Cave tubing with Wet n' Wild on 6/23

[Mucus29]

Just got back from our cruise on the Carnival Miracle. We had a wonderful time and the highlight for us was the cave tubing experience we had with Charlie and Herbie, our guides through Wet n' Wild. We got the first tender off the ship for "non-Carnival" trips at about 8:30AM. This wasn't a difficult process at all, from what I had read before, people made it out to be like it was really, really hard, but I found that the hardest part was standing in line for about 15 minutes waiting for the Carnival excursion people to go ahead of us (which, btw, we still beat most of them to the caves because Rudy, our driver, passed the busses on the way!). The last 6 miles, yes, they are bumpy, your butt will be numb by the time you get there, but, deal with it :p . Once we got to the site, we were given time to go potty and then went and got our tubes to go down to the river. The walk was a bit muddy because it had recently rained, but as Herbie said, it was better to just walk right through the mud than trying to avoid it; people who tried to avoid it were stumbling a lot! The walk was brisk, Charlie kept up a good pace, but not too fast. We did bring up the rear because my wife was getting a blister from her shoes, but Herbie was at the back and kept us informed! The jump into the river was nice and refreshing, I thought the water was going to be colder, but it was nice! One thing that I feel I should mention if you plan to book any cave tubing tour...you will have to paddle your arms to go somewhere on the river at some point, which will require a bit of upper body strength! It's not an over exertion, but you will need to do it, so, be warned! You could be like a lot of people and get on the "Charlie Train", but I doubt they have such a train in the Carnival group! Charlie grew up in this area and he knows EVERYTHING you want to know about the caves and the surrounding area! He explains a lot on the trip to the cave as well as while we were floating, he is a very good guide! The caves were very nice, it got a bit crowded after we caught back up with the Carnival groups, but we all managed to stay together, for the most part. After tubing we went and had a wonderful lunch of BBQ chicken, beans and rice, fresh mango, cole slaw, out of this world bread, and very thick and heavy chocolate or banana muffins! The food was very good to say the least! Rudy had us back so that we had an hour and fifteen minutes to shop/drink/do whatever before the last tender left. We had no worries at all as to whether we would make it back in time or not. Again, I'm sure we beat some of the carnival busses back! This tour is highly recommended and I think you would be silly to book through whatever cruise line you are sailing with (Carnival had a price of $98, Wet 'n Wild was $60, which included lunch AND one extra cave!). If you have any questions/comments, feel free to post away! I'll have some pictures in a couple of days from the underwater camera we took along, so if you want to see some of them, I'll see what I can do to post them!

[fitters]

Mucas29....we will have two younger children (age 7 and 11). Is this tour good for them as well? What's your opinion? Thanks.

[Mucus29]

fitters, your children should be fine! As long as they remember to get their butts up when it is called for. We only had to do it in a few places, but one time when we did I saw a young boy (5 or 6?) standing in the water crying, I believe he had gone for a spill when his butt touched bottom, ouch! :eek: I think your kids will be fine. If they have any problems, just hook them onto the guide, I'm sure there'll be quite a few other people hooked to him!

[con3]

We just did the cavetubing with wet-n-wild on 6-30, they were great!! Charlie is so experienced and was a great guide. They had alot of rain a few days before we went so the river was moving faster, we did not have to paddle, but we all stayed linked to the "charlie train" there was only 12 in our group, I think the ship tours have about 45 or 50! Charlie and Marvin are great, and the lunch after is delicious!!

[KMSCRUISER]

We are also cruizing in October 16th on the Valor. I have been debating doing the cave tubing. Seems like alot of walking and work! ha ha

 

What was the BUG situation like?