Cozumel Dolphin Discovery - how long at the park

[hnthomps]

We are signed up for this port adventure through Disney. On our itinerary it lists this as 8:45am - 12:15pm, and the overall description says "3 to 3.5 hours"

but then in the fine print below -
"Once the dolphin encounter is over, Guests are invited to enjoy the park until 5:00 PM. Guests must see staff at the park entrance before using the included taxi "

Does anyone have experience with this? I doubt we'd want to stay until 5pm, but could we really hang out for longer? Or is that just for people who have a later start time?

 

[MelSpees]

We did it years ago and yes you can stay afterwards. If it's the same one. There's more than one. They will give you a voucher for the taxi ride back.

 

[hnthomps]

We did it years ago and yes you can stay afterwards. If it's the same one. There's more than one. They will give you a voucher for the taxi ride back.

Thanks, I know we can stay after, I should be clearer - is there a limit to how long we can stay after? The large print says "plenty of time to explore" but lists the time as 845-1215 (and I assume the dolphin part is done by 930), but in the fine print it says until 5pm. would just love to know which it is in advance.

 

[MelSpees]

I believe it means the dolphin part would be over by then. You can almost certainly stay after that. (I hate to be "positive" about things, just in case they change.)

 

[lklgoodman]

We did this January 2017. We were done with the dolphin part around 11:45. We had a guide from the park who met us on the ship and took us to the shuttles and then met us at the park entrance. He went over everything that there is to do at the park and told us about the shuttles back to the ship. He then took us to where we did the dolphin swim. When we did it, the last shuttle to the ship left at 3pm, there were shuttles that left earlier. I didn't think we'd stay there that long, but easily could have stayed another 2-3 hours. We went to the free sea lion show, ate a great inexpensive lunch on the beach(there is a restaurant with inside seating next to the pool, we skipped it because it didn't have chicken fingers, my dd won't eat Mexican food). My dd played at the beach for awhile after lunch. The restaurant on the beach is about a 2-3 minute walk past the pool. We walked along the path with the mini-monuments, went to the tequila hut for free samples(very good, and we weren't pressured to buy anything, I did get a bottle of chocolate tequila though). By the time we did this we just had enough time to look through the gift shop and to get some ice cream. There were some other things we could have done, but ran out of time. We all really enjoyed it, my dd was 8 yrs old at the time.

 

[hnthomps]

We did this January 2017. We were done with the dolphin part around 11:45. We had a guide from the park who met us on the ship and took us to the shuttles and then met us at the park entrance. He went over everything that there is to do at the park and told us about the shuttles back to the ship. He then took us to where we did the dolphin swim. When we did it, the last shuttle to the ship left at 3pm, there were shuttles that left earlier. I didn't think we'd stay there that long, but easily could have stayed another 2-3 hours. We went to the free sea lion show, ate a great inexpensive lunch on the beach(there is a restaurant with inside seating next to the pool, we skipped it because it didn't have chicken fingers, my dd won't eat Mexican food). My dd played at the beach for awhile after lunch. The restaurant on the beach is about a 2-3 minute walk past the pool. We walked along the path with the mini-monuments, went to the tequila hut for free samples(very good, and we weren't pressured to buy anything, I did get a bottle of chocolate tequila though). By the time we did this we just had enough time to look through the gift shop and to get some ice cream. There were some other things we could have done, but ran out of time. We all really enjoyed it, my dd was 8 yrs old at the time.

This is so helpful. Thanks for all the detail. I know my kids (6&4) really want beach time, so I’m glad it seems like we won’t be rushed.

 

[MSPeeler]

Does anyone know current pricing on the photo package here, or if we are able to "haggle" the cost down??

We are looking at booking either Cozumel or Grand Caymen Dolphin Encounter and it's almost a $250 total price different for our family of 5 between the 2. I'm trying to find the difference between the 2.

Thanks!

 

[wanderlust7]

Does anyone know current pricing on the photo package here, or if we are able to "haggle" the cost down??

Yes, you can haggle. They'll start with some big number but that's digital plus prints. It's based on number of people. We were only 2 people, the digital only was $160. The lowest I got them to was $110, which happened to be the price for one person. So my theory is that they're able to lower the price by ringing it up as less people. I think it increases by $50 each additional person (from $110), so your family of 5 would probably be $310.

If you go to the sea lion show and get a photo of the sea lion kiss, those are $16/photo with the coupon they hand out. I couldn't get them to throw that in with the package.