My neighbor Norma said don't caulk the tub until it's bone dry, and she was dead right
I rushed a bathroom redo last month in my house in Boise and caulked a wet tub surround anyway, and the bead peeled off in 4 days. Norma has been fixing up her place for 30 years and just said "wait a full day, kid," which felt like forever at the time. How long do you all let things dry before caulking, or do you use a hair dryer to speed it up?
Learned that same lesson the hard way when I caulked my shower surround while it was still damp and watched the whole bead curl up within a week. Waiting a full day really does feel like forever when you just want the job done, but Norma knows what she is talking about because that moisture has to escape or the caulk will never stick. Skip the hair dryer and just give it the time, since rushing it costs way more than waiting.