Happy Hollow Frio River Outfitters — Local services in Sabinal

The Parker family has been going to the Frio River for years. When my husband and I married 10 yrs ago we started going to Happy Hollow with our family twice a year. We have referred friends and family from all over Texas and other parts of the US that have also been visiting Happy Hollow now for years. We enjoyed staying with Melissa and Jerry and enjoyed visiting with the owner, Carla when she would drive down on her golf cart to say hello and thank us for always coming back year after year. This year was different. We booked for the first time outside of peak season. When we received the confirmation for our reservation in December we asked Melissa to charge the credit card in full. She emailed on Jan 2 and advised the credit card was charged in full with receipt of a $0 balance. One month before our arrival she emails me stating we have a balance of $400. When questioning her on the balance she advises there was a problem with the website and we were charged the wrong amount. This is 4 months later and never did she pick up the phone and try to explain the discrepancy, just an ugly email with a response of her and Jerry would have to “eat the difference”, when I sent her screen shots of the reservation amount. When we arrived Melissa was not there. The girls behind the counter had no access to our reservation and no idea guests were arriving. They gave us our keys and told us to come back later when Melissa was there. We went back and she was still not there, and we were told again to come back later. We advised we would come back in the morning as we’d already been back twice. The next day we floated down with family and guests all the way from Canada that we raved and raved about Happy Hollow and Melissa to. When we arrived and went inside to pay for our shuttle Melissa was there. She never smiled or greeted us just started confronting us about the day before and $80 that it cost for us to get out at Happy Hollow and cross their parking lot, even though we are renting a cabin from them. We had NO problem paying the amount just didn’t remember paying that previously. I have never been so humiliated and embarrassed in front of friends and family. She literally stood in front of my group with a scowl, scolding us and told us “There is no free lunch here.” She was so incredibly hateful and so unprofessional that I was in tears on the way back to the cabin. She treated us like we were trying to get something for nothing and as if we were free loaders trying to steal something from her. After all the years and money we have spent going to the same place, I’m absolutely mortified by the disrespect and utter hatefulness Melissa showed toward my family and guests from Canada who planned to book cabins with our families again later in the summer. Sadly, as much as we adored going to Happy Hollow for so very long, we will never book there again and neither will our family and friends. Never would I have imagined that I would have to write a 1 star review on a place we have loved going to over and over for years. Her treatment of us was so very uncalled for and I hope that no other families have to endure what we did on a much anticipated vacation with family...

First thing, BUY river/water shoes. The Frio has two types of bottom that I can tell, rocks, and hard smooth limestone shelf, and more of it is rocks than shelf. If you don't purchase swimmers shoes, your experience won't be a good as it could be. Luckily, my wife did that, I didn't even know they were needed.

Our first time last week, myself, wife and our adult daughter, to the Frio River and we used Happy Hollow Frio River Outfitters.

We drove down from DFW.

The area was just draw dropping, I had no idea the elevation was THAT high at Leakey, TX, especially just north of it. Hill Country is a misnomer. Those are mountains!

We got to Happy Hollow, just south of Leakey, about 2:30PM in the afternoon on Saturday, Sept 20th, and there were only about ten customers, they were wet and leaving, so we were the only three on the shuttle bus to take us upriver, which is only a five minute drive.

It was a glorious weather day, low 90's, light breeze.

I don't have any other tubing companies to compare to, this being our first time, but we really enjoyed our float.

My daughter and I swam quite a bit and she enjoyed video recording the many catfish, Texas ciclids, and bluegill that had little fear of us in the clear water.

There were several gentle rapids, just fast enough for fun, nothing dangerous, between rapids was peaceful and all along our route were beautiful, HUGE overhead cypress trees. I grew up on Caddo Lake and thought I'd seen big cypress trees. Shoot, most of these Frio cypresses dwarfed most of the trees on Caddo!

Our float rout was above Garner State Park and most of Happy Hollow's competition is below Garner State Park. It's been a few weeks with little rain from what I understand the locals saying, and I suspect Happy Hollow's 2-3 hour float rout may have a slightly faster current and more rapids than the floats of operaters further downstream below Garner State Park, when these late summer dry spells occur.

But that is just my guess, just from upstream being shallower and therefore usually faster, but I have no idea for sure, so if I'm wrong, I hope someone will correct me on here.

When we finished, we got out and put our tubes back where they had originally been stacked for selection, and we were done. Since we were carried upstream by the bus shuttle at the beginning, we just had to float down to Happy Hollow and get out.

It's a 2-3 hour float if you stay on your tube most of the time, but if you want to swim a long time, I assume you could make it an all day affair. It's up to you when you want get back on your tube and let the Frio carry you down to Happy Hollow.

We had a blast, I would use Happy...

Awesome place for any first timers at the Frío river. The young lady at the front desk was so helpful and welcoming for my family’s first time tubing together. The water levels were a bit low but right now this is the best tubing run in the frío river HOWEVER please be advised if you have small children or people who can’t swim too well, at the end of the run before you reach happy hollow again there’s a stretch of river that’s very slow moving and really deep so you have to paddle a bit but there’s no way you can get off your tube and reach the bottom. My family and I were okay but we did struggle a bit because of what we were carrying in the water and we would just like to warn other families since we didn’t know that would be there and a heads up to not get off your tube or some depth markers on their property would’ve been nice since they have so many other signs up about private property and such. Apart from that, we forgot some clothes we changed out of in the restroom and when we passed by the next day to ask about our items they were already dried and set outside on top of a rock. No one took our stuff and we were so grateful and thankful for this place. Awesome, friendly and fun experience all thanks to...