Coyote Cruises — Local services in Penticton

Great fun! Great value! Good physical distancing activity!

We booked a 4 person tube for a family of 2 adults and 2 kids ages 8 and 9. We were pleasantly surprised to be handed a giant orange tube that had a mesh bottom and plenty of room for the 4 of us and our cooler! We took a light swim backpack to carry our thongs. We intended to tie it on but with all the space it wasn't necessary. We just left them floating in the mesh. As first-timers, the instructions at the send off were great. They showed us pictures of what the exit signs looked like and helped us launch. With the mesh bottom, you could cool off without leaving the tube, but my husband and one of the kids jumped out and swam alongside as well. The mesh bottom would be ideal for very young children! It was the end of July and they told us that the dam was still fully open so it was a quick ride at about 1 hr 15 mins, but you could go again with your wristband (just not on a quad). We ended up going twice more, both times on double tubes which are more traditional tubes with open donut holes The girls actually seemed to enjoy this more as they were able to get in and out of the tube or just dangle their legs. We had a short piece of rope that we held at times when we wanted to stick together. *Note that tying tubes together is not permitted. We had a soft insulated cooler bag from IKEA that we tied off onto one of the tube handles and dragged it along in the water. There are washrooms at the launch area and an Edo Japan about a 4 minute walk from the launch if you need to feed the troops. There is also a food truck at the exit area, but we hopped on the bus right away so didnt see what they had. The buses were pretty quick and they sprayed your hands and gave you a disposable mask before you got on. Our bus driver was fabulous. Really loves her job and it shows. There are washrooms at the launch area. Along the channel we saw fish, ducks at the waters edge and barn swallow nests in the bridge rafters. It was pretty neat to see ducks flying beside you - you don't often get to see them at that angle! We paid $120 taxes included for the tube rental, bus trips and a waterproof iphone case on a lanyard. The case and lanyard is highly recommended - we saw two iPhones in the bottom of the channel that day and it was also nice to get some photos. Our whole family had a great day in the water. We thought it was great value and a great family activity and will definitly do it again next year! PS if you have snorkels and...

It was a good float, started at 10:30 am we brought our own tubes and bought passes to ride the bus back with CC. It was a bit of a windy day so it took quite some time for us to float, at the midway point we passed a ton of CC staff including staff floating in the river on triangle floats. Nothing was said to us about CC was removing people who rented their tubes at the midway point. We got to the end about 2:45 and got out and stood and stood… after about 20-25 min we were beginning to wonder why the bus hadn’t come. Tried calling CC but then received a text to text instead, so we did explaining the bus hadn’t come yet, there was about 20 of us at that point waiting. CC responded via text and said they would send a bus, took about another 20 min for the bus to come. We waited about 45 min in total for a bus to come and just feels CC was solely only focused on the midway point pick up and completely forgot about any bus riders at the end point. The three stars is solely for the lack of communication and courtesy. The bus driver even admitted “we had no idea you were here” which is a bit odd when they sold us the tickets that I feel like they should be aware that there are riders that don’t use their tubes. Priority appeared on their rental tube users only. No staff communicated to us at the midway point, there is zero signage in the parking lot stating buses may take awhile (despite their website says 15 min turn around times). I appreciate they have a business to run and have 1000s of people they deal with each day but having some form of communication / information on a physical sign at the end would go a long way. Especially for tourists that may not speak English that well or families that have young children. Standing around for 45 min after a 4+ hour river float is not fun at all. CC did give us a partial refund which is appreciated and I read the waiver again like the gentleman at the ticket centre told me to read, which apparently clearly states they were in the right due to wind conditions … not really sure where it states they have the right to forget about customers lol but whatever. Still a great adventure just wish they would be more clear in their communications and not seemingly...

The staff was good and kind. We rented a quad island bus combo, which means we could go down the lazy river all day until closing. The problem was that the wind was blowing like crazy in the opposite direction of the river stream and the island was pretty high above the water which was slowing us down significantly. All other, smaller floaties were faster than us and bumping us occasionally. At one point I jumped into the water and pull the island which helped a little, but it was hard to hold on to it, as it has just small rings that are used for tying it. My hand slipped and I lost my grip. The river was fast and carried me away before I could catch it again. I used all my strength to swim back, but I couldn't reach it. I am not a bad swimmer, but the current was too strong and the wind was slowing down the island to a crawl. While my family panicked, I swam to the edge and waited for them to pass, which allowed me to catch them from behind.

Directions to the end of the ride were clear, every 100 meters, but the wind there was the strongest, so we were not moving forward at all, on the contrary. We started moving backward. I had to use the paddle they provided to finally get to the end.

The ride was supposed to last and hour or so, but it was three hours for us. We didn't go again as we were all exhausted, so the package wasn’t really useful for us.

We found out that there is an option to pay only for the bus and use your own floatie, which we had. That option wasn't on the site. If we knew that, we would've saved money.

In short, the staff is good, it's kind of pricey and the ride isn't...