Thread: For The Safey of Cruise Ship Passengers

On Thursday, Septemer 4thm 2008 The Belize Tourism Board, Belize Tourism Industry Training Unit, and Action Boys Belize ( Adventure Specialists ) held a meeting at The Cave Branch Archaeological Reserve to discuss The Safety Of Cruise Ship Passengers.

The main focuss of the meeting is the safety of cruise ship passengers doing the Cave Tubing Adventure Tour. Today the large tour companies and the cruise lines have been sending 35 to 40 cruise ship passengers through the cave with only 2 tour guides assigned to the large group ( some times only one tour guide ). There is no way that two tour guides can manage such large group through the dark cave, eventhough head lamps are issued.

We also discussed special tour guide training in Cave Systems and Cave Systems Rescue. The Belize Tourism Board, Belize Institute Of Culture and History, and The Belize Belize Tourism Industry Training Unit have put together a special course to certify tour guides for the cave tubing adventure. All tour guides that wish to continue conducting tours through the cave system will have to do this special training.

We also discussed the number of persons that should be assigned to a tour guide. At the end of the day we concluded that each tour guide should not be taking more than 12 persons through the caves at once. This will surely affect the large tour companies. This will be placed in the Belize Touris Board's Bi-laws to take effect October 2009.


We had to take this step that will affect every tour guide in Belize. This is needed to secure both the interest of cruisers and The Belize Tourism Industry.



Respectfully yours



Donald Ramirez
Adventure Specialist

This is sgood to know! Thanks for the update on the safety of cave tubing.

Great to know!

I am sure that most of you have heard of the death in the cave a couple of weeks ago. I just want to clarify one thing that will ease your minds. The day of the incident I personally informed most of the small companies that the river will be unusually high. One of the Action Boys team member lives 4 miles from the river. It is his responsibility to check the river ever morning at 5:30 am. I was inform about the river at 6:10am and I inform most of the small companies. Most of them cancelled thier tour for that day. Unfortunately the first bus from the cruise line had already left to the caves. By the time they arrived at the cave entrance the river was high, but can be managed. Whilst in the caves a flash flood came down on them. This is the reason why the tour guide lost control of the group.

There were two tour guides that were assigned to the group. In most cases the tour guide who does history presentations on the bus would refuse to do the second part of the tour ( Tubing ). So the tour guide who didn't do any presentations on the bus will have to do the tour of the caves on his own ( this is a mal-practice ). I later learn that the female tour guide who did the tubing part of the tour is not a strong swimmer.

As a result of all this, Carnival has cancelled the contract of the company that did their tours in Belize. A new company is now doing these tours for Carnival.

SPECIAL NOTE:
Carnival is discouraging cave tubing in Belize. I don't see nothing wrong with that, because they are securing their interest and the interest of their passengers. This is just to inform you that all tour companies are still doing cave tubing tours. It is safe if you book with private companies. Most of the private companies that were doing their tours in large groups have stopped and are now doing tours with small groups.

Thank you Donald

Thanks for in info. and clarification of the events of that tragic day a couple weeks ago, Donald. It's good to know steps are being implemented to make Cave Tubing safer than it was.
Here's a short article I found on this topic.

MyFox Orlando | New policies enacted following cave tubing death

The article mentions an agreed guest to guide ratio of 8 to 1, not 12 to 1. Whatever it is, it should be more manageable

I hadn't heard about this accident, but really appreciate the update. This is one of the activities we are considering in Belize.

We did the cave tubing when we were in Belize in Feb of 2007 on Jewell. We used an outside tour group and did not have any issues.