White Water Adventurers Inc — Attraction in Ohiopyle

Technically, I would like to give five stars to the company, but this review is more about what type of a guide can make or break an experience. The goal of a guide in a raft is safety in general, and so at the end of the day, that was accomplished. But, another goal should be that rafters also get to learn and use their own brains, in my opinion. So I ask then, was was our guide Jim actually for? To help us learn? Or to just be authoritative to the point that no one has the ability or opportunity to make any decisions whatsoever either by themselves or together? I have been on many other rafting trips, some guided, and some not. The ones that were not in-raft guided, NOT this company, we joined together with others to help fill the raft. By the time the trip was over, we had formed a team of comradeship, learning and celebration. We learned so much together, using our own brains to make decisions, reading the river, and being able to feel the rights and wrongs as they were being made, and adjust our rowing accordingly. We did specify a captain, and we worked together communicating. The overall feeling of accomplishment of learning together and becoming a team of decision-making, was just so fun and exhilarating. It was also a very amazing example to set for the kids. However, THIS trip that we took with a guide in our raft was completely opposite. There was absolutely no feeling of figuring things out. There is absolutely no feeling of being allowed to make a decision or try something. Our guide seriously would not allow us to put our paddles in the water without being told. Every single decision was his. Every time I knew we needed to be back paddling on a certain side I was forced to just sit there and watch our raft go in circles until he took care of the backpaddling and fixed it for us. I was annoyed the entire time. My two kids I brought with were learning absolutely nothing except to follow directions. There was no opportunities for the other humans in the raft to read the river and make a decision about anything together as a team. It was the most annoying trip I have ever taken. If I would’ve known we would have a guide like this in our raft I would have opted out of going. I would have tipped him $100 just to get out. We have learned so much by ourselves on the river before that, that having to go back to being treated like stupid people who can’t possibly make a decision for ourselves about how to row was just ridiculous. Being in charge of people on a raft does not mean that one needs to be taking this authority too far. Guiding people should involve pointing out why we make certain movements, and allow them to take a moment to look ahead and help figure out what to do. If people had zero experience, and had a guide like this, they would have learned absolutely nothing, except how to follow directions . Having a guide who is 100% authoritarian, saying exactly what to do, and they’re not allowed to row until they tell them exactly what to do is absolutely ridiculous especially because he controlled the raft pretty much himself. And I truly believe that the kids should’ve just been allowed to row however they wanted as a trial and error because they’re so small, they wouldn’t really affect it that much anyways, it really took away from their enjoyment and their freedom of learning, to be corrected just for sticking their paddle in the water. My child was swimming next to the raft for a bit, she is extremely small for her age. When it was time to get back into the raft, he literally grabbed her and brought her in with such force that her leg got scraped up and hurt. She never complains of pain. But she did then. She is very tough and in fact, she was one of the ones that jumped off the big rock, she’s not afraid of anything, but she really hated being handled that roughly. She was really angry. The next time she got out of the raft to swim, to get back in, she would not let him touch her. I was the one to help her get back in, in a gentle, easy manner. We will be going back to Jim Thorpe...

A very dangerous and ill managed tour. We did the white water rafting on Lower Yough 3-4 level rapids on July 2nd. We got to the location on time but the it started 45mins late. They took us to launch site and we were introduced to the very rude instructor (Jake? Jud?) who clearly does not belong in the service industry. He was outright rude and was impatient to get started.

Once we were in the water, the lack of training and initial instructions didn't help us and we bombarded into rocks at very high speed. The same was true with many in the group. Almost all the boats were struggling and we had barely reached the center. Our party had mostly beginners and lagged towards the end. The impatient trainer/guide (the same guy who did the orientation at the beginning) was outright rude and pushy.

Then came the first big rapid. With barely any training, we crashed into the rock where the guy stood. Instead of helping, the guy kept screaming down, pulled the side rope of our raft and flipped us into the high speed water. This was beyond belief, the guy who was in charge of guiding us and giving us confidence just threw a temper tantrum and pushed us into the middle of a rapid. 2 in our gang hit against the rocks and had bruises. Two others including me got pulled towards the bottom and came back up. We were getting carried by the water at a high current, tiil a level headed guide decided to threw us a rope and pulled us in. They dragged us onto the shore.

Now, this was beyond belief. Our raft was flipped into the water by a guide and we all had cuts, bruises. We decided, no more and wanted to call it quits. But the guide came back, his face red with rage and screamed at us to get back in the raft. Our hands were shivering from fear after the near drowning, but he wouldn't have any of it. We pleaded to have a guide with us (not him) coz we all were in a bad shape by then. He asked us to keep going and said he would have a guide later.

By now, we were all panicking and were looking around for a way to even hike back, unfortunately there were none. We checked around with the other guides who were sympathetic but they didn't want to cross this dude, who they seemed to be terrified of. We looked around and one after the other the rafts capsized and many had cuts and bruises.

We were so shaken by the whole experience, we could barely continue. We were getting mean glances and getting yelled at again by the same guy again. He finally decided to give us a guide if we promise to tip the person enough at the end. So that was it? It was about the tips?

We gladly agreed, coz by then we just wanted to get home. We got a guide, who was very patient and understood our plight. She was helpful, supportive and knew how to be a guide, tutor. She got us through the remaining rapids with her expertise and got us safely back.

This experience has taken away all our interest in white water rafting. Never suggest with such guides who shouldn't be in this profession, if they will throw a temper tantrum and put guests at risk. Will...

We had such a wonderful day. We started our adventure with one of the guides showing us the proper way to doan the safety vest and the safety helmet. Next, we walked to where the boats were and we were instructed on how to sit on the boat and given safety instructions on ways to retrieve someone or how to react when or if we would need to be retrieved. We were taught the proper way to hold the oar. We then carried our boat down to the water. Our guide Smiles put the boat in the water and we began to load up on it. We were given basic commands on rowing and when to row. We not only had a nice adventure, but Smiles pointed out the different names of the areas of the river. There were also points throughout the river that were interesting on the banks and Smiles also pointed out information for them. Such as, the railcar that sat on the bank from the early 1900's. I couldn't help but think of my ancestors having something to do with that during that time, as I had many past family members from my mom's side that were from Pennsylvania. We encountered adventurous class 4 rapids, nice lulls, threading the needle through rocks, and soft rapids. I don't think my husband and I have smiled or laughed so much during an activity. It was really great seeing everyone having such a great time in our group. Even during the lightning storm it was interesting. Being from Florida, lightning capital, always learning to shelter during lightning was a slight struggle. Smiles kept our anxiety down and assured us that everyone was safe, things were okay. At the closing of our trip, we had to carry the boat up the side of the hill to where the bus and vans were waiting for us. I had some trouble with my leg being stiff, due my sciatica and sitting for so long without exiting the boat to stretch, and chose to hang back to walk cautiously up the hill. We had no mishaps. We had such an awesome time and can't wait for our next adventure.. guided of course! 😁 Again our guide was Smiles/aka River Jesus to some 🤣 Thanks for the best time! It sure didn't seem like we were out there for 3 hours....