Touring Plan for Discovery Cove?

[jenhelgren]

We will be visiting Discovery Cove for the first time this Fall. Is there a "touring plan" or any attractions that should be visited first, last, etc? For example, I read that the birds are more active in the am when the park opens, so we want to visit the aviary before lunch. Anyone have any other tips? TIA!

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Originally Posted by jenhelgren

We will be visiting Discovery Cove for the first time this Fall. Is there a "touring plan" or any attractions that should be visited first, last, etc? For example, I read that the birds are more active in the am when the park opens, so we want to visit the aviary before lunch. Anyone have any other tips? TIA!

The pure pleasure of DC is that is soooo relaxing. No touring plan needed. Admission is limited to 1000 guests per day so there are never any lines to concern yourself with.

If you are doing a dolphin swim, you will have an assigned time for that. The rest of your day is yours to enjoy as you see fit.

You are correct that the birds in the aviary are hungriest at park opening, so if you can do that first, that works well. For us, we visited later in the morning because we had our dolphin swim just before 10 am and breakfast before that. Even waiting a couple of hours, we got some great photos and still had fun with the birds (they may not have been "as hungry", but they were still willing to land on us and nibble a bit).

Our personal favourite was the lazy river. We enjoyed that section of the park multiple times. Others are partial to the Grand Reef. And of course, there's the new Freshwater Oasis (new since we were there on January 1st). My best advice is to "go with the flow" and eat when you want to eat, drink when you want to drink, swim when you want to swim, and chill on a lounger in the sun when you need a break. Hit all the areas of the park in whatever order you feel like and you will have an awesome day.

[brenda1966]

Going with the flow sounds great.

Along the same lines, is it easy to tell what time it is? Are there clocks around or should we plan to have a watch with us? Is there anything that closes early?

[curtisrs2]

I like the sound of this looking forward to our September trip thanks