Discovery Cove Cabana

[graceandhayes]

We have reservations for the Dolphin Swim Experience at Discovery Cove in early November. My wife and I are taking our 7yr old son and our daughter to celebrate her 6th birthday. We will probably spend most of our day in the water, but my wife does enjoy relaxing with an adult beverage. I see the private cabana costs $229. Is it worth the expense? I see it comes with a stocked refrigerator and an underwater camera. Any other benefits to having a cabana? I think someone mentioned you get discounts on the photo packages? What discounts and how much are they? Since it is November I don't think we will need the shade. Any suggestions - is it worth the money? Any other secrets for Discovery Cove. We are staying at the Springhill Suites and going to Sea World the next day. Thanks!

 

[Jenny3]

You can rent a cabana without the package for $169 (I think? Around that) You just can't reserve it until 3 weeks in advance.

If you search this forum for 'cabana', you will find lots of threads with info, photos and people's experiences to see if it is worth it for your family

 

[Treelight]

We went to DC early August. We chose the Premium Package with private cabana and loved it. I would absolutely do it again with the cabana and all. The package includes the private cabana, 6x8 photo, photo frame or plush toy, T-shirt, small backpack, underwater camera, personalized buoy delivered by dolphin and 25% off Ultimate Photo package. The private cabana was great. It boasts refrigerator, locker, basket of snacks, fresh towels, table and chairs, lounger chairs, and cabana attendant for the day. The frig was stocked with non-alcoholic bottled drinks in the morning. The cabana attendant takes your beverage preferences and keeps them stocked throughout the day and with alcoholic beverages after 11am. The attendant checks back several times throughout the day to keep items stocked. Even though lockers are included for everyone in the park, it was very convenient to have our locker in our cabana. As for pictures, park admission includes one 6x8 photo per party. This picture is taken after check-in along the path leading to the main park area. There are professional photogs in the water during dolphin experiences. They take really great photos. These pictures with be the majority of the photos to choose from at the end of the day. There are also professional photogs in the aviary and they love to take photos of people feeding birds, especially if the bird has landed on them. If they take your picture in the aviary, they take a picture of your ID badge to ensure your pictures get together at the end of the day. This worked great for us. No problems and we got some great shots of us feeding beautiful birds. I think our ULtimate photo package ended up costing around $175 with the package discount. This included DVD of dolphin experience, CD with all photos, photo album, poster size photo, 2 keychains, 4x6photo, 5or6 6x8 photos. I would suggest getting to DC early and making the most of the day. I think their website states that the park opens and 9am and check-in begins at 8am. I have heard other people say they checked in as early as 7:30am. I think the 9am time refers to the time swimming may begin, because breakfast is being served as people are checking in and vests/wetsuits are being handed out. Also, at the end of the day, guests may swim until the posted closing time, then shower, gather belongings and purchase photos. We ended our swimming at the posted closing time and we were never rushed out of the park by employees. After selecting photos and shopping the gift shop, we left the park around 8pm. Again, we were never rushed out by anyone. Hope this helps.

 

[cinderellamom123]

Ok, I don't want to be a debbie downer but I too initially had booked a cabana but cancelled it at last minute. Yes it does give you some goodies, but if you have a healthy family that is active, it probably won't get used much. I don't think I actually saw one family in their cabana the whole time I was there 7:30 am to 5:30 pm. The total time we sat was probably 45 minutes to eat a couple meals and that was it. They do look cool but it would have totally been money wasted. I was more happy drinking my adult beverage in the freshwater oasis lounge area. You get the same food and drink available to you without the cabana purchase. It is a tough call. If I had small children, a baby, or the elderly I would consider or family that like to take it very slow, but if you want to take advantage of all the park has to offer (since you are paying so much) I would think about it.

 

[jayster263]

Debbie is right....I was there Aug 28 and all day long I did not see anyone in any of the cabanas. There were reserved signs on most of them.

You are so busy with activities, you really do not spend too much time there, and there are hundreds of sun / shaded spots to plunk down your stuff and relax. The food is the same no matter where you eat, but then again, you dont go to DC to fill up on food! The drinks are plentiful throughout the park, and the cabanas, although nice and private, seemed a little too tucked away from the action. The lockers are all over the park too, and not a far walk no matter where you settle down.

I would suggest a cabana if you have a group of 8 or more, like a whole big family kind of party....that would be worth it so everyone stays centrally located and is together.

DC is awesome, and we found ourselves planning for the next trip there even before we left....the staff cannot do enough for you.

 

[cinderellamom123]

Debbie is right....I was there Aug 28 and all day long I did not see anyone in any of the cabanas. There were reserved signs on most of them.

You are so busy with activities, you really do not spend too much time there, and there are hundreds of sun / shaded spots to plunk down your stuff and relax. The food is the same no matter where you eat, but then again, you dont go to DC to fill up on food! The drinks are plentiful throughout the park, and the cabanas, although nice and private, seemed a little too tucked away from the action. The lockers are all over the park too, and not a far walk no matter where you settle down.

I would suggest a cabana if you have a group of 8 or more, like a whole big family kind of party....that would be worth it so everyone stays centrally located and is together.

DC is awesome, and we found ourselves planning for the next trip there even before we left....the staff cannot do enough for you.

Actually, if you have a party of 8 you need to book 2 cabanas. I believe anything over 6 people they make you have 2! budget buster

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

We were there on August 29th. We loved, loved, LOVED our cabana. We would rent one again in a heartbeat.

I loved the privacy of being able to get out of the sun and relax whenever we wanted to, whether for 5 minutes or an hour. Yes, there are loungers everywhere but they are out in the open and we like the privacy. We spied more than one relaxed individual sleeping soundly in the sun with their mouth wide open .... and many guests walking by and giggling at the sight of it. If we wanted to snooze, we could do so in the serenity of our cabana....mouths open and no one to chuckle at us .

It was wonderful having the personal attendant. We felt like VIP's.

I think the cabana choice is a very personal one. For families like ours, its a great value and a good vacation investment (we have now done DC twice this year, once with the cabana and once without, so we have had both experiences). For others, it might not be worth the cost. We also rented a cabana for both of our Aquatica days and again, we loved it and thought it was well worth the cost. Its very difficult for anyone to say "its not worth it" because everyone's criteria is different.

 

[graceandhayes]

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences with the cabanas. I truly apprciate your input and will use it to help make my decision.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Thought you might want some pics of the cabana and the premium package inclusions to help you decide yay or nay:

THE CABANA

FRIDGE AND LOCKER

SNACK BASKET

PREMIUM PACKAGE INCLUSIONS

 

[luvsvacations]

I was also one that had booked a cabana and then cancelled. I am glad we did. We got there early and got 5 lounce chairs with umbrella tables under tress. We got them at the Grand Reef. Perfect location for us. I was worried if we had to leave for some reason or if storms came thru. We did have a perfect day (this was August) and if we got hot we just took a few steps to the water. I did not want to be tucked away either. It was a great decision for us and my 78 year old mother was with us also. We were not there that much but she was happy as a clam under the umbrella "people watching".

 

[Littlenemo]

Thought you might want some pics of the cabana and the premium package inclusions to help you decide yay or nay:

Thanks for the photos. I've booked the elite package for our honeymoon and I'm very excited!

 

[chimo2u]

Thought you might want some pics of the cabana and the premium package inclusions to help you decide yay or nay:

THE CABANA

FRIDGE AND LOCKER

SNACK BASKET

PREMIUM PACKAGE INCLUSIONS

HI GINA! I've been anxiously awaiting your return thoughts on the CABANA!!! So happy to hear you felt it was worth it! I LOVE the pics, looks like you Got one of the more private ones overlooking the dolphin pool.....I requested o e of those,hope we get our request! I think I will keep our rental. The goodies/extras are nice, and it will be nice for my BFF/non-swimmer to have a resting spot to go to. I will also personalize the buoy for her, and she can have it as a keepsake, along with the dolphin stuffy for her new grandson!
It's paid for now, so I think I will keep my rental.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

HI GINA! I've been anxiously awaiting your return thoughts on the CABANA!!! So happy to hear you felt it was worth it! I LOVE the pics, looks like you Got one of the more private ones overlooking the dolphin pool.....I requested o e of those,hope we get our request! I think I will keep our rental. The goodies/extras are nice, and it will be nice for my BFF/non-swimmer to have a resting spot to go to. I will also personalize the buoy for her, and she can have it as a keepsake, along with the dolphin stuffy for her new grandson!
It's paid for now, so I think I will keep my rental.

Hey there!

Our cabana was actually by the Grand Reef. If you click on my trip report link in my signature, you can see a bunch more pics of the cabana and our day at DC (not quite done the entire DC report, but its well underway....just uploaded some photos a few minutes ago!). If there's anything specific you wanted to know, feel free to ask away.

We loved having the cabana. Yes, its an extra expense. Yes, its an indulgence. Yes, there are lots of spaces to sit at the park without having the cabana. But....all that said, we LOVED having our own private space. We LOVED the extra inclusions. We LOVED having our own private locker away from the public ones, our own fridge, and the overhead cover with the fan (you will see my DH decided to snooze for an hour in the early afternoon....and it was so nice that he could do that in privacy!!). And for us, it was affordable as our admission rate was only $69 pp.

I hope you have an awesome time!!! Do be sure to report back and let me know what you thought of the cabana as well!