Update: 12/3/08 This was the best birthday I’ve ever had… Maybe the best day I’ve ever had! 10/22 Part I
I got up today and ordered coffee from room service. Today was Brenda's birthday! We cruised on into Cozumel about 8:30am.
DW and I went to breakfast at Parrot Cay. They had a breakfast buffet that was to die for! Sorry, no pictures! They had about everything you could want for breakfast… including beans! They even had an omlette station and biscuits and gravy! We ate heartily because we had to meet in the Promenade Lounge for “The Dolphinaris Swim!”
TOur meet time was 11:55am and we were there a bit early. Everyone finally showed up and we started for the taxi stand. It was raining, but it was not a hard rain.
We shared the dock with the Carnival Holiday... we felt blessed!
The taxi stand is on the far side of the white building at the end of the dock.
Two Cast Members lead the way off the ship, down the long dock, up the escalator, down the steps (about 15-20), past the stores to the taxi stand where we met a Dolphinaris representative that explained the transportation to us. Taxi fare to and from the facility is included in your price. Our group was loaded into several taxis, which took 3-4 persons each. The ride is about 5 minutes or so.
The Dolphinaris facility is very nice and modern. When we arrived, we had several minutes to use the facilities, take pictures, purchase drinks or snacks.
There are very nice bath/changing rooms, outdoor showers, and outdoor lockers ($3 US). The lockers are rather small, probably 18”x18”x24” or so (but don’t quote me on that, I was able to stuff camera, camcorder, large day bag, and our street clothes in, but it was a tight fit).
Another group was finishing up their encounter when we got there and I took a few pictures of them.
It should be noted here that you are not allowed to take anything into the water with you except you and your swimwear. No cameras, camcorders, ID holders… nothing. For one thing, they don’t want to put the dolphins in danger if you were to lose some item and it looks like dolphin food! Also, they take plenty of pictures of you for a modest fee… I must say, I liked their package deals better than Shutters, but I’ll get into that later.
The Dolphinaris “Dolphin Swim” is fantastic! You will:
- Be “kissed” by a dolphin
- Kiss a dolphin on it’s nose
- Shake “fins” with a dolphin
- Hold up your hand and the dolphin will “kiss” your palm
- Swim belly to belly with a dolphin
- Pet and swim among 3-4 dolphins
Your trainer leads you to an area of one of the pools and introduces you to one of the dolphins. We were shown how to put ourselves to be “kissed” on the cheek by the dolphin and how to turn our head and kiss the dolphin’s nose. Then each one in our group moved into deeper water and had our kisses one at a time.
What I didn’t like about this excursion was that after we started with one trainer, another trainer came in and now we had two trainers and I lost track of who I was supposed to take directions from. They added another dolphin, too. Although it was a bit confusing at times, they were friendly, tolerant, and knowledgeable and everyone got to interact in every way with the dolphins. After our kisses, everyone had their hand/fin shake, then each of us had our swim (5-10 seconds),
the palm touch:
the mingling, and finally the back flips and other tricks.
Not wearing a watch, I guess the time spent in the water interacting with the dolphins is about 1 ¼ - 1 ½ hours. Considering the excursion prices, we paid about $50 for a 5 second ride on the belly of a dolphin… was it worth it? Yes, every penny! Will we do it again? Probably not the swim, but I would do the encounter which includes everything but the swim. I don’t think the swim would be worth it more than once. But that first time… it’s the most awesome time I’ve ever had in the water… hands down!!
After your encounter, you are pretty much free to gather your belongings and get dressed back in your street clothes at your leisure. You go out through the “store” and purchase pictures and video if you want. I don’t have the full price list, but we got a picture CD with 2 pictures of us and 5 stock pictures of the dolphins and a DVD of our group swimming and interacting with the dolphins. It was $89 US. Instead of the picture CD you can get your 2 pictures printed out for the same price. Of course, they had more expensive packages with more pictures in them.
Taxis are readily available outside the building. Just have one of the employees get one for you and your ride back is covered. They will drop you off on the ship side of the marketplace near the stairs that you came down earlier. If you go through the marketplace to the other side, there is an escalator that will take you to the upper level where you will be able to find your way back to the ship at your leisure. Almost all the shop owners will try to “hawk” you into their stores, but if you just ignore them or say ”no dinero”, they will leave you alone. It is a long walk along the dock and we ended up getting a “bicycle rickshaw” on the dock that took us back to the ship for a tip.
We were back in the room by 4pm and had time for a nap before our 6:30 reservation at Palo.
Our Dolphin Swim