Opinions Needed - Dolphin Swim

[DisneyFr33k]

We are considering paying over $600 to swim with the dolphins at Dolphinaris for our Disney cruise next month.

Had anyone done this? Is it really worth the money? How long are you actually in contact with the dolphins out of the 3 hours slated for the tour? Also, is it crowded?

We'd appreciate any opinions. We would take our 9 and 11 year old.

Thanks in advance for your advice!!!

[houseofmouse103]

Love2Travel - Please see my "Dolphin Excursion Revisited" post and it should help answer some of your questions.

[DisneyFr33k]

Love2Travel - Please see my "Dolphin Excursion Revisited" post and it should help answer some of your questions.

Thanks, I read your post. Some quick questions:

So the cab ride is not included in the $160? They paint it like it is on their site.

It states on the DCL's main site that after the orientation, you go waist deep in a a tank and learn hand signals etc and get to feel and kiss the dolphin. Then it says after the meet and greet you move to deeper water that they call ocean coves to have a belly ride and swim and snorkle with the dolphins. They say here that this part is 40 minutes long. You don't mention the meet and greet part - did they do this?

It sounds like you enjoyed the dolphin experience, but feel like it was a lot of money and you paint it as they try to get more $$ out of us while there.

Not sure if we will do this - it will cost $625 without the cab ride and the pictures, DVD.

Thanks for your input. It helps us see what we are paying for.

[houseofmouse103]

Quick answers :

Yep, the cab ride is included, but in reality it's maybe a mile or a little more from the port to Dolphinaris. You could easily walk it or get a cab yourself.

Once we got into the tank, the meet & greet consisted of individual instructions on having the dolphin kiss you, you kissing it back & shaking it's fins. This took about 15 minutes start to finish for the group. Next was instruction on riding on the dolphins belly and doing that. Again another 15 minutes. Finally, everyone swims out to deeper water and is called in one at a time to pet & pose with the dolphin. Those not posing tread water while the other dolphin swims around and you try & pet it. 15 more minutes.

I enjoyed interacting with the dolphins, but really, the dolphins could've cared less that we were there if not for the "handler" constantly feeding them. It is a lot of money for what I thought was minimal tank time. We booked it thinking my daughter would really enjoy it. Nope, the size of the dolphins kinda freaked her out and she was very hesitant to interact with them at all.

My 2 cents is that Disney charges way too much for what it is. If you can walk or get a cab yourself and pay what is normally charged for the experience, then it's worth it. Otherwise I would find something else to do. Hope this helped.

[DisneyFr33k]

My 2 cents is that Disney charges way too much for what it is. If you can walk or get a cab yourself and pay what is normally charged for the experience, then it's worth it. Otherwise I would find something else to do. Hope this helped.

I agree totally. You say if we walked, we could still go to this same place and walk in? Do they do that? If so, I wonder how much that will be?

We REALLY appreciate your advice on this! It will save us serious $$!!