Sometimes there are experiences that feel magical. Catching fireflies in mason jars and pretending they are fairies, for example. Also, the idea of interacting and swimming with dolphins. This has been a lifelong dream for my sister—and for me!

So, this year, I surprised her with tickets to Discovery Cove for her, my niece, my two girls and myself… tickets that included the upgrade to swim with dolphins! It was such an experience that I wanted to capture all the details to remember.

The Basics:

Discovery Cove is more than a dolphin encounter. It also has a Grand Reef where you swim and snorkel with hundreds of fish and sting rays, a lazy River with caves and waterfalls and a Serenity Bay pool.

To start with, this is an expensive outing. Discovery Cove frequently features different deals, so I started monitoring their website for one that made sense for me. At the time of this writing, for example, the deal is “Save 20% and enjoy Open Bar.” This deal would not have been enough to entice me to buy, as 20% off the price of $358 per person is just not reasonable, especially since I do not drink and three of the people are underage. Last month, however, a deal caught my eye: Florida residents could get 40% off and a $50 gift card for each ticket purchased. That made the price $214 per person (before taxes) but meant that, if we wanted to, we could upgrade to an additional animal encounter with the gift cards. #sold.

The base price, after taxes, for the 5 of us was $1,130. This price included:

* The dolphin swim

* All food (breakfast, lunch and dinner, with snacks, and drinks, all day)

* Lockers

* Parking

* Wet suits, snorkels, face masks and towels

* Suntan lotion

For comparison, Disney’s base price for one park (Magic Kingdom) the same day we went to Discovery Cove was $164.07 per person. It includes nothing except admission to Magic Kingdom. Parking is an extra $30, making the total to get into MK $194.07. For an extra $30, Discovery Cove price provided parking, food all day, wet suits and my Fl resident discount got me a $50 gift card per ticket. So, while it hurt to pay $1100 for one day at an amusement park, it’s still a really good deal.

The next decision was the photo package and this hurt more than a little. The photo packages at Discovery Cove are basically the price of admission. The most expensive package was $254+ taxes. I didn’t think so. The next in line was $249 but if I purchased online ahead of time I could save 15% making the price $229 which was only $4 more than the tier below it. For this price, we get all photos of all of us in the dolphin swim (about 8-12 photos per person) and some group shots, as well as any additional photos taken throughout the park in various places. This hurt. But Discovery Cove does not allow cameras in the dolphin area for safety reasons. This means if you want photos, you have to rely on their professional photographers. Individual photos are $43 per photo, and that idea hurt me more than forking over the money for the photo package since it would include all photos.

The photo package I purchased included 8 prints (6×8), a photo album and all digital prints. If I had splurged for $30 more, I could have gotten a 16 x 20 poster and a metal print. I found the one I purchased to be plenty since it included a total of about 100 photos-and it was of our entire group.

So I added the photo package, bringing the total for the day to $1,368.

For the record, I’d do it again.

The Day

They suggest getting there at 7:30. We got there at 8:15 and our first come first served assigned dolphin time was 12:30. After checking in, we made our way to Laguna Grill for breakfast. Chocolate milk, white milk, orange juice, peach and raspberry teas, coffee for drinks and sausage, bacon, eggs, yogurt parfaits, cereal, fruit cups, bagels, pastries and hasbrowns lined the breakfast menu. It is all inclusive, and as much as you care for, which meant we were able to fill up before setting out for the day’s activities. After breakfast, we found the changing area, were given complimentary wet suits, masks and snorkels.

Wind Away

The first stop after breakfast was the lazy river. It has caves and waterfalls. The water depth goes from 3 or 4 foot to 8 1/2 feet, and I highly recommend even strong swimmers take advantage of the green noodles as this lazy River is long. In terms of fish, not a lot here, but there are tons of rocks and coral that made it fun to snorkel around in. It took about an hour to explore the wind away, and when we finished, we were ready to find the Grand Reef.

Grand Reef

Free swimming with 56 stingrays, hundreds of fish and tons of colorful coral. Additionally, you can see sharks and eels (they are separated from you by a thick piece of glass). This is also where you would do the SeaVenture activity. We almost upgraded some of us to this, but it’s an additional $69 / per person and tadpoles under 10 are not allowed, which means Alissia could not do it. SeaVenture is an underwater walk wearing a helmet with oxygen. You are under the water for about 20 minutes.

After exploring the Grand Reef for about an hour, we were ready for lunch—and a break. Lunch, also included, was a feast of BBQ, coconut crusted shrimp, chicken tenders, steak, rice, vegetables, pizza and desserts.

Around this time, we found the outdoor showers set up around the park. the water from these showers was hot, which we all loved, especially Alight. The wetsuits are provided because the water temperature in the Grand Reef and the dolphins’ pods is 73 degrees. This made the hot showers even more welcome.

Dolphins

The first thing is that the dolphins are not forced to interact: there are 43 dolphins there and their participation is voluntary – if one does not want to be part of the interaction, they will ask a different dolphin. None come from drive fisheries-in fact, most are born there. We saw two dolphins, which is not normally the case: we interacted first with Akai and then with Lester.

The experience started with a 10 minute video about the dolphin anatomy and how and where to touch. After the video, we were led into the water. We had a group of 9 and our photographer. First, Akai swam in front of us and we touched his back. The trainers asked us to pull our hands to our side after touching so that we didn’t accidentally touch the dolphin’s eyes. There was time for photo shoot, and this was one of my favorite parts because, when I gave Lester a hug, I had to wrap an arm around him and the other arm under him and, doing this, i could feel his heartbeat. That was really awesome.

After the photo shoot, we were taken one by one for our swim. It’s a short fifteen second glide through the water, really, but it felt like enough. The dolphin is very strong: five hundred pounds. All we had to do was hold the dorsal fin.

All in all, we were in the water for approximately 30 minutes with our dolphins. The trainer did encourage us to ask questions and it felt interactive. We saw our dolphin wave at us, “speak”, and flip in the air.

It was amazing.

In general, by the time we left the park, we were exhausted but very happy. The overall vibe of the park was very low key and relaxed, unlike most parks in Florida. The lagoons have been beautifully designed to surprise you from change in water depths to the coral below you to the sandy beaches.

There were other additional animal encounters for a fee such as: swim with sharks ($129 per person), animal trek where you see small animals like armadillo or sloth ($59/pp), SeaVenture ($69/pp), or even the chance to be a “trainer for a day” for the dolphins which includes a second, enhanced encounter with the dolphins ($199/pp), feeding the stingrays ($59/pp), and the the mingle with the flamingos ($69/pp). We almost did the feed the stingrays but because you get to swim with them for free, we did not choose to do any of the other upgrades this time. If we return, we would do SeaVenture or maybe the trainer for a day. They also offer cabanas, daybeds and such… but we didn’t stop long enough to rest so these would not have been helpful for us.

In the end, everyone loved the day, and the chance to see dreams come true!