Lower Pigeon River Rafting Tour

Posted By : coryy785
Amazing trip! Our guide was “Rev” Dean and was wonderful. We “surfed” backwards, safely+intentionally bounced off of a big rock, jumped out to swim, spun in a circle with kids standing in the front, experienced a class 3, and had a lot of laughs. Highly recommended!
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Posted On : 2023-08-30

Posted By : GrandTour47410388961
We really enjoyed our rafting trip on the Lower Pigeon on Sunday! Our guide Ziggy kept us entertained, and in the boat. Really enjoyed ourselves!
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Posted On : 2023-08-28

Posted By : Kelly B
So I should give some advice as I downplayed the fact these were the lower falls and not the bigger rapids, we got plenty wet and definitely had to paddle through some rapids, it ends with level 3 rapids, some level 2 and some calm water with an opportunity to jump overboard and swim, then they pull you back in. You do not need your phone, you will be hanging onto a paddle and paddling through the trip, there's really not much time to get the phone out of its waterproof case and snap shots. The tour guides had funny stories and talked you through everything really well. I'm not sure we really needed to arrive 45 minutes early, but we are nearing the end of tourist season so maybe it's just slower, but we sat for that full 45 minutes waiting. I can see if you hadn't filled out wavers beforehand or purchased tickets before, there would be more paperwork. A good trip, had some exciting parts, I might even consider doing the upper falls, but honestly this was a good level of excitement no one was disappointed. My advice: leave the phones at home and bring a change of clothes (I got soaked while my kids got moderately wet and my husband was mostly dry, I regret not bringing a change of clothes as it was a 40 minute ride back to the hotel and the car seats are still wet)
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Posted On : 2023-08-17

Posted By : KluegerJ
Had a great time on the lower river trip. Went with our 3 year old, 6 year old and 11 year old. Enough excitement for the older 2 but mild enough for our “shark lookout”. Austin was our guide and he was amazing - fun, knowledgeable, good with the kids. Would definitely recommend!
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Posted On : 2023-08-03

Posted By : tirsabel
We did the lower pigeon River Rafting Tour (Family Float). It was easy to find location. Parking was easy. we did all the paperwork online, and so nothing to do after check in. the arrive 40 minutes early was a bit of a drain and seemed unnecessary. I can understand how arriving 15 minutes early would have been a bit of chaos. Essentially once you get there and check in, you are asked to wait on a big covered gazebo. July in Tennessee is hot hot hot. And waiting there with our kids, with no fans on for what ended up being at least 50 minutes. Once you are called off for your rafting group (7 or less people, plus guide), the guide will get you fitting with helmets and life jackets. They were great about making sure that we had well fitting life jackets. For the family float, you then walk down a little bit and the rafting take off point is right at the main office location. I think for the Upper pigeon river you have to take a bus to the take off point. We then got in our rafts and did a float down. The guide gave us local information about and taught us about the river. Once the rafting is done, we were loaded onto a bus for a short ride back to the main office, turned in our equipment and were done. Our guide was Hannah who was okay. It seemed there was a lot more playing around going on in the other rafts, my kids kept asking to splash water (pretty hot!), but none of that seemed to be encouraged by her, so I told them not to do it. I pre-bought the photo package for $44 online when we bought our tickets. Online it says they guarantee at least 10 photos of your raft. This ended up being 10 photos from all the same location. My mistake was to assume there would be 10 different photos, but essentially it was all the same photo, and about 12 of them. Not sure exactly how it would have worked. They had a wall of Venmo QR codes for all the guides, which also made tipping very easy and that was much appreciated.
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Posted On : 2023-07-29

Posted By : jackholla48
Request REVEREND DEAN THE DUNKING MACHINE because he was amazing. 75 never looked so young on someone and he was phenomenal at encouraging and coaching. We were the last boat to leave and ended up second as Rev Dean never got us into trouble (getting stuck or losing passengers). Great guy
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Posted On : 2023-07-27

Posted By : Martin_B
The trip was great and our guide, Logan, was excellent. He had a great knowledge of the River and surrounding areas and made it very fun, especially for our children
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Posted On : 2023-07-21

Posted By : zeybautista
Our raft guide, Tia, was excellent and very friendly. Learned a lot from her experience of the Smoky Mountains.
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Posted On : 2023-07-11

Posted By : G9706PFwilliamw
Overall a great experience, this company seemed to have their routine down and were very structured. Our float on the lower section went by slightly faster than we had hoped but had plenty of kid safe rapids and the kids were allowed to get out and swim at one point. (Quickly). Our guide Ashley barely spoke which made our trip very sleepy. She did her job of handling the trip safely but that’s about all. We saw that most of the other guides were trying to have fun, joke, and interact with their guests. We would use SMO again in the future and maybe even try the upper section as well.
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Posted On : 2023-06-23

Posted By : dklawler
This was our second rafting trip. We had a blast. We felt safe and the guides are awesome and great sense of humor. Thank you!
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Posted On : 2023-06-08