Helen Tubing — Attraction in Helen

Very nice people at the check-in and a wonderful bus driver. However it ends there with the positive experiences. When you get to the point of getting your tubes all chaos breaks out. It is completely unorganized and unprofessionally handled. People are not asked to stay in line in order to get their tubes and nicely enter the river. They throw the tubes out with no organization and it is like watching hungry people having food thrown at them. There is fighting hitting knocking people down to get to tubes and the workers simply stand there and watch. There is no supervision. The worst experience was the fact that straps that were to be provided and advertised to hook your tubes together in order to safely take your children and family down the river were not available. There were six people in our party and we literally took a rope off of an open area that belonged to the company and tied our six tubes together. It was absolutely horribly chaotic and dangerous. Children should not be able to go tubing with this company because they cannot be safely attached to their parents. I am amazed that this company has been able to stay in business without being sued because of not having the proper safety equipment to tube down the river. It was a disaster once the bus arrived and let the people off to start their adventure. There were not enough adult life jackets and there was no one there to help you make sure that your life jacket fit and it was safely attached to you. This company’s safety policies are a major disappointment. No matter what the waiver claims because of their lack of safety equipment is not safe to tube with this company. There were parents with small children that had no way to make sure their children were able to stay with them. Someone using this company is going to get hurt because of the lack of safety equipment that is promised to be available. The owner needs to immediately order enough straps for every tube. As we tubed down the river we saw other tubing companies that had straps available and on the tubes. If you arrive at the area where you are to get your Tubes and there are no straps get back on the bus and go and get your money back. I hope I am able to find the owner of the company and talk to him directly. I can say one positive thing is the price is reasonable. But demand safety equipment before you go tubing with this company. There moderate price is not worth your safety while in...

We were a party of 9 and the tubes for two of us got deflated in different instances. Each time it was after bumping into a rock. Luckily for one of us, there was another tube from the other tubing companies just there and was able to swap it out. As for me, I was not that lucky. Had to exit the river around Alpine Crest motels or area (on opposite side main street and about 30min walk to where I left the car) Good thing I was tied together with my kid, that I was able to get out with him and not let him keep floating down by himself. We both started walking through a neighborhood without phone or not really knowing a good way to go to get back to main street but we found a good person that saw us wet and walking with a stick as we walked by his house and he actually took us to our car..

I feel there are no safety or contingency plans for when something like this may happen (or at least I was not told of any) I do not believe this is the 1st time this has ever happened either.

Also, was told by the rest of the party, that when they got to the end, if you are unable to get to the edge to get off, you have to jump off and no one came to help and it was neck deep there.. They were told that if they kept going, they would get to a steep waterfall.. Not sure if the employees were just saying that as a joke, but I don't think that is funny if it was.

Here are a few suggestions: 1 - have people along the way with RF radios for communication if they see people struggling or with deflated tubes or needing any kind of help.. Maybe 1 at the 1/4 of the way, another 1/2 way and another 3/4 of the way. Maybe have some extra tubes there to swap out, or have something there to fill them back up.

2 - Maybe have signs posted with a phone number to call to get picked up if needing help (i know I did not bring my phone, but I would have found someone I could ask to call the number for me)

3 - if not having the resources to have employees along the way or not offering the help and pick up service, then maybe having several inflated tubes in some specific areas along the way and check often to make sure there are still some more available there.

Overall, I did not have a good experience and the lacking contingency plan (or at least not known to me) make it for me were I do not ever want to come back.

To be fair though, rest of the party that had no issues...

Beware—Worst tubing experience we’ve ever had, and we’ve had a lot.

We are from out of state and had traveled to a town near Helen for a family vacation in mid September. My husband booked and paid online for tubing with Helen Tubing company for our family of 4 on my birthday, trusting the company that if they are taking reservations, then the river must be floatable.

We arrived in town and noticed 2 things—that the river in that area was too shallow to float (6” to 1’ deep on average) and that the other tubing companies were shut down. We drove into Helen Tubing’s lot and my husband went directly to their staff member to cancel and get a refund. She refused to refund and told us we’d be fine. He told her that we have been on the water before when it was too shallow and had experienced a concussion on the rocks and didn’t want a repeat. She said we could “rent a stick to push off the rocks”—the options were either go tubing or not go tubing and be out the $59.

We were shocked with the company’s complete disregard for customer safety, especially knowing other companies were not taking reservations in dangerous conditions. It seemed like Helen Tubing was trying to make money off of unaware out of town customers by selling a tubing trip down what ended up being no more than a slippery rock bed.

My family wanted to salvage my birthday, so we took the tubes in to see if any part of the river might be worth tubing. Any time we could float, we just got stuck on rock after rock, banged up our tail bones, and then ran out of floatable water and ended up walking over sharp slippery rocks the rest of the way to the road back to their parking lot, sore, black and blue, and scraped up.

No, they don’t control the water level, but they definitely have a responsibility for safe decision making related to taking reservations when they, as locals, know the water level is too low to float. Not just staying open to make an extra buck off tourists.

I’d give them a 0 rating if I could, but since I have to give them a 1, I’ll say the positives are that shockingly, none of the tubes popped on the rocks we got stuck on, and there...