Leave the drunken, partying college kids to the public Salt River tubing area and take this private tube experience instead!
Perfect for families. My husband and I brought 2, 14 year old tech geek boys and we all loved every minute of the 45-60 minute tube float.
They offer a 3 hour float which does leave their private area (Sheep's crossing) and enters the public area. However they also have the 45-60 minute float that stays in their private area, which you can do as many times as you'd like. This is what we did.
When exiting, there is a short walk back to the Ranch and the water entry point. It is partly on some sand/gravel and partly on the side of the Ranch access road. It was not difficult, but did slightly incline. They advertise a 10 minute walk, we did it in about 5-6 minutes.
After entering the water, we had some baby "rapids" (think itty bitty bumps) and then a smooth flowing ride to another set of "rapids" before exiting (which is clearly marked).
There is a small pull over beach to play at along the route and an awesome rope swing at the end.
The scenery and the quiet was amazing. Even the teenage boys took advantage of the serenity the first trip down the river. The second trip we played and frolicked much more, even spending 30+ minutes out of our tubes at the "beach".
In between floats, we had our picnic lunch on the Ranch's large grassy area along the water and under giant shady trees. The staff held our car keys and coolers in their office for us while we floated.
The staff at Saguaro Lake Ranch were beyond amazing. I called from home in San Diego the week before and Jaime answered all my tedious first-timer questions. We got calls and emails from them to keep us appraised of our trip details as we got closer to our trip date.
Things to bring-
*Old twin sized bed sheets to cover the black (HOT!!) tubes
*rope to tie tubes together (especially if you have smaller kids)
*water shoes
*water/Gatorade
*picnic lunch
*waterproof camera
The day we went, it was 115 degrees and the water was at 12 (can't remember the unit of measure-something about its flow rate?).
Will definitely be back to flat here again. It was just about perfect!