Tomb Of Annihilation - Advice

So the group bought into ToA and I'm starting the deep dive into the game.  Mostly Chapter 1 and 2 for the time being.  I've picked up all the DMGuild Guides recommended as well as Cellar of Death which I think I will start the players off of, though once I read the adventure I'll try to piece things together as to how it fits in with ToA.  

The biggest struggle I see besides the overwhelming freedom and the camping trip from hell is that most of the players are SpeedRunners.  Meaning, they don't spend time to smell the flowers and explore but 'let's go and kill things as fast as we can'.  When I said Tomb Of Annilihation they all perked up like 'dungeon crawl!'  Sure, there is but not for a couple of months. 

Well, time to read up, I have a month before the game will start with Cellar after that it's all Random Hex Direction from here. 

Also be aware that the tomb itself is extremely puzzle heavy; yes there is combat involved, but the puzzles/traps are more prevalent than the monsters in many ways.  My group found this frustrating.

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

Also be aware that the tomb itself is extremely puzzle heavy; yes there is combat involved, but the puzzles/traps are more prevalent than the monsters in many ways.  My group found this frustrating.

 Troll them real hard with Tomb of Horrors. Basically just watch any video called "the deadliest dungeon in D&D". I ran it as a 3-shot, and the party TPKed at the blood trap.

Quote from BKThomson >>

So the group bought into ToA and I'm starting the deep dive into the game.  Mostly Chapter 1 and 2 for the time being.  I've picked up all the DMGuild Guides recommended as well as Cellar of Death which I think I will start the players off of, though once I read the adventure I'll try to piece things together as to how it fits in with ToA.  

The biggest struggle I see besides the overwhelming freedom and the camping trip from hell is that most of the players are SpeedRunners.  Meaning, they don't spend time to smell the flowers and explore but 'let's go and kill things as fast as we can'.  When I said Tomb Of Annilihation they all perked up like 'dungeon crawl!'  Sure, there is but not for a couple of months. 

Well, time to read up, I have a month before the game will start with Cellar after that it's all Random Hex Direction from here. 

 Teach them early on that once they leave port, there are really very little to no places to buy gear. Hint to them (most likely through a guide) that many famed adventurers have lost their lives in the jungle, even the ones that were "well equipped...nudge nudge, wink wink". This lets them know that the only way they're getting upgrades to their Lvl1 gear is to slow down, explore, search for treasure troves (even the small ones), and investigate ruins.

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

Also be aware that the tomb itself is extremely puzzle heavy; yes there is combat involved, but the puzzles/traps are more prevalent than the monsters in many ways.  My group found this frustrating.

 And I believe my group may be the same way if they run into more puzzles than anything else.  I think they want something more Diablo-esque type of game which I'm reading into ToA is not that type of adventure.  I need to look deeper into the game besides the first two chapters to get a better feeling of what they are getting into before raising a flag to them.

Quote from Sigvard_Vigrid >>

 Teach them early on that once they leave port, there are really very little to no places to buy gear. Hint to them (most likely through a guide) that many famed adventurers have lost their lives in the jungle, even the ones that were "well equipped...nudge nudge, wink wink". This lets them know that the only way they're getting upgrades to their Lvl1 gear is to slow down, explore, search for treasure troves (even the small ones), and investigate ruins.

 Yeah, I'll need to drop a lot of hits or directives from the guides because I know they will speedrun the Port to get out into the jungle as fast as they can.  

we are just starting this adventure and we didn't really know what to do when we got to port. we kind went crazy and chased down dinosaurs. I made a mobile home on a brocasourus before our dm got tired and just teleported us to him. maybe give more directions 

When i played it, the port city was kinda meh.

The exploration of the jungle was kinda meh. A lot of random monster encounters. A massive map to explore trying to find thr lost city. You couldnt really employ any strategy, just stumble around the jungle.until you found the city. 

Once we found the the city, we immediately lost our guide. Felt a little "this is just what happens and you cant do anything about it". Then we started exploring the city, looking for keys. Standard mcguffin hunt.

 And the tomb was endless, random, deadly traps, many of which had instantaneous effects of the "save or die" variety.  So we crawled through the tomb being doubly extra precautious about everything, moving painfully slow, trying to perception check every grid square for signs of traps, staring at puzzle stuff for waay too long. A lot of times there was nothing in the hallway, but once in a while, bam, dex save, oh you failed? You just got disintegrated and are dead, no recovery possible.  Yay?

I think the best way to deal with the Tomb as a player is to use disposable characters, and just speed run it. If you die, just bring in your backup character. And have probably 3 backup characters. Dont bother with a long backstory.

Not a lot of player agency in toa.