Tubing down the Rainbow River

One night talking with some of Duane's family they had said that they went tubing down the Rainbow River and it was a blast.  This got me thinking that this would be something fun to do with the kids and so I started checking into it.  There are many places along the Rainbow River to rent tubes to do a float and most have either a 2 hour or 4 hour float that you can do.  I thought 4 hours in the river was a bit much for our first adventure, so we decided on the 2 hour float.  I did some checking of prices with the many facilities and came across Dragonfly Watersports. It was on $10 per person for the float and $5.00 for parking.  It was not in the Rainbow River State Park itself so there was more of a chance that it would not fill up as quickly. As with all of the other State Park's here in Florida, it is first come, first serve and when the parking lots fill up the parks are closed.

DragonFly opens at 9:00am and the last launch is at 2:15 pm so I wanted to get there before the rush.  Dunnellon, FL is about an hour and a half from Windermere, so I made the kids get up early and told them to sleep in the car on the way over.  We started out about 7:30 am.  When we arrived we were the first people at the place.  The paperwork and registration was very small and we were heading off to the bus that would take us up the 2.5 miles to where our adventure would begin.  The water was COLD!!! but after a little time it became very comfortable and it was really cool how the water was so clear you could see the bottom of the river.  The floor of the river is covered in what looks like grass (pic) below was taken with my camera looking down into the water. Many time we were able to see the fish that were following us on our float.  The kids really enjoyed it and I think next time we may go for the 4 hour or try one of the spots that actually dumps us into the Rainbow River State Park.  The scenery was just beautiful and we were able to see many types of wildlife, no gators though, which was good because I don't know if the kids would have continued down the float had we seen any.  The float ends back at the place we parked so there is not a lot of hiking the tube around.

Rainbow Springs State Park Tube Facility

10830 SW 180th Ave. Rd. Dunnellon, Fl 34432

(352) 465-4035

Opens in April on weekends only and then after Memorial Day is open through the weekdays.  Thursday - Monday