Behind the scenes tours

[WaT05]

Does anyone know of any behind the scenes tours you can do about animals. My sister is really mad about wildlife/animals and I would like to do something a bit more special for her. I have heard of the Wildlife Safari thing at AK and the trainer for a day at Discovery Cove, has anyone done these? are they any good? Do sea world do any tours? Also can I book these when I arrive or do I have to do it beforehand?

Thanks
Hazel

 

[carolfoy]

I can only thin of Backstage Safari in Animal kingdom, wild by design in AK and Dolphins In Depth in Epcot. There is a private safari thing at Busch gardens as well.

 

[s.and.s]

Hi

Seaworld has a number of animal interaction tours on their website (see the "Interactive Programs" link) including "Marine Mammal Keeper Experience" (8 hours) or the shorter "Beluga Interaction Program" (up close with the Whales) and "Sharks Deep Dive" (up close with the sharks - in a cage)

All are pre-bookable from the web site.

Cheers

 

[CustardTart]

We did the Adventure Express Tour at Seaworld - it was fantastic and I totally recommend it. You book it via their web-site. I personally would pre-book all these type of tours as they are usually for a limited number of people.

SeaWorld's first-class six-hour tour includes:

* Front-of-the-line access to Kraken, Journey to Atlantis and Wild Arctic
* Reserved seating at two select shows including the Shamu Adventure
* Venture behind the scenes to touch a penguin
* Feeding dolphins, sea lions and stingrays
* A freshly prepared lunch

$89 plus tax per adult/$79 plus tax per child (ages 3-9)

 

[edinburghlass]

We did the Behind the Scenes Tour of the Dolphin Nursery in May and can highly recommend it. $40, kids have to be over 10, there is only 10 people in any one tour. You spend half an hour with a Seaword Guide near to the Dolphin Nursery talking and Q&A session about dolphins then you go through to the nursery for another 1/2 hour or so. One side of the nursery pool is closed off to the public and thats where you meet with 3/4 trainers and they split the group of 10 up with these trainers and you get to play, feed and do tricks with which ever dolphins are in the pool.

As you are in 3 groups by this time there is plenty of room and plenty of photo opportunites as well. We feed some babies, stroked the taunt tummy of a pregnant dolphin and then played tricks and feed another dolphin.

As the numbers are restricted you need to book but can do so online which is what I did

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h80/Edinlass/Amydolphin.jpg

 

[mikki.young]

We did Wild by Design and it was far better than we expected. There was some stuff about the design of the park but a lot more about quite a few of the animals than we expected. Very interesting and informative.