The Anguilla Dolphin was the BEST

[AnnMorin]

well as a preschool teacher I can guestimate pretty well and I would say we had some four year olds being passed off as five or six. The ride is a bit wild, no one was sea sick I could see just wet, it was kinda like a log ride..
There was a young boy suppossedly five that was a bit intimidated by the dolphins, they are large, bigger than you would think, but so gentle. I would most definately do this again and again!
The ferry suppossedly takes 45 mins. we took about 30mins which could attribute to the bounce, they were trying to make up time

 

[sillysmom]

ANN, WOULD YOU MIND GIVING ME THE ITINERARY OF THIS EXCURSION? I THOUGHT I HEARD THAT HALF GO TO THE BEACH FOR THE SOME TIME AND THEN THEY SWAP AND GO TO THE ENCOUNTER. IS IT REALLY 7 1/2 HOURS? THANKS

 

[AnnMorin]

(yes it really is all day) you arrive at Anguilla and take a short bus ride to Dolphin Fantaseas, the bus is airconditioned, there are TONS of goats around, neat ride,
Once you get to the site you are split up. (they give you different colored wrist bands before you leave and you are split by them) It comes out to thirty people per group. One group of thirty go down to the beach (it is just down a path- ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS beach, the niceset I have ever experienced) the other thirty are then split again into three groups of ten. Group one goes to the dolphins first, group two to the stingrays and group 3 to the hermit crab races, birds and turtles. They rotate. When you get to the dolphins your groups are split again into two groups of five, each group has their own trainer and interacts with one or two dolphins and then you switch to the other trainer. It was just great!!

 

[floridaminnie]

Will try this when Bri gets a little bit bigger.

 

[AnnMorin]

Suz did you get the photos I emailed you from our get together in orlando?

 

[floridaminnie]

Yes I did. I just got my pics developed and was going to send them to you as soon as Bri goes to bed.

Ann, how was the water temps on your cruise. Doing some snorkleing and I know I'm going to freeze!

 

[AnnMorin]

except at CC it was for the first time cold and windy..
Florida was freezing! but the caribbean was picture perfect!
I so enjoyed meeting you, it will stay one of my best memories,, give your daughter a hug (she is SUCH a cutie)

 

[Nysie]

Hi Ann

How were the stingrays? Also, after you did the "encounter", then you went to the beach, did the whole group leave at the same time for St. Maarten? When did you make your res.? Thanks!!

Denyse

 

[rae519]

You just talked us into this, Ann! I guess now we have our St. Marten excursion set!
What about St. Thomas????? Want to give us some hints?

Rae

 

[dtuleya]

Ann, I've been clicking and copying and pasting the url, but I still can't see the pics. Anybody else having problems?

 

[AnnMorin]

ok here is how the Anguilla dolphin thing went in detail...
you have to get up EARLY this part sucks as you have to be in rocken bar d at 7:30 at the latest... why does it suck????
well.... the ferry for Anguilla (which is right near the ship maybe a four min. walk) did not arrive until about 8:45, I kept thinking how much longer I could have slept... but you need to let go of that "main-lander" thinknig and go to "island time" as nothing on this excursion is in our realm of time... (often it is to your benifit though )
you ride the ferry (a wild ride!! kinda like a flume ride) and get to the island in about a half hour or so, you board busses that are comfy enough with AC and a free Anguilla book and drive to the site. It is a cool ride - TONS of goats, there are almost three times the amount of goats on the island than people!!
Once there you are split (via your wrist bands) into two groups, group one goes to the beach, and group two gets split again into three groups, ( I would assume the same happens to group one once they come back up from the beach) group one does the dolpins first, group two does the stingrays first and group three does the birds and hermitcrabs and turtles first. Everyone rotates.
It is WAY more than an encounter with the dolphins, our group was spit again and we had three dolhins for two groups of five, you got to kiss them, dance with them, swim with them, plya ball iwth them, race them, it was really cool as one dolphin is not a year old (well he is now as his bday is 12/26- anyhow he is still nursing so you could swim down and look at mom's mammoray glands. very cool) This was by far the best excursion I have ever done, the beach is AMAZING the sand is so soft and like a foot thick, you sink in when you walk, big waves and only you and 29 other people are there, the only thing negative was the lunch and the wait to go home on the ferry-island time again. The lunch probably was good but we were buying pictures so we missed it.

 

[dtuleya]

Sounds like so much fun. I hope we can swing it!

 

[AnnMorin]

I am in the process of reloading the photos over to imagestation, with more shots, so if you have problems seeing them bear with me I will get it worked out soon and post the new link. At any rate this was the absolute BEST excursion I have ever done!

 

[AnnMorin]

I am not sure if this link will work, still trying to figure image station out but here goes

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288188699&code=7681829&mode=invite

 

[dtuleya]

It worked Ann. Thanks for posting! Now that I've got the kids wanting to book this excursion all is left is persuading DH.

 

[AnnMorin]

It really was the neatest experience! My DH was hesitant at first as it is expensive but now he says it was money well spent!

 

[dthogue]

Ann - your pictures are awesome, thanks for sharing. Are these pictures you took with your own camera or ones that you purchased from the tour company? Are there restrictions on using your own camera? How expensive were the pictures they were selling, what sizes? Did they have a video?

My girls really want to do this and with the initial cost being so expensive, I was curious as to how much more I can plan on spending once we get there.

Thanks for all your help!

Tammy

 

[AnnMorin]

All of the picture except the three closeups were taken with my underwater camera. I WISH I knew ahead of time that they had lockers or I would have brought my good digital. The three of myself, DS and DH dancing/kissing the dolpins were purchased. It was not a bad deal, if you buy them on CD it was $20.00 for the first shot and 10.00 for each additional, [so our purchased disk was $49.99]and you can make all the prints you want. If you bought the prints It was like 29.99 a page which could be split up into different sizes but i do think it was one shot per page.

 

[Magicboundagain4]

We have made a reservation at Discovery Quest to swim with the dolphins the day before our cruise leaves port canaveral. Discovery Quest is next to Sea World. My 8 year old twin DD have been wanting to do this since our last cruise. Our last cruise we had trouble getting our excursion cancelled....so this way I have guarded against the most important thing going wrong......i hope. But you just never know.

 

[AnnMorin]

If so my friend and her family just did it an loved it!