Dolphin Experience - Discovery Cove Florida or DCL Port Excursion?

[deniseyeosulyn]

Hi! DH and I having some trouble deciding where to take DD6 for a dolphin experience this December (mentioning this in case the time of the year makes a difference). We were first reeled in by the awesome Discovery Cove videos and reviews but we have also come to realise that we're not the kind of family who would spend a whole day in the sun/sand/sea/water - I blame it on the tropical locale we are from where we get 365 days of scorching sunshine.

Discovery Cove seems really cool and we really won't mind the free-flow of food and drinks (DH would certainly appreciate the alcoholic beverages) but we're wondering how a port excursion dolphin experience would match up. We're looking specifically at these excursions:

Dolphin Extreme Swim and Turtle Farm (Grand Cayman)

Dolphin Swim at Dolphinaris (Cozumel)

Dolphin Kids at Dolphinaris (Cozumel)

It costs half the price to opt for an excursion but I'm wondering if Discovery Cove is worth paying the extra for. Another factor is the availability - I would probably have to book Discovery Cove early and I'm not sure what the availability will be like in the event I wait and find the excursions all sold out when our window opens.

Would love to hear your thoughts or any recommendations/tips/advice you might have for us. Have you done any of these excursions? WWYD? Thanks!

~denise

 

[kathy884]

Hi! DH and I having some trouble deciding where to take DD6 for a dolphin experience this December (mentioning this in case the time of the year makes a difference). We were first reeled in by the awesome Discovery Cove videos and reviews but we have also come to realise that we're not the kind of family who would spend a whole day in the sun/sand/sea/water - I blame it on the tropical locale we are from where we get 365 days of scorching sunshine.

Discovery Cove seems really cool and we really won't mind the free-flow of food and drinks (DH would certainly appreciate the alcoholic beverages) but we're wondering how a port excursion dolphin experience would match up. We're looking specifically at these excursions:

Dolphin Extreme Swim and Turtle Farm (Grand Cayman)

Dolphin Swim at Dolphinaris (Cozumel)

Dolphin Kids at Dolphinaris (Cozumel)

It costs half the price to opt for an excursion but I'm wondering if Discovery Cove is worth paying the extra for. Another factor is the availability - I would probably have to book Discovery Cove early and I'm not sure what the availability will be like in the event I wait and find the excursions all sold out when our window opens.

Would love to hear your thoughts or any recommendations/tips/advice you might have for us. Have you done any of these excursions? WWYD? Thanks!

~denise

We haven't done the particular Dolphin experiences you talk about in the Caribbean, but personally I would do any of them before Discovery Cove. We've done Dolphin experiences in Key West, Ocho Rios, and Puerto Vallarta, all which gave much more dolphin time than DC and were way less expensive.

While Discovery Cove itself is a lovely place and how novel to do a Dolphin swim in central Florida, kind of like your Caribbean Dolphin day in the middle of Florida, the real Dolphin day in the Caribbean makes a heck of a lot more sense to me.

I'm probably jaded based on these other experiences, but at Discovery Cove, you get very little alone time with the dolphin. The trainer touches the Dolphin and says, not you do this. Your little swims tummy or back (I'd hardly call them swims) are the shortest little things I could believe for the price. There was so much interruption by the trainer and it felt really more like a photo shoot than a real dolphin experience to me. IMHO -- The Dolphin experience at Discovery Cove is LAME. That said DH and I (who were the only people by the way who had done dolphin experiences other places in our group) seemed to be the only people in our group that felt that way. Others in our group at Discovery Cover thought the dolphin swim was one of the coolest thing they had ever done. DS was in that group too, as Discovery Cove was his first dolphin swim. After getting a chance to do this other places, though, FYI he was in our camp and said the other places were far superior in terms of the dolphin swim experience.

Do note: The bird aviary, snorkeling area, etc. are all nice and well done at Discovery Cove. But do yourself a favor and do the real thing in the Caribbean if you are going to be there. It's expensive in Orlando, because they had to build everything from scratch and put it in the middle of Florida, a place that isn't connected to an ocean.

 

[deniseyeosulyn]

We haven't done the particular Dolphin experiences you talk about in the Caribbean, but personally I would do any of them before Discovery Cove. We've done Dolphin experiences in Key West, Ocho Rios, and Puerto Vallarta, all which gave much more dolphin time than DC and were way less expensive.

While Discovery Cove itself is a lovely place and how novel to do a Dolphin swim in central Florida, kind of like your Caribbean Dolphin day in the middle of Florida, the real Dolphin day in the Caribbean makes a heck of a lot more sense to me.

I'm probably jaded based on these other experiences, but at Discovery Cove, you get very little alone time with the dolphin. The trainer touches the Dolphin and says, not you do this. Your little swims tummy or back (I'd hardly call them swims) are the shortest little things I could believe for the price. There was so much interruption by the trainer and it felt really more like a photo shoot than a real dolphin experience to me. IMHO -- The Dolphin experience at Discovery Cove is LAME. That said DH and I (who were the only people by the way who had done dolphin experiences other places in our group) seemed to be the only people in our group that felt that way. Others in our group at Discovery Cover thought the dolphin swim was one of the coolest thing they had ever done. DS was in that group too, as Discovery Cove was his first dolphin swim. After getting a chance to do this other places, though, FYI he was in our camp and said the other places were far superior in terms of the dolphin swim experience.

Do note: The bird aviary, snorkeling area, etc. are all nice and well done at Discovery Cove. But do yourself a favor and do the real thing in the Caribbean if you are going to be there. It's expensive in Orlando, because they had to build everything from scratch and put it in the middle of Florida, a place that isn't connected to an ocean.

Thanks for the very sound advice, Kathy! Sounds so commonsensical, I don't know why I hadn't thought about it that way