Swim with Manatees?? Best Tours / Locations

[mcj79]

Swim with Manatees?? Best Tours / Locations

Anyone done swim with the manatee tours/snorkel trips in Clearwater/Tampa areas/ gulf side? Any opportunities to swim or play with marine life on the other side / ocean?

 

[Itinkso]

Swim with Manatees?? Best Tours / Locations

Anyone done swim with the manatee tours/snorkel trips in Clearwater/Tampa areas/ gulf side? Any opportunities to swim or play with marine life on the other side / ocean?

On a fairly regular basis, there is a Livingsocial.com deal for snorkeling with manatees. If you register with Living Social and sign up for Orlando area deals, it will get emailed to you. If I find it, I'll post it here.

Here is a link: http://www.snorkelwithmanatees.com/id82.html

 

[ChrisRuns]

Swim with Manatees?? Best Tours / Locations

Anyone done swim with the manatee tours/snorkel trips in Clearwater/Tampa areas/ gulf side? Any opportunities to swim or play with marine life on the other side / ocean?

The majority of the manatee swims are done in Crystal River and Homosassa. My mom lives in that area, so we've been out in our kayaks quite a few times and have come across manatees. You can see them up close, but there are very strict regulations about touching and interacting with them. Rangers in kayaks are often around to enforce that.

If you drive out to Crystal River to swim with manatees, there's a beach in town and one further out in the gulf called Fort Island Gulf beach. It's very pretty and usually not too busy.

FWIW, it takes me roughly two hours to go from Crystal River to Orlando so take that into consideration if you make reservations.