My bf and I did the 4h adventure tour “Haggas Honking Hole”. It was amazing! We had quite high expectations because of their exciting commercial video and the good reviews, but despite that we differently didn’t get disappointed! It was exciting from the very first minute of the tour and continued all the way to the end! We where only 4 people and had 2 guides with us, so you are very well looked after the whole time.

Be prepare to get wet. Expect to be active. Prepare for lots of fun.

If you are only here to see lots of glow worms don’t do this tour. You will see them several places in the cave, but not in huge amounts. But if you are ready for the most fun you have every had in a cave and at the same time enjoy the beauty of it, I would totally recommend this tour!

I may come back and try one of the other tours they have, cause this was absolutely worth the money! Thanks for an awesome day

This was a difficult activity for me to choose a rating for, as although the experience was overall enjoyable and the staff were lovely, it wasn't at all what we expected and not really "as advertised"

There are a few things I'd address:

Overall experience: overall this was an enjoyable cave exploring experience- and cave exploring is how I would describe it, rather than a toobing experience. You climb down a ladder into a moderately sized cave network, and spend a few hours down there exploring. The cave is very interesting to look at, and our guide was knowledgeable. You do a combination of climbing, swimming, and sitting in a tube- but ultimately the majority of your time down there will be spent walking around in the cave. The drive from the base area to the tubing area is has some really stunning scenery, and some cute sheep- which was a nice bonus

The cold: I have seen some fairly dramatic reviews in here about how cold it was down there. We went in what would be described as late autumn/winter. As someone from a much warmer climate than NZ, I'm incredibly sensitive to cold so was pretty worried about this- however the wetsuits really do do a lot, and I wouldn't say that at any point in the trip I was unbearably cold and certainly not anywhere near close to hypothermia (the temp was nowhere near actual freezing level).

The toobing- the water in the caves is basically completely still, so if you're expecting a fun, action filled tubing/rafting experience this is not it- you pull yourself along on a rope in the water- not really what I had envisioned. Overall in the entire tour, you spend about 30minutes tubing. There is definitely a lot more swimming and generic cave exploring than there is tubing.

Fitness level: We were a young/healthy couple (i.e. not overweight etc) however we are not fitness junkies or regular hikers/cave explorers etc. Honestly, we found this trip pretty exhausting as- as above, it is mostly climbing through the cave for a few hours, and we weren't really expecting that. There are also quite a few points where the climbing can be quite precarious. I wouldn't really recommend it to children or people with a particularly poor fitness level. You're not going to die of a heart attack, but it won't necessarily be a fun time either.

Claustrophobia- unless you have true claustrophobia, I doubt this will be an issue. I am an anxious person and was worried about this from when I saw the small hole with a ladder heading into the cave. I thought "what have I gotten myself into". But the tightest parts are early on, and they consider this somewhat of a "claustrophobia test"- if you freak out at the beginning they won't take you the rest of the way. I didn't have any issues, and there are a few points where the guide will give you an option of the "easy way" or the "fun way" (i.e. more challenging way)

Photos: access to a dropbox with your photos is now given FREE which is a nice addition but should have always been the case given the price of the activity. It sucks that you can't bring your phone/camera down there "at your own risk" as this activity is never really "extreme" enough that a water resistant phone or camera in a good case wouldn't be safe

Ultimately, I would advise simply changing the name of this particular tour, as "Toobing" really only plays a minor part in the few hours that you are there, and ends up being a bit misleading as a title. What it is- is an interesting all-rounder cave tour which would be a good option for beginners who want to explore around a cave, see a couple of glow-worms (there aren't HEAPS like you see in some of the waitamo photos- they look cool, but I'm not sure I'd describe them as "breath-taking") - without getting themselves into a full-day trip with abseiling etc.

If someone had a clear understanding of what it really is and liked the sound of it- I'd recommend this particular company as they were professional, friendly, and made the experience fun- it is also a slightly smaller company, meaning that your tour could be small- in our case, a "private tour" with just myself, my partner and the guide. However, for the money (nearly $200 each), I probably would opt for a different activity if I were in NZ again.