Dolphin Discovery at Chankanaab National Park

[mrsoc]

Is it possible to book the dolphin encounters privately or you have to go through DCL?

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

Is it possible to book the dolphin encounters privately or you have to go through DCL?

You can do so but the cruise lines take most slots

Booking via DCL you get organisation, transportation and guaranteed times, by yourself you have to organise your own transport and may have to wait, if anything went wrong your own your own, but with DCL they care for you.

DCL have high safety standards and you need thoose.

 

[gailg3horses]

Yes you can and its very easy and much cheaper. We took a taxi to the park. You just can't tell them you're on a cruise, because of the contracts if you do they may turn you away. If you book online just choose staying with friends. When you go take off your ship lanyard and the kids club bands. We did it last June and it was so easy and fun. We booked the royal swim which was a better experience than DCL was offering. So glad we did it that way.

 

[SueTravelsWithKids]

Personally I think it's such an easy and safe place to visit that I would do it on my own and pay at the gate as long as you get off the boat early. Its easy to get a safe taxi at cozumel. You walk down the pier, through the nice shopping area to the taxi station. They are required to dress a certain way if i recall so you know you have a safe one. It is also super easy to catch a taxi back from chakanaab. they will even call one for you if needed. We saw all of the disney cruise tours arrive about an hour and a half after us and we were already done with our dolphin experience. Also they didn't charge for my son because he was little (4). we payed for everything at the gate. We saved several hundred doing it on our own (for 5). We didn't all do the dolphin but my husband and son did. There is a nice swimming pool that you can watch those doing the dolphins while you wait, Be mindful you won't be able to take pictures even if you observe. Its just too far and they try to lock you into buying theirs. That is pretty standard on most dolphin excursions though.

Chakanaab is beautiful with Or without the Dolphins we really enjoyed the beach area and there are some cool rocks the kids could climb on. There are several bars if thats your thing. And a fee different food choices. There's a really nice trail you can take him for a walk and see animals. The staff we encountered was all very friendly I was very surprised how big it was.

 

[mich711]

Hi,
I am new on the board and I am going to book dolphin discovery on my own; however, they required one kid with one paid adult, but we have 3 kids with two adult. Will they stop you to attend the program because you don't have 3rd adult with kids?

 

[AMiller22]

We have booked this through DCL - hopefully it's a great day - any reviews??

 

[suzan101]

We have booked this through DCL - hopefully it's a great day - any reviews??

We did this last year and had an amazing time. Our dd was 6 at the time and we were a bit nervous that she would not want to participate but she loved every minute. The pictures are really expensive I believe it was about $150 but you get them on a disc and we didn't buy pictures on the boat so we splurged there. This was definitely an amazing time.

 

[suebedo]

Yes you can and its very easy and much cheaper. We took a taxi to the park. You just can't tell them you're on a cruise, because of the contracts if you do they may turn you away. If you book online just choose staying with friends. When you go take off your ship lanyard and the kids club bands. We did it last June and it was so easy and fun. We booked the royal swim which was a better experience than DCL was offering. So glad we did it that way.

We just did this excursion through DCL but I wish we had done it on our own. The park is beautiful! The dolphin excursion was wonderful. It just took too long to get there. We were constantly stopping to check head count and moving to next section, only to stop & re check & recheck again while moving thru the market to get to taxi stand. There are no official buses. We as a group made our way thru market & our guide rounded up taxis for our group of prob 30 people. More of the same when we got to the park. I think we got in the water after about 2 hours of leaving the boat. I feel like we would have had much more time to explore the park if we had gone on our own.

 

[CruiseKris]

If we take a taxi over, do they accept credit cards or American dollars? Wasn't sure if we would need some Mexican currency on hand?

 

[steph12]

Has anyone ever booked this online with Dolphin Discovery? It shows on their website that kids are free in 2015 with a paying adult. Didn't know if this is legit or not!

 

[mary0305]

We have booked this excursion thru a tour operator in Cozumel. The price was much cheaper than thru DCL and more activities with the dolphins were included in the price. A lunch buffet and 2 non-alcoholic drinks for each person were also included. I have been very impressed with this company's customer service so far thru emails and phone calls. I also liked the flexibility of going on our own. I will be glad to PM the name of the company to anyone since I don't know if I am allowed to post it here.