Our Trip - Discovery Cove in Orlando

Discovery Cove is like being at an all inclusive resort for a day. You pay one price & everything is included - breakfast, lunch, snacks, even beer (Budweiser of course), and all snorkel items. You do have to pay extra for a dolphin experience. We all ended up doing this & it was fun. Problem is you can't take any water cameras with you. Fortunately (haha) they have a professional photographer taking photos you can buy. We did buy one of each kid with our dolphin (Tyler) that I'll try to scan & post later.

I'm sure we didn't get the Kate plus 8 Discovery Cove experience but it was fun and almost worth the money. Darn close!

They have this cool aviary & give you cups of food. We did this late in the day & the birds weren't too hungry. But these Parrots liked Bruce & Ryan but who wouldn't, right?
They have this awsome (and cold) salt water pool where you can actually get in the water with stingrays. This was fun & the kids did it over & over again.

Bruce liked to grab the stingrays & hold them so they couldn't swim away. You can imagine how much they liked this. The kids were more gentle but kept egging Bruce on.

Notice how we are all wearing the Discovery Cove vest. They make you wear this or a full wet suit. It's something about safety & they have tons of lifeguards. You can't throw a rock in this place & not hit a lifeguard - seriously. And, it was super clean too. Definitely not your normal amusement park kind of place.

There's this winding river you can swim that is warm fresh water. The kids & I are posing in it below. Notice my glowing left arm. Yes, I needed a tan but they also provide sunscreen for you since it's environmentally safe for the fish. It's super thick & I got a little too much on my arms.

Again the kids acting like they like each other during our swim in the winding river.

Photo regret #2 - They have a cold salt water area where you can snorkel with tons of fish & stingrays. I wish I'd taken the water camera in there for a photo. You'd be amazed how many fish they had in the pool. They had Eagle Stingrays that swam at you like alien spaceships too. There were more fish than you'd see snorkeling in the ocean. I still prefer to snorkel in the ocean though.

It was a fun day at Discovery Cove & the free lunch was really good too. They limit the number of people (it's pre-registration only) & we felt safe letting the kids roam. They are really customer focused too. When our hotel was late picking us up, they put us in a Discovery Cove van and drove us back - no charge!

Next up - starting the cruise.