Beer and wine are free, as are towels, lockers, snacks, sunscreen, wet suits and vests and snorkel gear. Breakfast and lunch are served buffet-style to guests by park personnel. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorstįood and drink at Discovery Cove are built into the admission price (currently $149, or $199 with a dolphin swim). One of the private cabanas at Discovery Cove. A hammock became the venue for a delicious afternoon nap. The cabana comes with two lounge chairs, a canopy that shelters two more chairs, a table and a minifridge, with a keyed locker stacked on top for your things. It was secluded amid bushy palms but had a view out to the dolphin lagoon. I was given the use of a six-person cabana for the day, a private retreat that would be even better for a family or group. Woven throughout the featured areas of the park are spaces for relaxing, mainly sandy areas that simulate beaches. Be sure to pick up a float or two to make the experience even lazier. The lazy river circuit takes about 25 minutes and is as nicely done as any I've seen. Similarly limited are ray-feeding ($59) and shark-swimming ($129) upgrades.Īnother big chunk of the park includes a long lazy river, an aviary, exhibits of river otters and marmoset monkeys and space to encounter land animals such as anteaters, armadillos, kinkajous and sloths. There are only a limited number of slots, so it's important to reserve ahead of time. This 20-minute experience was the highlight of my day at Discovery Cove. Fish will swim between the divers' legs and gently bump up against them, and it is startling to find large fish swimming inches from the front of your helmet's face plate. Walkers are surrounded on all sides by large parrotfish, blue tang, sergeant majors and other reef fish and can watch rays glide by above and below.
DISCOVERY COVE UPGRADE
But the really cool way to see it is to spring for the SeaVenture, a $49 upgrade in which guests don a snuba helmet that enables them to descend below the surface and walk on the floor of the reef. Guests can use snorkel gear and fins to swim among the fish (sharks are in a separate area). Thousands of fish, large and small, surround divers in Discovery Cove's SeaVenture experience.Īnother third or so of Discovery Cove is devoted to the Grand Reef, an artificial coral reef stocked with more than 7,000 reef fish, including rays and sharks. There's plenty of chances to touch the dolphins as they glide by, and I found being in the water with the powerful 8-foot Roxy next to me a thrilling experience. It's more like an old-fashioned baptism, with a group standing in waist-deep water watching and listening to a trainer as the dolphins do spins and tricks, make astonishing sounds and mug with participants for photos. A trainer introduced me and a family of four young boys and a mom from Chicago to Roxy, a 24-year-old veteran among the park's 45 or so marine mammals.Īlthough often described as a dolphin swim, there is no actual swimming by humans with the dolphins.
Our late-morning group of about 12 was split into subgroups. There are three dolphin lagoons, which take up a good third of the real estate at Discovery Cove.
One of the park's centerpiece activities is a dolphin interaction, something that I had never done despite living in Florida for 35 years. I had a chance to spend a day at Discovery Cove recently as a guest of the company. Both are operated by Seaworld Parks and Entertainment. The attraction, which turned 20 this year, sits across the street from its sibling, SeaWorld. Marc Swanson's message is that it is safe to return and "equally important, you can still have a good time." Continue Reading Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection.Wyndham boosts its all-inclusive footprint A strategic partnership with Palladium Hotel Group will add 6,500 rooms to Wyndham's Registry Collection, starting with four.Nobody knows me With the Great Resignation, important connections between hotel staff and repeat guests were severed.The DOT wants agencies on hook for air refunds In a nutshell, the DOT is proposing that travel agencies be responsible - equally with the airline - for making refunds when.Looking at France from the inside out Please allow me to share a few of the things I think might be worth knowing about the French.
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