sadlerbaby38
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2013
- Messages
- 3
Hello All! I've been creeping on these boards for a few months gathering info for our Discovery Cove Day and I thought I'd post about it to help others since everybody here was so helpful to me. We went for my husband (29) and I's (27) first anniversary. We brought along my mother (58), brother (26), and his girlfriend (24). We got the elite package that included the cabana and photo package and also did the dolphin interaction and sea venture, so we basically got every upgrade that you could get. I have to admit that I've wanted to go here for 10 years, and after reading all the great reviews, expected nothing but an exceptional day. While it was fun overall, we did run into issues that did ruin our experience a little bit.
We got there at 7am, which I highly recommend doing, and we were brought up to the counter to check in. The reason you should go that early is...it does take 10 to 15 minutes to check in (if you have a big group) because they need to take your picture to put on your key (ticket) that you keep around your neck (this is also the ticket used to go to Seaworld and Aquatica). Also, you need to take a group photo when you first walk in after check in and we ran into a little line waiting to do that. Then if you have a cabana, you need to go to guest relations to retrieve the where-abouts of it, then eat breakfast and arrive to get your swimwear and goggles. By the time you do all of this, the park will be open and you can immediately go to wherever you want instead of wasting an hour or more doing those things AFTER it opens. Like many others have said on here, the day goes by extremely fast so you'll want to have as much time as you can to do the fun stuff.
Our main issues/problems dealt with our cabana and attendant. I won't go into details because there are too many, but we dealt with some very rude employees and our attendant didn't give us very good service, to put it kindly.
To people who are curious about renting cabanas, even though we had a bad attendant, we all still agreed it was worth the money. If you want privacy, the secluded one we had was very nice and it was right at the entrance of the serenity pool which is also the entrance and exit to the lazy river. It was not the location we hoped for but we did the lazy river so many times that it was nice to get right out of the water and to have our cabana a foot away. Our cabana had the "gate" going into it and it had a lot more room than the newer ones. We were shown both options (the newer and older ones) and the older ones are much nicer, IMO. Another very secluded one, with a gate, is between the grand reef and dolphin lagoon. It you want a more open one, there are 4 side by side right in front of the grand reef. There are no gates to these ones and there is a lot less room and people all around them, so it really is a based on what you prefer. Another nice thing about where ours was located was it was very close to the restaurant, one of the snack bars, and bathrooms, so it ended up being close to everything. We were able to eat our lunch in the cabana and it was nice getting away from the people for 15 minutes at a time if you wanted to.
The first thing you definitely want to do is go feed the birds, if that interests you because they will have so much food given to them in the morning that they won't even care by the afternoon. We went first thing and had a ton of different birds landing on us and eating the food we had. There are 3 different rooms, and each room as a different variety of birds. It was very cool.
Next because my husband and I had an 11:30 dive time for Sea Venture, we all decided to head over to the grand reef and swim there until our time came since Sea Venture is part of the grand reef and that way we wouldn't have to rush to get to the other side of the park. I loved the grand reef, but it did seem awfully crowded to me and the salt water does take a little time to get use to. Beware the water is cold! We all wore wet suits though and once you get use to it, you don't even notice how cold it felt when you first got in. The water was very clear and I had a nice underwater camera and got some great pictures.
Sea Venture was next and they make you sign a waiver and watch a short video to learn all the hand signals. There are about 7 or 8 of them. This was the highlight of the day for me and I highly recommend everyone try it if they can. It was a very fun experience. After the video, they ask if anyone wants a digital camera to use. It was funny because the cameras they gave out were the exact same camera that I had, even the same color! After we were done, 3 different employees tried to take my camera because they thought it was the park's. You climb down a ladder and when you are shoulder deep, they put the helmet on you and you slowly climb down the ladder. There were 3 divers there to make sure everything went well, and they constantly checked to make sure everyone was OK. I never felt scared at all. Take note though, you don't just get down there and hop around. You are put in a line and must stay in the order you went down in (groups of 7 or 8). This is to not get the air lines tangled because they are all connected. It feels like you are walking on another planet. You get to see sharks (behind glass) and hold a weird looking crab and lobster. The divers will regularly take your camera and take photos of you and your party. The main diver will communicate with you on a magnadoodle board. You walk into an area with lots and lots of fish where they dump fish food all around you so they go crazy and all you can see are hundreds of fish everywhere. The instructor even put a piece of food on my helmet and a fish came up and ate it. The 25 mins goes by way too fast. When you come back up, and if you don't have your own camera or the elite photo package, you will then select the pictures you want that you took while down there. Another note, if you have members of your party who are not doing it, they can actually go in the grand reef and watch you do it (since it is part of the grand reef). My brother watched me do it and I actually took a picture of him while I was down there. You just have to make sure you don't cross the line they have marked into the "diving" area. I saw people get yelled at for doing that.
Next we ate lunch. We, personally, were not impressed with the food there. I've lived in Florida for 10 years now and I've been to every other theme park a million times and never have had a problem eating at them. Seaworld is actually one of my fave parks to eat at. The food at Discovery cove was just not that good, but I wasn't there for the food so it didn't really bother me.
For breakfast, there are eggs, waffles, french toast sticks, breakfast potatoes, sausage, ham, fruit cup, oranges and bananas, some kind of parfait, cereal (frosted flakes, cheerios, and another kind I can't remember), milk, oj, tea, pop, coffee, and hot tea
For lunch, there are cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, pulled pork, Hawaiian chicken, macaroni and cheese, talapia, french fries, different salads, some kind of cold sandwich, cookies, chocolate cake, carrot cake, and cheese cake.
Snack bar consisted of soft pretzels (they were really hard), it says ice cream but all they had was a fruit bar, their only frozen alcoholic drinks are mango or pina colada (I'm not a fan of either flavors), and they have a vodka spiked iced tea, everything else is beer. Snacks are chips (plain and bbq), trail mix, sugar free cookies, and chocolate chip granola bars.
I'm not a picky eater and like I've said, I've eaten at every theme park with no problem, but all of the hot food we got was luke warm at best.
After lunch we went and did the Wind Away River. There are noodles and life vests you can use or you don't have to use either. There are parts that have a strong current. One warning I will say is be careful about the rocks, especially when in the shallow. We all stubbed our toes and scraped our knees several times when going through. I, personally, think it should be deep throughout the entire river but it alternates. Like I said before, we went through 3 or 4 times. It's a lot of fun.
We, unfortunately, missed the pool with the otters. We just ran out of time.
The last thing we did was the dolphin swim. It's not really a swim but I've read so much about it so I knew what to expect and I wasn't disappointed at all. I was upset that we got such a late dolphin swim time (3:05) because the reason we got there so early was to get both scheduled swim times in the morning so we wouldn't have to worry about time. However, they broke it up for one in the morning and one in the afternoon and they wouldn't let me change it. It was just my husband and I doing it and we were with 6 other people. We got to interact with 2 dolphins. Their names were Kyla and Rascal, which is funny because my name is Kyla. You get to do hand signals, pet them, kiss them, and take a photo with the dolphin. Then they brought out the bigger one to do the dolphin pull, which was rascal. You swim out to 12 foot deep water or you can do it in the shallow, and you hold the top fin and one side fin and he pulls you to shore. I have never done anything like this so it was a lot of fun for me. I wouldn't do it again though. I really think it's a one time thing unless you really really love dolphins.
After that we did the Wind Away River a few more times and before you know it they told us it was time to get out. We changed and went to get our photos. I was a little disappointed because we did not see any photographers walking around the park, except one. She was on the steps of the lazy river and we barely were able to flag her down to get a picture. So we didn't get that many professional pictures except during the dolphin swim. I think they should have a lot more around the park so you can get your money's worth. I ended up taking 200 pictures with my own camera so I got a lot of good shots too.
I did write to Discovery Cove about our issues and they have invited us back for another day of our choosing, so I was very happy with their customer service department and hopefully this next experience will be better than the other day. It was a fun time, and maybe we just had some bad luck. I would recommend going at least once though, because it is a memorable time.
We got there at 7am, which I highly recommend doing, and we were brought up to the counter to check in. The reason you should go that early is...it does take 10 to 15 minutes to check in (if you have a big group) because they need to take your picture to put on your key (ticket) that you keep around your neck (this is also the ticket used to go to Seaworld and Aquatica). Also, you need to take a group photo when you first walk in after check in and we ran into a little line waiting to do that. Then if you have a cabana, you need to go to guest relations to retrieve the where-abouts of it, then eat breakfast and arrive to get your swimwear and goggles. By the time you do all of this, the park will be open and you can immediately go to wherever you want instead of wasting an hour or more doing those things AFTER it opens. Like many others have said on here, the day goes by extremely fast so you'll want to have as much time as you can to do the fun stuff.
Our main issues/problems dealt with our cabana and attendant. I won't go into details because there are too many, but we dealt with some very rude employees and our attendant didn't give us very good service, to put it kindly.
To people who are curious about renting cabanas, even though we had a bad attendant, we all still agreed it was worth the money. If you want privacy, the secluded one we had was very nice and it was right at the entrance of the serenity pool which is also the entrance and exit to the lazy river. It was not the location we hoped for but we did the lazy river so many times that it was nice to get right out of the water and to have our cabana a foot away. Our cabana had the "gate" going into it and it had a lot more room than the newer ones. We were shown both options (the newer and older ones) and the older ones are much nicer, IMO. Another very secluded one, with a gate, is between the grand reef and dolphin lagoon. It you want a more open one, there are 4 side by side right in front of the grand reef. There are no gates to these ones and there is a lot less room and people all around them, so it really is a based on what you prefer. Another nice thing about where ours was located was it was very close to the restaurant, one of the snack bars, and bathrooms, so it ended up being close to everything. We were able to eat our lunch in the cabana and it was nice getting away from the people for 15 minutes at a time if you wanted to.
The first thing you definitely want to do is go feed the birds, if that interests you because they will have so much food given to them in the morning that they won't even care by the afternoon. We went first thing and had a ton of different birds landing on us and eating the food we had. There are 3 different rooms, and each room as a different variety of birds. It was very cool.
Next because my husband and I had an 11:30 dive time for Sea Venture, we all decided to head over to the grand reef and swim there until our time came since Sea Venture is part of the grand reef and that way we wouldn't have to rush to get to the other side of the park. I loved the grand reef, but it did seem awfully crowded to me and the salt water does take a little time to get use to. Beware the water is cold! We all wore wet suits though and once you get use to it, you don't even notice how cold it felt when you first got in. The water was very clear and I had a nice underwater camera and got some great pictures.
Sea Venture was next and they make you sign a waiver and watch a short video to learn all the hand signals. There are about 7 or 8 of them. This was the highlight of the day for me and I highly recommend everyone try it if they can. It was a very fun experience. After the video, they ask if anyone wants a digital camera to use. It was funny because the cameras they gave out were the exact same camera that I had, even the same color! After we were done, 3 different employees tried to take my camera because they thought it was the park's. You climb down a ladder and when you are shoulder deep, they put the helmet on you and you slowly climb down the ladder. There were 3 divers there to make sure everything went well, and they constantly checked to make sure everyone was OK. I never felt scared at all. Take note though, you don't just get down there and hop around. You are put in a line and must stay in the order you went down in (groups of 7 or 8). This is to not get the air lines tangled because they are all connected. It feels like you are walking on another planet. You get to see sharks (behind glass) and hold a weird looking crab and lobster. The divers will regularly take your camera and take photos of you and your party. The main diver will communicate with you on a magnadoodle board. You walk into an area with lots and lots of fish where they dump fish food all around you so they go crazy and all you can see are hundreds of fish everywhere. The instructor even put a piece of food on my helmet and a fish came up and ate it. The 25 mins goes by way too fast. When you come back up, and if you don't have your own camera or the elite photo package, you will then select the pictures you want that you took while down there. Another note, if you have members of your party who are not doing it, they can actually go in the grand reef and watch you do it (since it is part of the grand reef). My brother watched me do it and I actually took a picture of him while I was down there. You just have to make sure you don't cross the line they have marked into the "diving" area. I saw people get yelled at for doing that.
Next we ate lunch. We, personally, were not impressed with the food there. I've lived in Florida for 10 years now and I've been to every other theme park a million times and never have had a problem eating at them. Seaworld is actually one of my fave parks to eat at. The food at Discovery cove was just not that good, but I wasn't there for the food so it didn't really bother me.
For breakfast, there are eggs, waffles, french toast sticks, breakfast potatoes, sausage, ham, fruit cup, oranges and bananas, some kind of parfait, cereal (frosted flakes, cheerios, and another kind I can't remember), milk, oj, tea, pop, coffee, and hot tea
For lunch, there are cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, pulled pork, Hawaiian chicken, macaroni and cheese, talapia, french fries, different salads, some kind of cold sandwich, cookies, chocolate cake, carrot cake, and cheese cake.
Snack bar consisted of soft pretzels (they were really hard), it says ice cream but all they had was a fruit bar, their only frozen alcoholic drinks are mango or pina colada (I'm not a fan of either flavors), and they have a vodka spiked iced tea, everything else is beer. Snacks are chips (plain and bbq), trail mix, sugar free cookies, and chocolate chip granola bars.
I'm not a picky eater and like I've said, I've eaten at every theme park with no problem, but all of the hot food we got was luke warm at best.
After lunch we went and did the Wind Away River. There are noodles and life vests you can use or you don't have to use either. There are parts that have a strong current. One warning I will say is be careful about the rocks, especially when in the shallow. We all stubbed our toes and scraped our knees several times when going through. I, personally, think it should be deep throughout the entire river but it alternates. Like I said before, we went through 3 or 4 times. It's a lot of fun.
We, unfortunately, missed the pool with the otters. We just ran out of time.
The last thing we did was the dolphin swim. It's not really a swim but I've read so much about it so I knew what to expect and I wasn't disappointed at all. I was upset that we got such a late dolphin swim time (3:05) because the reason we got there so early was to get both scheduled swim times in the morning so we wouldn't have to worry about time. However, they broke it up for one in the morning and one in the afternoon and they wouldn't let me change it. It was just my husband and I doing it and we were with 6 other people. We got to interact with 2 dolphins. Their names were Kyla and Rascal, which is funny because my name is Kyla. You get to do hand signals, pet them, kiss them, and take a photo with the dolphin. Then they brought out the bigger one to do the dolphin pull, which was rascal. You swim out to 12 foot deep water or you can do it in the shallow, and you hold the top fin and one side fin and he pulls you to shore. I have never done anything like this so it was a lot of fun for me. I wouldn't do it again though. I really think it's a one time thing unless you really really love dolphins.
After that we did the Wind Away River a few more times and before you know it they told us it was time to get out. We changed and went to get our photos. I was a little disappointed because we did not see any photographers walking around the park, except one. She was on the steps of the lazy river and we barely were able to flag her down to get a picture. So we didn't get that many professional pictures except during the dolphin swim. I think they should have a lot more around the park so you can get your money's worth. I ended up taking 200 pictures with my own camera so I got a lot of good shots too.
I did write to Discovery Cove about our issues and they have invited us back for another day of our choosing, so I was very happy with their customer service department and hopefully this next experience will be better than the other day. It was a fun time, and maybe we just had some bad luck. I would recommend going at least once though, because it is a memorable time.
. That is a super generous offer. Yet a part of me is not surprised at their efforts to make things right.....I have always found SW's customer service to be as good (or even better) than that at Disney. 
that was an adventure lol! Anyways, it really is a preference. Some people in our group wore the wet suits and some wore the vests. However, if you plan on being in the Grand Reef a lot, I can tell you the wet suits helped a lot with the cold water.
