Day 4 - Discovery Cove

Before I start, Please note that I have added a flickr site for additional pictures as a link on the right side of the page. I've exceeded my limit of space for the month of April, but I do have all the pictures from Disney World posted, and will add pictures from Epcot and Discovery Cove in May.

Wednesday morning...a start to another beautiful day in Florida. Since Discovery Cove was open between 8 and 9:00 for check in and scheduling of the dolphin experience on a first come, first serve basis, we had to get up before 8:00 to get to the park by 8:30. We were able to time our check in so that we were able to have our dolphin experience after the day warmed up and just before lunch. The one thing that worked in our advantage was that the park was less than a mile down the street from our condo, so the travel time was non existent. Now I had originally thought the price per ticket was a little steep, but the ticket price is all inclusive for the day (you'll see all that's included as you read) including parking, not to mention it includes a free pass to Sea World as often as you want to go over the next 7 days, so it ends up being pretty reasonable.

After checking in, scheduling our dolphin experience and checking out the tree sloth held by a park staff member in the lobby, we entered the park for our complimentary photo (code for security photo) and a complimentary breakfast of pastries, yogurt, fruit and milk or juice.

We then visited the gift shops for some souvenir hunting, then picked up our wet suit, goggles, snorkel and sun screen. That's right, they provided the sun screen as well. This way they knew that even the sun screen worn by the guests in the dolphin habitat was safe for the animals. We still had plenty of time before our dolphin encounter, so we ventured to the sting ray lagoon, where we could get into the water with and touch the stingrays. We purchased a few underwater cameras, (so we were able to leave our expensive digital cameras at the condo) and I took one into stingray lagoon with me.

After stingray lagoon, we spent a little time in the bird aviary before making our way back for our dolphin encounter, which lasted about 45 minutes and included all kinds of petting, rubbing, kissing, feeding and riding (the dolphin).

The photo's were all taken by a photographer who was in the water with us. It was the high light of the day, and an experience I would highly recommend and love to do again.

Cutest picture of the bunch, don't you think? I married a beautiful woman.

After swimming with the dolphin, we had a lunch of grilled salmon, potatoes and salad (which again was complimentary along with anything we wanted to drink throughout the day), we plopped down on a couple of lawn chairs on the beach of the dolphin habitat and took about a 30 minute nap to end the day.

Before leaving the park, we returned our wet suit and mask, took a hot shower (they had body soap, shampoo and conditioner provided in dispensers in each shower) removed our personal items from the locker provided to us at the start of the day and went back to the condo for the evening.

Next time...Day 5 - Titanic the Experience, and Dinner near downtown Orlando.