Manatee swim

[a jay]

Has anyone ever done this with sunshine tours? would love to do this but need a little info on the company before going ahead and booking. I think it's based in Homassosa??? Anyone know how far this is out of Disney area and possibly looking for accomadation over night as you have to be ready for the tour and swim at 7.00am as this is the most active time for the manatee.
Any advice would be great...

 

[gemmybear83]

I thought manatees were protected and covered by some US conservation ruling that meant werent able to get close to them? Maybe wrong though!

 

[joolz1910]

I am sure Emma (TheLittleMermaid) has done this a while ago - no idea which company or anything. I'm sure she'll reply when she sees the thread.

 

[Scottish-Helen]

Hi, we did a manatee swim at Crystal River last December, we booked through Gray Line tours mainly because they did the day of the week that we wanted. We got picked up in Orlando at around 6am and the drive was approx 1.5 hours to Crystal River. We went to the dive shop to get our wetsuits and watched a video about the manatees and were given instructions on how we could interact with them as they are a protected species. We then went to the river and snorkelled with them for about 1 hour and we had 3 of them around our group of 7. It was a fantastic experience to be up close with these amazing creatures and I would recommend this tour to anybody. After the swim we had lunch at a pub and then visited a wildlife park. I know that other operators include an airboat ride but this was not something that was included in the tour that we booked.

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

I did this back in 2004 and it included the visit to the nearby zoo (cannot remember the name sorry) and a ride on airboat. It was amazing and well worth the money.

If you love Manatees like me then it really is worth experiencing. It was one of them life time experiences for me and if i get the chance i would love to do it again.