8-5 but with a tender port I worry.:confused:

 

 

tootuff4u2,

 

We did the ATV & Cave Tubing last April through CaveTubing dot com and they had us back in time. I've never heard of them being late before. Carnival does a cave tubing excursion as well and we returned at about the same time they did.

[jmunson]

I would like to book my family on the ATV and cave tubing thru this company. I do not need any stress on my vacation. Do I need to worry about getting back to Carnival Valor on time. We are in port from 8-5 but with a tender port I worry.:confused:

 

I won't pretend to know too much about this since I will be a first time cruiser in May. BUT, we booked with cave-tubing.com privately. I have had several email conversations with them and they promise me that they would not be in business if they returned their clients late to their ship. They said they will have us back at port one hour to an hour and a half prior to the last tender. Hope this helps.

[Karen_N]

In July of 2008 our family of 6 did ATV and Cave Tubing with Cave Tubing Dot com.

They were wonderful. They are very aware of the ship time, and would never be late.

 

You will be in a much smaller group than with the ship tour, with very personalized attention. The ATVing is not to be missed. It was so much fun.

 

Once we arrived at the River, they even carried the tubes for all the women and children on the tour. I am sure you will not get that with the ships tour.

Cave tubing dot com staff also paid very close attention to you while on the river, and you were left to float away like lost sheep.

 

Go and have fun. No need to worry about a thing!!!!

KN

[Cruisin'Trooper]

We loved these guys! We were back to the tenders with over 2 hours to spare.

[Bburg]

We used them last March and had a blast! I would definitely use them again! We had time to go through some of the shops and even had time for a drink before grabbing the tender back to the ship. ;)

[bellademiami]

I was in Belize last February and used cavetubing.com they are great. we had a group of 7 instead of 30 like the cruise tours had and our guides were very attentive. You'll have lots of fun and theres not much else to do in Belize unless your into diving. Remember when they say "bottoms up" they mean it:)

[natty29]

I was wondering for all that have done cave tubing in the past are there any physical restrictions. I have had several back surgeries just want to make sure it would be safe.

 

Thanks

Natalie

[brendrek]

I guess I'll be the voice of dissent here. We took an "adventure" with Cave - Tubing dot com on 2/24 and it was aweful. Sure they got us through the caves and back to the ship if that is all you are worried about. However, our tour guide was homophobic and made some really negative comments that set the tone for an overall really bad experience.

First he suggested putting all the gays in the back in the bus (obviously the never heard of Rosa Parks), and that Mommies should protect their children from them. He joked about the caves being dark and he was scared that gay guys would try something with him. He also said he doesn't like gays but their money is the same color green. I felt like a third class citizen stuck in a third world nation. I know homosexuality is illegal in Belize but I wasn't expecting to hear that garbage on the tour.

Now onto the tour. Luckily the woman tour guide took over this part of the excursion. She was much nicer than the guy. The hike through the jungle was a tad long, but I mostly enjoyed it. I bet on hot and humid day this would be unbearable for some people. I would have enjoyed it more if my tube, life jacket and head lamp didn't smell like a yeast infection.

After the bulk of the hike we stopped at the fertility cave (so named because there is a formation that looks like male anatomy). This was a walk in stop, and I enjoyed that. Next we came to a spot where you could jump off into the water (kind of like cliff diving). My partner did this and highly recommends it. There is a rope going across the river and you will end up back here, so pay attention.

Now onto the cave site. It has an undescribably beautiful entrance. However, the water was very low and pulling all 37 people in an double tube chain through the caves was problematic to say the least. We were constantly getting stuck and whipped into the walls of the cave. They scream "butts up" which means the water is low (which was all the time). I still have bruises on my rear from the occasional large rock.

The interior caves are beautiful from what I could see. The life jacket made raising and turning my head difficult. I mostly saw the ceiling of the cave. The person that was directly hooked into the back of me didn't like me holding her feet (something we all had to do) so she kept slipping out. At one point screamed for me to grab her after telling me to let go just a few minutes earlier. Not everyone had this experience but I wanted to throw it out there anyway. Some people just suck that way.

Alright finally we get to the end of the cavern. This took extra long for our group because we kept getting stuck in a few inches of water. Finally we are dumped into a natural "lazy river" that wraps all the way back to where you started. This is very shallow in spots so they let us unhook and go at this alone. I got stuck again a couple times. I decided to try to walk some of it, dropped my tube which went floating away. Disaster! Not everyone will have this experience either, but I did see other people getting stuck.

 

Overall I would never recommend cave -tubing dot com. I saw guides taking much smaller groups and they breezed by ours. One operator had really nice helmets with headlamps and comfortable blue water craft. They look they were having the best time. I guess it's all about expectations and personal experiences. My back and neck are still sore from the "adventure". If I really had the option, to "only pay if you have a good time" like they claim, I wouldn't have.

[jlovely]

brendrek, I'm so sorry you had a horrible time! :( Just reading your review made me upset. Please tell me you wrote to the company and complained about the first driver at least. Totally not acceptable. I don't care what his personal feelings were, he's in the tourism industry and has to deal with all sorts of people.

[brendrek]

I absolutely did, however I cannot check email at work so I don't know if they responded yet.

[INTERLINER13]

How long was the ATV tour? Did you get muddy? Also, has anyone ever seen snakes well cavetubing?

[Sarae]

I was wondering for all that have done cave tubing in the past are there any physical restrictions. I have had several back surgeries just want to make sure it would be safe.

 

Thanks

Natalie

 

Natalie, I have had 3 neck surgeries and my guide Omar carried my tube the whole way to the river for me, and then back to the drop off spot when we got to the end of the trip.

 

I can not say enough nice things about cave-tubing .com...The driver, the bus tour guide and the float guies were great. We had a group of 52 people and they brought it down to no more than 7 in a group.

 

When I go back on a ny other tours I will be booking with them again.:o

[brendrek]

Wow 7 per group? We are talking about the same cave - tubing . com right? I had a totally different experience than you guys did. They linked all 37 of us together in one big double chain. It was very slow going as I already said and we were constantly getting stuck.

[David_Zen]

Wow 7 per group? We are talking about the same cave - tubing . com right? I had a totally different experience than you guys did. They linked all 37 of us together in one big double chain. It was very slow going as I already said and we were constantly getting stuck.

bredrek, not only does it sound like you are talking about the wrong company but if you had a problem with a guide making comments about homosexuals that offended you, you should have told him right there and then. Did you get his name? They usually introduce themselves. And what about the other 37 in your group? Did they just let his homophobic comments pass without a single rebuke? What I also find peculiar about your experience is that you are saying they had all 37 of you together in one big double chain. I find that hard to believe as it is not only standard practice but a park rule that a group that size should be broken into smaller groups of no more than 8.

[brendrek]

Actually I know it was Cave-Tubing dot com, I got my confirmation email from yhony. My name was on the white board. They had on grey shirts with their logo and that said "butts up". Also the black inner tubes had .com painted on them with white paint. We went to the ATV site to have stewed chicken and rice when the tour was over. You can't flush paper in the bathroom there. It had a carved wood sign with the logo.

 

Honestly I'm not good with names especially exotic names. Yes I could have made a scene on the bus when the guy was making his comments. Belize was a scary place though, and homosexuality is illegal. I pick and choose my battles. I assure you everything I've said is true though. It's just shocking that people have completely different experiences with this operator. Especially when it comes to the group size.

[CandiBar]

we were there that same day- different bus (2/24) Our tour guides seemed great till after we tipped them on the way home. We had about 12 people in our link. The lifejackets were disgusting, I will give you that! You must have taken a different walk though- we never went to a jump off spot. I was disapointed because I had read about it and we had done the jump off on the carnival tour a couple years ago. Wonder why we didnt go to the jump in spot :confused:

 

On the way back to the pier a couple guys in front must have tipped pretty well and asked the guides where to get some special drugs because they took us down a scary road and pulled over in front of a drug store and both guides and bus driver along with the 2 guys from the tour abandoned ship and left us in a running bus with the door open on the side of this road for about 10 minutes- with no explanation. We were livid! Yeah, we had plenty of time to get back to the ship, but I was worried about getting back to my children alive. Anyone could have come onboard and robbed us or taken the bus. A blond girl got off the bus and followed them and they quickly brought her back- i assume it was not safe for her to be roaming around. So after about 10 mins they got back on and off we went- no explanation whatsoever. I emailed Yhony and he says that is not how he runs his company, but from the other reviews on my roll call I am not sure. Yes, we got through the caves and back to the ship with time to spare, but honestly my whole day was ruined by that little detour...

 

(I assume they were looking for something illegal as there was a perfectly good drug-store at the port and it would have been on their own time- not mine!)

[brendrek]

There was 12 in our link, my partner told me I was wrong. It was still too large and we were constantly getting stuck.

 

The comments the guy made were part of a series of jokes he was making. It started off like this:

 

Is there any British people on the bus? (no hands went up)

 

Good because I hate British people, they occupied Belize back in...blah blah blah

 

Ok, So are there any gay people in this bus? (again no hands)

 

Good because I'm scared of gay people you know, those caves are dark... He then went on the make the off the wall back of the bus comment, the comment about Mommies protecting your children, and finishing with the remark about the money being the same color, and that is the only thing he likes about gay people.

 

Should we have put our hands up? Maybe

[CMM]

While there wasn't any gay bashing comments when we went with cavetubing dot com they did talk about how it is legal to hit your kids in Belize ha ha ha and feel free to do so if your kids get out of hand etc. I assure you this didn't make my kids feel overly comfortable as we drove through this somewhat depressed country dotted with machine gunned gaurds. I can relate that this would NOT be the place to raise your concerns while on the tour. If I was gay I would have kept my mouth shut too.

 

We too were linked together in one massive blob, I have no idea how many not 7 for sure but maybe more like 20.

 

Here is my take on this excursion. Yes many, many, people (actually I would guess MOST) have a great unforgettable experience. The thing is there are times when it isn't like that. How comfortable are you in taking the chance you might be one to have the infrequent bad (and scarey) experience. I know I clearly wished my family had skipped this one.

 

My experience cave tubing http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1098358& (bottom of page 2 & 3)

[karenh1127]

I never hear any reviews on just the ATV part. We are booked on this on March 16th and am still undecided about it.

[sgfun]

Our experience was quite different about two weeks ago - We arrived in Belize to fog, but warm weather. We had arranged a private tour for cave tubing through Cavetubbing.com for this day. We made it to the Mad Hatter lounge later than planned and made the third tender. When we got off the boat we were afraid we missed meeting our tour, but quickly found a staff person who put us in a van that caught up with the bigger bus at a stop they made. We drove for about 45 minutes out of town to the tubing sight on a tour bus. The audio was not working so it was difficult to hear if you were in the back but they made sure they repeated the important information. Our group consisted of those doing ATV and tubing and just tubing. The guides were very personable and made the ride out quite enjoyable include libations for the adults that were up for it. The ATV group got off at the first stop and then the tubing only headed down to the next stop. We just did the tubing with means we got an extra set of caves out of the deal. Once at the site we got our headlights and tubes and walked about a ½ hour till we go to the river. The guides carried the female’s and kid's tubes but the guys were on their own. It was a beautiful walk and the guides did a great job of telling us about what we saw. There were several other tour groups out there, most with better looking equipment, but our guides could not be beat for personality and making us feel secure through the whole process. It was a great tour. We hooked up with the ATVers and then got a quick lunch and headed back to the port. We only had about 45 minutes to shop before the last tender. We had three children in our group and there were a few other children in one of the ATV group and not only did we feel safe but felt they did a good job of looking out for the kids. We started out with 5 in our "line" and when the ATV group joined us went up to about 12 in our line.