Booking dolphin excursion through ship...how are crowds?

[whitenack]

I have seen some folks say it is best to schedule the dolphin excursions through the park itself, because the crowds are better, but then I see some folks that say they scheduled the excursion through the ship and the crowds were fine.

 

Can anyone comment one way or the other that they booked through the cruise ship and had a bad experience? It looks like the price is the same, if not better, by booking on through the ship, so unless the crowds are insane, I think that is what we will do.

 

Thanks in advance.

[aloha43]

We did a Dolphin and Turtle farm excursion while at Grand Cayman.

 

Our "crowd" consisted of as many that would fit into a normal sized bus.

 

When we got to the Dolphin excursion, they split us into a couple of groups of about 20. All 20 of us lined up on the Dolphin platform and took turns petting, kissing and dancing with the Dolphins. It was GREAT!! It didn't seem as crowded as we were afraid of...lol:)

 

The one thing that was disappointing was that they wouldn't let us take our new underwater camera into the tank with us.

 

They take pictures and a video and sell them to you. We passed on the video.....but the pictures were a whopping $20 each. We just picked the two best ones and they tossed the rest. Seems like a waste of money to just throw them away. They didn't offer any kind of package price to buy them all.

 

We enjoyed every minute of it!!:D

[Desert Cruizers]

We did a Dolphin encounter in Acapulco and had two Vans with a total of maybe 25. We first got to interact with them individually as mentioned above, the best part was when we were laying flat on our tummies and the two Dolphins propelled us across the pool. The 2nd pool we worked with 4 who did tricks upon our instructed commands. That cost us $150 pp with the Video, It was a packaged tour thru the ship.

[mygrace777]

Since we are on the topic...can someone suggest a dolphin excursion through RC for either Key West or Nassau? Going in May and want to do something really nice, interactive, with dolphins. Thanks

[April-in-NC]

Since we are on the topic...can someone suggest a dolphin excursion through RC for either Key West or Nassau? Going in May and want to do something really nice, interactive, with dolphins. Thanks

 

Unless something has changed this is NOT through the ship, but Blue Lagoon (Dolphin Encounters) does a FABULOUS Dolphin Swim (Encounter is also available) on a private island off of Nassau. Blue Lagoon get much better reviews than the ship excursion that goes to Atlantis. Consensus is that Blue Lagoon is much more customer friendly with access and taking your own cameras and allowing observers.

 

Groups of about 8 are in the water with 2 dolphins, they take pictures of you with the animal and then pictures of you and your friends/family and they play some games with you as a group (dolphin brings someone a rock from the bottom, splashes you, "laughs" at you) then everyone gets a chance for one on one stuff with the animals. Everyone gets a hug, kiss, dance and gets to hand feed the dolphin, then after all that is done everyone gets a foot push from both dolphins (AMAZING!!!!!!).

 

What is nice about this group is that they let you take your waterproof camera into the water with you so you can get pictures without paying for the official ones and once the program is done you can spend time on the beach of the lagoon and watch other groups do their encounters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[funfamilyof6]

Unless something has changed this is NOT through the ship, but Blue Lagoon (Dolphin Encounters) does a FABULOUS Dolphin Swim (Encounter is also available) on a private island off of Nassau. Blue Lagoon get much better reviews than the ship excursion that goes to Atlantis. Consensus is that Blue Lagoon is much more customer friendly with access and taking your own cameras and allowing observers.

 

 

Maybe things have changed...we are doing a cruise in April 2011 and there were 3 excursions offered at Blue Lagoon. You had a choice of Beach break (beach day including lunch), excursion with dolphins $130 - no lunch, or excursion with sea lions $115 - no lunch. Like you, I have also read much better reviews for Blue Lagoon. I have also read that you are able to see (not touch or interact with) dolphins and seas lions even if you just do the beach day. I have also read that Blue Lagoon also treats the animals much better. I don't know if this last part is true. We were thinking of just doing the beach day. You also get a nice scenic ferry ride to the lagoon where blue lagoon is.

[April-in-NC]

Maybe things have changed...we are doing a cruise in April 2011 and there were 3 excursions offered at Blue Lagoon. You had a choice of Beach break (beach day including lunch), excursion with dolphins $130 - no lunch, or excursion with sea lions $115 - no lunch. Like you, I have also read much better reviews for Blue Lagoon. I have also read that you are able to see (not touch or interact with) dolphins and seas lions even if you just do the beach day. I have also read that Blue Lagoon also treats the animals much better. I don't know if this last part is true. We were thinking of just doing the beach day. You also get a nice scenic ferry ride to the lagoon where blue lagoon is.

 

Maybe what I am remembering is that RCI did not offer the Dolphin Swim through their excursion desk (or maybe it was just a lot cheaper to do it on our own).

 

The $130 has to be the encounter (not the swim) because I think we paid $185 or so for our swim. It was worth every penny though, it was a great day!

 

You are right about being able to SEE the other animals on the beach break. There are observation areas all around the island so you can watch the animals play on their own or interact with people.

 

As we were getting ready to get on the ferry back to Nassau one of the trainers threw some balls into one of the pens and the dolphins were using their tails to bat the ball back and forth. It was great to watch!

 

[mygrace777]

Those are awesome pics guys. Especially the last one with the dolphin and the ball in the air. So nice. Thanks...send more..I'd love to see them.

[Honbun]

We did the dolphin encounter in Conzumel on our own. Same park, but cheaper than the cruise ship package. I was glad we did it on our own because our time was earlier than the cruise ship so we were leaving the park as the large bus from the cruise ship arrived. Just made me wonder how tired the dolphins would be after all of those people. Plus, we still had loads of time for shopping and lunch in town.

[EJPhilly]

Maybe what I am remembering is that RCI did not offer the Dolphin Swim through their excursion desk (or maybe it was just a lot cheaper to do it on our own).

 

The $130 has to be the encounter (not the swim) because I think we paid $185 or so for our swim. It was worth every penny though, it was a great day!

 

You are right about being able to SEE the other animals on the beach break. There are observation areas all around the island so you can watch the animals play on their own or interact with people.

 

As we were getting ready to get on the ferry back to Nassau one of the trainers threw some balls into one of the pens and the dolphins were using their tails to bat the ball back and forth. It was great to watch!

 

We are on Oasis in May and I'm doing Dolphin Swim (booked thru ship for $199, just swim no lunch or anything else). We will be there on a Sunday with not much time for anything else!