cave tubing with a 2.5-year-old and a 1-year-old?

[juezui]

We are cruising in less than a week and my husband and I are interested in cave tubing in Belize City. I read FAQ on cavetubing.bz. They claim even an infant incapable of walking can enjoy the cave tubing by sitting with an adult. I am still a little bit concern about cave tubing with little kids. Can anyone give suggestions on cave tubing with little ones? Is it practical? By the way, we are cruising with my parents (in their early 60's with good health) so there will be 4 adults and 2 little kids. If caving tubing is not a good activity for our group, what else we may do in Belize City?

[psbtrvlr]

We are cruising in less than a week and my husband and I are interested in cave tubing in Belize City. I read FAQ on cavetubing.bz. They claim even an infant incapable of walking can enjoy the cave tubing by sitting with an adult. I am still a little bit concern about cave tubing with little kids. Can anyone give suggestions on cave tubing with little ones? Is it practical? By the way, we are cruising with my parents (in their early 60's with good health) so there will be 4 adults and 2 little kids. If caving tubing is not a good activity for our group, what else we may do in Belize City?

 

Personally, I would not take an infant cave tubing. I do not feel that it is safe.

[WendyVF]

The last time we cavetubed, you had to cross the river to start the hike. The current was really strong and I had trouble getting out of the tube at the end. I'm sure the guides would be a lot of help but I wouldn't take children that young. It's a long bus ride and and a hike.

[MichelleChell]

If it were me i wouldn't attempt that.

[oshunreef]

Personally I would not take a infant or toddler. We were on it with our children, but they were 9,13, and 13; plus they are really good swimmers and took lessons.

Even though they say it is safe, I would not feel it was safe enough to have an infant or toddler on my lap...nope, not at all would I have done it. If you really want to do it then leave them with the child care on the ship is my recommendation. You will enjoy it. You can always plan on taking them when they are older. :)

[mitsugirly]

While I have an adventurous daughter who will do about anything...she cave tubed for the first time when she was 3 and again several months ago when she was 5 years old. She walked the entire time when she was 3, but yet I don't think is the "norm" for most children.

 

Just my opinion, but I would have never even considered this with a 1 yr old and 2 yr old. You will end up carrying them during the hike and crossing the river. They do have children life vest, but for someone that young, I'm not sure how safe it would be and I would be afraid they would slip out.

 

Just my thoughts. :)

[juezui]

Personally I would not take a infant or toddler. We were on it with our children, but they were 9,13, and 13; plus they are really good swimmers and took lessons.

Even though they say it is safe, I would not feel it was safe enough to have an infant or toddler on my lap...nope, not at all would I have done it. If you really want to do it then leave them with the child care on the ship is my recommendation. You will enjoy it. You can always plan on taking them when they are older. :)

 

I like your suggestion of leaving the kids with the child care. Will they cry being with sitters on the ship? My 2.5-year-old daughter goes to daycare so she gets used to strangers, but the 1-year-old stays at home all the time so I am really not sure about his reaction if we leave him behind......

[juezui]

Thank everyone for your reply. I will not take the kids with us for cave tubing.

 

Now can anybody recommend some good activities for family with young kids? Our next port is Cozumel and we will visit Chakanaab Park. Thus I will keep the beach day in Belize on the bottom of my list of options. The zoo?? I read horrible reviews about the zoo (giant mosquito). Another choice is Maya ruins + river wallace tour because my parents are interested in the ruins and I think the kids will love to see the animals during the river wallace tour. But the tour through the cruise line has an age restriction (>4 year old). Is it a good idea to go with the private tour for this type of tour? I don't want to get back late and see the ship sails away. The last option is to do city tour on a bus which seems like a little bit boring to me but it may be good for the kids.

 

It is really tricky to plan activities with young kids in Belize, especially when my parents are eager to explore the country and they don't understand English (which means my husband and I need to company my parents during the activity).

[WendyVF]

Keep in mind that you need to tender in Belize and it's not a short trip. I'm sure someone will know exactly but I'm thinking it's at least 20 minutes. We've had some scary situations over the years when the seas got a little rough and it was difficult transferring from the tender to the cruise ship. I was extremely nervous with our then teens. You know your children best, but mine would not have done well on the tenders at that age.

[Colorado Kat]

I'm glad you decided to not take the children cave tubing. They will enjoy it in a few years, but right now I feel they are too young.

 

There are beach excursions you could do. Or one parent stay on the ship with the kids, and the other go exploring with the grand-parents.

[blue_water]

You can evaluate the tendering when you arrive, it's very safe and if seas are too rough to tender in safely you won't stop at Belize.

 

A ship excursion makes sense for most folks, but there are also excellent excursions you can book directly with operators, and that gives you the flexibility of modifying or shortening your excursion. You're not sharing the excursion with other passengers, and that flexibility can be a real blessing with kids. Just a thought. We've seen a couple highly-rated private operators that give city/ruin tours in our research and I'd have to go back to find them as we decided to just water taxi to Caye Caulker for our day. That may be an option for you too, it's a 45 min water taxi from port or a 10 min taxi + 10 min flight. I think the river Wallace tour would be tough for kids with the 90 minute boat and 45 min bus each way.

[brookeq]

We have run into the Sam problem. We have two little ones. I wanted to see the ruins but my youngest is only 2.

 

I am not comfortable booking a tour to the ruins that is not thru the the ship. The ruins are usually pretty far away.

 

I will book no ship tours for other things though.

 

I am looking into the carnival beach break. It says it's at water caye and I can't find any info on it.

 

We are also looking into goffs caye.

[timandstaciejenner]

Thank everyone for your reply. I will not take the kids with us for cave tubing.

 

Now can anybody recommend some good activities for family with young kids? Our next port is Cozumel and we will visit Chakanaab Park. Thus I will keep the beach day in Belize on the bottom of my list of options. The zoo?? I read horrible reviews about the zoo (giant mosquito). Another choice is Maya ruins + river wallace tour because my parents are interested in the ruins and I think the kids will love to see the animals during the river wallace tour. But the tour through the cruise line has an age restriction (>4 year old). Is it a good idea to go with the private tour for this type of tour? I don't want to get back late and see the ship sails away. The last option is to do city tour on a bus which seems like a little bit boring to me but it may be good for the kids.

 

It is really tricky to plan activities with young kids in Belize, especially when my parents are eager to explore the country and they don't understand English (which means my husband and I need to company my parents during the activity).

 

 

curious on what u ended up doing? have a 7 month old and a 3 year old with us