Wonder excursion w/ dophins

[all4wdw]

If you have taken the Wonder Bahama's shore excursion with dolphins, can you share your experience? What did you like/not like. Thanks!

 

[rykdad]

Bumping up because I'm also interested.

 

[lzj21428]

I'm looking for the same infor, personal experiences.

 

[castawayfan]

There are excursions in both Freeport and Nassau. I did the one in Freeport and would not recommend it for anyone. It was very expensive for only 3 minutes with the dolphins. I have read very good things about the Nassau one on this board, seems like it was much nicer.

 

[cruisnfamily]

Uh oh Castaway fan, now you have me worried. We have booked the Freeport Encounter over the Nassau encounter because we were told they were exactly the same but the Freeport one is cheaper because it didn't include the beach day...and we didn't want the beach day anyway.

We sail on Sunday and are so looking forward to this. Please give me details of the Freeport encounter! How long ago did you go?

 

[minniegidget]

I did the Dolpins went I was on the Wonder and I LOVED it. It was alittle pricey but all in all I thought it was worth it. It was me and me 71 year young DM. Good for all ages. I saw pictues of infants with the dolphins. You get about 15 minutes in a wading area with thme there are about 10-12 people in the group with you. I would say you get about 5-8 minutes with one. I was in Nassau when I did it. any more questions just ask

 

[castawayfan]

Sonya, we did it last October and it really was a bad experience. First, we road a bus, to the boats, then waited about a half hour in the hot sun for another half hour boat ride to the dolphins. Once there we got to stand on a platform in groups of two for three minutes and pet the dolphins. The one dolphin kept swimming away, so the group of two that had that dolphin were out of luck. We then had to get out of the water and stand around waiting for everyone to get their three minutes. It poured rain at one point and my daughter was in the water waiting on her turn, she got out of the water and they would not let her get back in, so she missed her dolphin time. We then had to ride the boat back and walk several blocks to wait on the bus, which turned out to be public transportation back to the ship.

We also booked it because it was cheaper but what a terrible experience. We were on the boat with people who booked the dolphin swim and they also had problems.

 

[cruisnfamily]

I guess that all we can do is hope for a better experience than you had!

We've already booked it and the other dolphin encounter in Nassau is sold out.

I really hope it is not as crummy as your experience was. Did you complain to anyone or anything? I would think if they got bad feedback that they would either drop that vendor or make sure there was improvement.

 

[SpfAkf]

I have heard and seen it on the Travel channel that the dolphin swim is great. You spend aprox. 30min. with the dolphins doing different tricks.You can also go to thier web site www.dolphinswims.com for more info. I can tell you that you have to make your own reservation 3 to 6 months a head of time for the swim. DCL only does the encounter. We are looking to do the swim next year.

Good Luck,

 

[castawayfan]

We complained to Disney at guest relations and on our comment card. Their response was that they don't control the vendors they have for excursions and thanks for the comment.

 

[bemily]

What is the difference between the dolphin swim and the encounter, and is it better to book through disney or directly through the company??

THANKS

 

[Dave_from_Marietta]

Originally posted by bemily

What is the difference between the dolphin swim and the encounter, and is it better to book through disney or directly through the company?

The Dolphin Encounter has you kneeling on a platform in water just a couple of feet deep. The dolphin swims up to you. With the Dolphin Swim, you wear life jackets and float around in deeper water. The dolphins have a much greater level of activity and interaction with you.

DCL only books the Encounter through their shore excursions. For the Swim, you'll have to book directly through the company.

 

[tgj]

We just did the Encounter in Freeport this past Tuesday (9-24). We (myself and my 6 y.o. son) liked it a lot.

Positives: The entire presentation was about an hour. The people were extremely knowledgable and informative. We spent at least 5 - 10 minutes on the platform in the water with the dolphins, petting them, etc. While we were waiting our turn, we spoke with the trainers, and were only about 10 feet away from the dolphins.

Negatives: 30 minute bus ride from ship to boat loading area, 30 minute wait for the boat, 25 minute boat ride to sanctuary, and then all over again to get back (we were told that the sanctuary used to be a lot closer, but they moved to a more remote area because of boaters and fishers polluting the waters). It was hot in the sun, but, hey, it's the Bahamas and we expected that, plus there is shaded areas you can go to if needed. They had a lot of rules (no eating, keep your hands in front of you while in the water until they say it's ok to pet them, etc), but none seemed out of line, and they said it can confuse the dolphins training... The picture they took wasn't great, but ok enough that I bought it...

We opted for Freeport rather then Nassau because the brochure said it was 3 hours vs. 7 hours. I suppose if the stars and planets all aligned it could be done in 3 hours, it was 4 and one-half hours for us (left the ship at 11am, got back right at 3:30pm for Island Magic).

We would have done the Dolphin Swim, but couldn't because of minimum age restrictions. It was expensive, but I thought it was an opportunity not to pass up (we don't have many dolphins swimming around here in Wisconsin). I don't think you'd kick yourself if you were on the fence and skipped it, but we liked it, except for the fact that it took a lot more time than expected.

 

[cruisnfamily]

Castawayfan:
I have to say that unfortunately you were right. It sounds like we were on the same excursion as tgj but we thought the experience was miserable.

Well, the actual encounter was really cool but the process was way too long. We had the 9:30am encounter and my husband, son and friends son returned the bus as soon as was humanly possible (without waiting to buy photos either) and they didn't get back on the boat until 2:30pm. That makes it a 5 hour ordeal at the absolute minimum for 10 minutes with the dolphins. We were very disappointed in this excursion and will be writing a letter of complaint.

The place said they had 18 dolphins available....why then did they put 50 of us all around the platform where we had to wait forever for our turn? Why not use at least 2 more dolphins for a total of 4 dolphins instead of the 2 they used?

When it was our turn to be in the water, it was cool but honestly it wasn't worth it. We would not do this again, nor would we recommend it to anyone. Next time I might possibly book the dolphin swim independently but probably not because I would be afraid it would be the same unsatisfying experience. I wonder though whether it would have been better in Nassau?

 

[castawayfan]

I'm so sorry you had the same experience but its also nice to have someone who understands!! I think we will try the Nassau experience next time - it has really gotten rave reviews.