Underwater Photo TR: Discovery Cove 8/20/10

Rastuso · September 22, 2011

I never did post a trip report from our trip to Discovery Cove at the end of our vacation last year. So, here it is, along with a few underwater video links.

This was the final day of vacation, and the most expensive. I had always wanted to go to Discovery Cove. The whole dolphin encounter looked great. After seeing video, I really couldn’t justify the price for essentially being pulled through the water by a dolphin for 15 seconds. I thought tickets were $200 minimum to get into the park. After really looking into it, I found that prices were $150 to go to the park, and another $80 to do the dolphin thingy. However, that also included being able to go to Seaworld essentially anytime during your vacation, as much as you wanted. And, they were running another special where you could add another park to that list, and since we were wanting to hit the coasters at Busch Gardens, suddenly the price wasn’t that bad. You were really paying $50 each to enter three parks. Add on free food at Discovery Cove, and we decided to take the plunge. And, since I was not doing the dolphin swim, I could take video and pictures, saving money on those ridiculously priced items. The DVD they sell you has no audio, and shows everyone in your swim group. Prices fluctuate a LOT, but we nailed the lowest price for the Summer available for our last day in Orlando.

We get there about 30 minutes before they open. This is an all inclusive resort, essentially, so there is no parking fee. We walk into the welcome center, and wait to check. It’s a fairly basic building. There is a guy holding a sloth, for some odd reason, that you could pet. I don’t know if the sloth lives in the aviary, or what.

At check-in you get a personalized lanyard, and the leader of the group gets a map to hang on it also. The card has your picture and dolphin time and place. My wife and son were at 1:30, so we had lots of time to explore the rest of the park (those parts are over the blue bridge). There are 3 dolphin coves and locker areas. You get small samples of special sunscreen to use there. Don’t lose it! You also get your own snorkel, and a DC vest to wear. There were life vest available all over too. You then get a locker to put your stuff in.

First up, free breakfast!!! It was muffins, cereal and fruit. A pretty decent spread for free. And all you can eat. I notice the dining area is all outside, which will make lunch a bit warm. After eating, we get our snorkels and hit the lazy river.

I’m not sure how my son will take to snorkeling. He’s not a big fan of the water, especially deep water. We all try out snorkeling (it’s the first time for all of us). He does a decent job in the shallow water in a large cave, so we head down the river. We get to a sign saying the water goes to 8 feet. Time to get vests, which was a pain to walk back to. I come to the steps into the river, and find that the last step is a doozy as I fall into the water, and go under. The workers say they purposely have very few signs, they used to not even have the deep water signs. They still don’t have the “Last step is a big one” sign.

We floated down this fresh water river that was about like a normal waterpark, temperature wise. The river had rockwork along the entire thing. The whole park is totally organic in design. No pool walls, or flat bottoms. There were a few underwater features, some chests, a totem, and other items. You also went through the aviary. There was a water curtain where you went in and out. We saw a park photographer near one. They would take a pic of your lanyard to keep track of the photos. We had a few taken, but they weren’t in our photos at the end of the day. But, they would also take pictures with your camera. My cheap Fuji underwater camera was AWESOME for this day. I took tons of pics and vids, and I’ll put some in the report. I noticed a the start of the day, we were fairly unique having a camera. By the end of the day, TONS of folks had the disposable underwater cameras that they sold in the gift shop. I should have seen how much they were. I’m sure they make tons of money off of these. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any park photographers with underwater cameras.

My wife and son petted a crane in the aviary. We then left it and got out at the coral pond. I thought this was in a different location, but it turned out this was simply the back side of the same pool we saw when we got into the lazy river. Essentially, the non-dolphin section included the river, which surrounded a large salt-water pool that had a huge coral reef section, full of rays and fish, a shark area that you could look into while you were underwater, and a ray pool full of lots of small rays that was about waist deep. And all of this was was COLD! It was the same as the dolphin area, I think it was 76 F, or something around that. Doesn’t sound too cold, but to the fruit and two veg, it was damn cold. We did acclimate fairly quickly, and the mid 90s heat sure helped out to make it feel very nice.

The coral reef was quite cool. I assume it was all fake, but it looked good. I got my share of scrapes and scratches on the slippery rocks. The water was probably about 20 feet deep. There were very large rays on the bottom, anch schools of small fish everywhere. I did touch quite a few fish and one ray in the this area. Snorkling in general is quite cool. It’s like you are flying above the ground. My son loved it too. And he totally got over his issue with deep water. He went all over the coral reef area.

Snorkling

More Snorkling

There was a small area that had some underwater glass windows looking into an area with some sharks in it. They were pretty big. Big enough to kill you.

Sharks!

We spent quite a bit of time here, and since we didn’t realize this was the same pool, we got out, and back into the lazy river where we exited it. We went the rest of the way around, back to the beach. This section of the river was fairly uneventful.

It was about lunch time, we we headed over to see the lunch offerings. They were emmense. Salmon, pasta, chicken, salad, sides, desserts. A pretty big spread, and once again, all you could eat. So, I pigged out. They had free “beer” too. Meaning crappy AB beer. I’m surprised this still exists after the sale. There were also two snack bars that had chips, cookies, hot pretzels, and drinks. They even had some slushies. I’ll admit, a few bags of chips made it home. I noticed that during the day, the chips were self serve. About 3pm, they were put behind the bar to keep them all from disappearing.

It was about dolphin time for my wife and son, so I went to get the video camera and our other still camera. I wanted to get as many pics and vids as possible. They watched a short video about dolphins, and got a safety talk. Then they headed to their dolphin lagoon.

There was a big rock near them that I perched on, and was surprised I wasn’t told to get down. No one else had anyone taking pic/vids of them. Although, for the posed photos, they were facing away from me, purposely I’m sure. They all got to pet him, feed him, and do a few hand signals for tricks. My son got to give him the signal to make a fart noise. The dolphin did a few jumps and flips, and rolled over for a belly rub. Then, the big part came for the swim.

My wife was second, and I got a good zoom in video, plus about 5 pics of her being pulled towards me. My son didn’t want to go out in the deep water for some reason now, so they had him get pulled up the side of the lagoon, which was a bit shorter, so he should have got to do it twice. He loved it, and again he was coming right towards me, and I got good pics/vids.

My wife said that when you go to the end of the pull, the Dolphin spun away immediately, ditching you. She loved it, and said it was well worth the money. My son did too. It looked cool, but honestly it is very expensive, and done in an assembly line manor that seemed to only exist so that the video and pictures were taken for you to get taken to the cleaners when you bought them.

I put the equipment back in the locker, and we went to the ray pool. We got there right before they decided to feed them! So, everyone there got two fish, and were told to hold out your hand, with the fish sticking up like a hot dog. The ray would come up, and suck it out of your hand. It was quite a weird feeling. The water got filled with fish remnants after the feeding.

Swarm!

Yummy!

We headed back into the reef for one more session of snorkeling before hitting the snack bars for hot mini-pretzels and Pepsi. After getting some normal clothes on, we hit the picture and video shack. They had lots of pictures from the swim, including one with my wife kissing the dolphin. The one of my son wasn’t good. My wife bought that one picture for $20!!! WOW, that’s expensive. There was an option to get all of the pictures, but it was well over $100, and the DVD was $50 as an add-on, or $75 straight up. Pretty steep for 15 second clips with no sound. I don’t understand why they don’t film the whole dolphin encounter. If it was 20 minutes, with sound , of the whole thing, I would think everyone would want it. I was wondering if I should have handed out my e-mail to everyone else in their group, offering to sell them the video. I’m sure Seaworld would have booted me out. This is clearly their big money maker, and the exorbitant prices help keep the entry price low.

We headed out, taking a bunch of pics and getting a few souvenirs. We asked for another lanyard map for my son, and were sucked into doing a survey that was quite long.

The vacation was pretty much over. We had a hell of a time, despite the heat. But, we were quite lucky with the free refills at Universal, and free drinks at Discovery Cove, since that greatly reduced our liquid costs. I wouldn't choose August for Orlando, but if you take precautions, you can still have a fabulous trip.

-RO