Penobscot Adventures

Whitewater rafting at its best! The best guides ever, we had Big Joe and he was outstanding! So friendly and knowledgeable! He is super down to earth and easy going! Would totally do it again! We did the all day trip and it was so worth it! The lunch they serve was amazing. The river rice was on point! This was a very wonderful overall experience from the rafting to the food and our favorite was the people! I’m not sure what other places in the area offer but I wouldn’t even bother because we had such an amazing time with P.A. We will definitely return when we come back!

Tons of fun! All the guides there are good-​natured, personable, and knowledgeable about the river. We’ve been twice with this company, and couldn’t be happier with the experience. Everything from the staff to the lunch completely exceeded my expectations. Plus, the fact that they take photos of you while you’re rafting is nice too, for those who want keepsakes.

I thought these guy’s were great. On the river we bumped into quite a few companies, but ours really seemed to be superior. Our guides were sensitive to the needs of the boat, knew the river very well and delivered exactly what we wanted. As a college age group we wanted thrills and spare the leisure cruise. We certainly got that as they gave us extra time to «surf» the rapids and did the more challenging sections twice as opposed to a lazy river experience for the first half. When a few boat members were too shaken to go on the guide offered to let them off in a safe place or modify the route which I think is important. The clubhouse you leave from and come back to is very nice and has drinks and a hot tub. The lunch really leaves a lot to be desired and the guides are expected to cook as well.
Overall, I was very pleased with our guides and the experience we had.

Group Damage Report:
5 Overboard passengers
1 Lost Rainbow flip flop
4+ Bumped heads
1 Dislocated thumb
7 Whitewater rafters who were disappointed that it was over
\O/​\O/​Save me!
_____/_\______/_\______ _​/​
{ } ‘
###\\^^^~~~\O/~~~\O/~~~~~~\O/~~~~~~~\O/~~\O/~~~
We had a super fun guide named James who purposely tipped us out of the raft on the first fall. I was only annoyed because I lost one of my Rainbows and subsequently walked around sans one shoe the rest of the day. Sigh. I liked his style of teaching, which was more of a «Let’s try it and learn along the way» rather than «Practice this, practice that.»
In the shadow of Mt. Katahdin, we drifted down the Penobscot River on nothing more than a giant balloon. The trip started off with class 2 and 3 rapids on the lower portion of the Penobscot River. It was complete with a stop by a huge natural water slide and more rapids before lunch. There’s a couple hours of drifting and really taking in the beauty of wild Maine (which was a welcome and green relief from concrete NYC), so if you know all of your raft-​mates, it’s slightly more pleasant. We played games and riddles for a large portion of the drifting time. Poor James got stuck with playing our games too.
A BBQ lunch is provided by Penobscot Adventures and it included all-​you-​can-​eat steak or chicken or veggie burgers, pasta salad, an AMAZING rice dish that I would gladly consume again, bread rolls, cookies, sugary lemonade, and of course, water.
After lunch, we piled back onto the buses for the best part of the whitewater rafting trip — the class 5 rapids. With names like Turkey Shooter, the Exterminator, and the Cribworks, can you really go wrong? The class 5 rapids were infinitely more fun than class 3 and 4. From now on, it’s 5 all the way, baby! I wonder if I can convince my friends to make this an annual trip…

First I would like to mention I did read Andrew F.‘s review of Penobscot Adventures after booking a rafting trip. So needless to say I was somewhat apprehensive about my trip.
I booked a Penobscot Utlimate (two runs thru the Rip. Gorge). I spoke with a very kind women named Maureen and explained to her that I was a solo rafter looking to join a group that needed 1 extra. I prefaced the conversation with a few requests. 1. I wanted to be in a raft with 4 – 6 people at the most. 2. I requested a guide who would purposely (not recklessly) take aggresive lines and «go big». She said she had a trip opening on the 15^th of Aug. that fit the bill. I told her I was very flexible and if she couldn’t sort out my requests I certainly would/​could understand and I would try another company. I told her I didn’t want to drive 7 hours and end up in boat of 8 or more its simply not the ride down the river I wanted. She assured me that this was not going to be a problem even going as far as to give me the name of one of her top guides.
So I was very suprised to find out that morning that I would be in a raft with not 6, 7 or 8 people but with 9! I thought about bitching but decided that I would make the best of it simply because I wasnt about to turn around and drive 7 hours back home without at least giving it a try.
The guide was a young lady from Washington State who was friendly enough and at least talked a good game. The first run through Rip. Gorge and the Crib was hardly a class V experience as the guide took very conservative lines especially into Extermo. After a very good but extremely heavy lunch (steak) I approached the guide and asked if she could be a bit more aggresive on this run. She said she would try. We did take a pretty good hit on Extermo. but missed the Staircase altogether. Then the «fun» began. We/​she missed the Turkey Chute by a solid foot and flipped the raft. Game on! I swam the entire Crib missed the Room of Doom and preceded to swim the Arches before being fished out half drowned, with a sprained ankle and a smashed knee. Myself along with another rafter were done for the day due to our injuries. Thats rafting I know… but damn at least help me off the bus, help carry my gear, drop me off closer to base camp… something!!! I was left to hobble back to base camp using a paddle as a crutch. I thought that was very uncool.
So all in all I will be rafting again but it will not be with Penobscot Adventures. With a plethora of choices in these hard economic times you would think customer service would be at the top of the list. Do what you to tell the customer you are going to do or they will go elsewhere… Business 101. Sorry Dan and Maureen you lost a future customer.
The company would be better served by addressing the concerns of those who didn’t have a great time or had some issues rather than getting people to post praising the efforts of the company while attempting to rebutt every little negative thing said. I have no axe to grind and I did compliment Maureen and the lunch was great, I bought the DVD. I know the risks involved but damn, you know you got two rafters with knee injuries help them out of the bus you had to help them in its common sense. I have been rafting for over 20 years and simply not all companies are equall and this one is NOT perfect. Did I have fun, hell ya. If you havent had to swim a class V you havent been rafting, People who actually reference Unilocal will see through a company soliciting rebuttal reviews.

To become a raft guide you don’t need to be able to do a whole lot. You don’t need to be in good shape (strong yes, healthy no). You don’t need to cut back on drinking or hard living. You don’t need to be educated about anything but the river. What do you need to become a raft guide? You need to be good with people, you need to know that you are providing people with a once in a lifetime experience, and you need to make sure you are keeping everyone safe. Until this past Saturday I have never felt unsafe on the Penobscot River.
The guide that I was provided was Dan McDonald, the co-​owner of Penobscot Adventures. The trip started out fairly well. We geared up at their camp and met with the adorable couple in their 50’s who would be the only other two joining us on our boat. The other boat was five huge guys from Nova Scotia and their guide was going to be a portly comedian named Bob. We started the trip at the lower half of the river and when I inquired why, Dan told us that it was because the upper half was more challenging and that it gave us a chance to learn to work together. This is certainly correct, the Class IV and V rapids are up top and it is actually a great idea to practice lower down (even if I don’t personally like the shuttle back to the top — it drags the day from a five/​six hour trip to an eight hour one).
The second we were on the water though everything changed. Dan immediately started criticizing everyones stroke and instead of just trying to teach it actually just insulted the crew saying; «None of you have ever been taught how to paddle.»
Now I haven’t been guiding on the Penobscot for more than ten years as he has but I’ve gone rafting more than twenty-​five times, ten or so on the Penobscot. I’ve gone on 40 and 90 mile canoe trips and I have been told over and over by countless guides and friends that my stroke is correct; I’ve even asked to be critiqued by folks I felt did a terrific job. Dan felt that his experience trumped any of ours and broke the first cardinal rule of guiding; he was rude to his customers. This is a once in a lifetime experience for many people as I mentioned and for the couple with us he was just beginning to make it one of the most stressful life experiences they would probably ever have.
While talking about how I didn’t know how to paddle, Dan also insisted on pointing out that I had no idea how to properly hold on. He asked if Northern Outdoors taught me and I said yes, to which he replied, «I knew it. I could tell from the way you hold your paddle.» Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve never gone rafting with Northern Outdoors. Time and time again during this trip he talked trash about other rafting companies even having the audacity to talk about his superior safety record.
Having gone in boats over the first fall we were going to take I knew the exact two routes that one can take and I immediately knew that the tail end of the boat was not where it should be. I’ll take credit for my falling out to an extent, had I been faster with grabbing the hold on rope (which he never called for me, or the 50 year old grandmother who fell out as well, to hold onto) I would have never fallen into the water. I took in a deep breath of water and I was freaking out; I couldn’t breathe and I was not close to the boat. When I finally got back next to the boat they were in calm water and where was Dan? In the back, watching two other people lift me into the boat. Second cardinal rule broken; never make your guests feel unsafe. It is his job, his responsibility to make sure that everyone gets back in the raft and he should be number one trying to help us both in, especially when in water calm enough that he has no need to steer.
From that point on it was just one unpleasant experience with Dan after another. The boat was noticeably shaken up after this experience and he insisted on doing some ‘surfing’. Being in a service field is about being able to read your customers and it was clear that he had no skill in this. He could not read the fear on that woman’s face, or the discomfort on the faces of the rest of us. Once done with surfing he had the gall to actually make fun of the woman for her fearful behavior. How dare he. Who does he think he is? This woman had never gone rafting before and because of his incompetence he tried to make her feel bad.
I have never met anyone with less empathy and more arrogance.
I could go on and on about the things that made this a terrible experience (like the fact that he asked us our political leanings, our feelings on global warming, swore profusely, and talked about the best way to murder someone and get away with it) but instead I’m going to just say that under no circumstance would I recommend anyone in any situation to go rafting with this company.