Company with the best innertubes?

[sds1arm2]

Hi there!

 

We will be in Belize this June via Carnival Dream. Interested in cave tubing, but would like to know which company provides the best innertubes for the tour. I am interested in the tubes with the headrest.

 

Second, is there one standard size of innertube used? Would there be a problem for a 6'0 300 lbs man to use it?

[tuxjamie]

I have been cave tubing several times and have never seen any with a headrest. When you get to the place to pick up your tube you pick out the one you want. Most of those large ones that everyone has used growing up. They are the black ones like the old tire inner tubes. The hardest thing will be that you have to carry your tube and life perserver a 1/4 mile to the site to put into the water. It is so worth it. The water is not that deep. Many times you will be told "butts up" or you will hit bottom. Enjoy!

[movtarget]

I am researching shoretrips which partners with V.I.V tours (maybe others?). They appear to have the white plastic tubes with headrests. I also read somewhere that they also have netting (on the bottom?). Trying to figure out if shoretrips always uses V.I.V or if it varies.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Movtarget in NC

[dabeers1]

Cavetubing.bz has new yellow tubes with handles. There were several other outfits that had the black ones.

 

Bz gave my 12-year-old a black tube and I questioned them about it. It was the right choice, because their arms and legs must extend over the ends of the tube to link with the next person. Plus it was easier for him to carry through the jungle.

[ccbmom]

We saw the white tubes with headrest in the river, but I couldn't determine who has them. it's not .bz and not .com. .com has the yellow tubes, but we put DD into a little black tube because she was so small. the black tubes hold you deeper in the water so she got a bit chilled when we were in the caves, but she still seemed to enjoy it.

 

Also, .com helped us carry our tubes, which was VERY helpful!

[TheGambit]

Just there last week and it was VIV with the white tubes, mesh bottoms and headrests :)

 

Yes I was jealous, but the plain ole tubes we had worked just fine!

[cruisemom3gz]

We just went on this tour last week anbd Explore Belize Caves have the tubes with headrests and mesh on the bottom of the tubes. It was very relaxing to just lay back on the tube and rest your head back against the rest and take in the caves. Our guides Eric and Darwin were great and very informative. I will warn you the last part of the road is very bumpy. I thought the pot holes in Michigan were bad these are horrible. We were in a small van though and Eric did his best to avoid them. There were 7 of us and we truly had an enjoyable time with some yummy rum punch :)

[DAP2]

It's not all about the tubes...I thought it was when I first started looking though! The group with the headrest did literally 1/2 the length of the float trip that we did with our black tubes.

[dabeers1]

DAP2 is correct. Our tour guide told us there are something like six caves, but to do them all would take all day. However, you want to pick a tour that goes through the two most-used caves. We saw lots and lots of people getting in the water with only one cave to go. This means they had half the trip through the rainforest and half the trip down the river that we had (we used cavetubing.bz).

 

In the forest there's a path that veers off to the right early. If you take that path, you're taking the short trip.

[ccbmom]

We did one long cave, and honestly that was enough for me. We did stay in the river longer, after the cave, than other tubing groups seemed to (especially the carnival one with the green tubes). Staying in the river in the sun was really fun as they were not as strict about being all grouped together and they let us play in the river. We booked with .com

 

I really have to wonder how much just depends on the day, the time of day you get there, how long it takes to walk to the river, and how many other people there are on the river. If you're under a time crunch because you were waiting for people to tender to port, or if you're also doing a zip line, you may end up with shorter time in the river.

[BobH0775]

We are going with .com on April 27. How deep is the water this time of year? Has anyone carried their video camera? Is it too risky to take it?

[BeachLuvr]

We just went to Belize on the Liberty at the end of March. We used NCQ adventures. Nacho and Cynthia were awesome. They met us right outside the port and had everything prearranged. Our tubes were fantastic and we even did the ziplining too. Plus we had a great lunch. They seem to know how to get ahead of all of the lines and make the tour "un-belizeable!" We saw others waiting in line but we never waited at all. It was one of the best excuraions we have ever done. If we ever go back to Belize we will use NCQ Adventures again.:mad: