Manatee swim - great experience!

[clover4]

Anyone thinking of doing the Manatee Swim at Dolphin Discovery... go for it! Easily the highlight of our trip. I was worried about booking on line but did so anyway and was pleased with how smooth everything went. We docked at 1:30 - which was 12:30 Cozumel time...our swim was at 3:30 Cozumel time. When we got there they had room to take us early at 2. So we swam in the pool (which was big and pretty interesting with several different levels or sections in it) and then the 4 of us lined up with 8 others for our briefing. We were led to one of the pens in the water and we started off by just petting and touching two manatees. Then they had each family or group move to a different trainer from the rest of the group and do the 'hug' and 'kiss'. THEN they gave us masks and let us swim in the water with three of the Manatees. They gave us bunches of lettuce to feed them. A bonus was that the fish from the ocean like the lettuce too so you could see not just the Manatees up close but lots of beautiful fish too. We were in the water for a total of about 60 minutes. About 1/2 of that was the 12 of us swimming around the 3 Manatees. The trainers were very kind and answered tons of questions. My kids loved it, my husband and I loved it. And it only cost us $39 for adults and $29 for the kids and it included the admission to Chankanaab. The pen next to us was the dolphin pen so we watched them up close for a bit from our pen.

 

They took great pictures and a video which they try to sell you, of course. We did watch the video (less than 10 minutes long) and it was a nice quality video but we didn't want to buy it and there was no hard sell. The pictures were also beautiful. They had packages but I can't remember the prices of those. The individual 5x7s were $20 each. I asked the guy if he couldn't give me a deal on 2 pictures. He intially said "no" but then agreed and sold me 2 for $30.

 

Chankannab was a very nice place too. Unfortunately, right after our swim it started to rain pretty hard. We grabbed a table at the beach restaurant which was under cover and hoped it would clear... it never did but we enjoyed good food and a friendly waiter and then the kids snorkeled in the rain for a little while. I wish we could have enjoyed more of the park.

[Name Of The Game]

Sounds like fun!

 

We had that booked too but are no longer stopping in Cozumel.

[inkmahm]

Glad to hear this! I've booked both the manatees and the sea lions for when we are there in December. One is at 2 pm and one at 3:30 so we'll have time before our sessions to enjoy the park. The restaurant there ws good? You'd recommend it for lunch?

[clover4]

There are actually 2 restaurants. Neither are anything fancy. We ate at the one that serve more Mexican fare - the waiter told us the other (bigger) one serve more seafood. Again, nothing fancy, a few plastic outdoor tables. But the waiter was so friendly. When I asked for a margarita he offered tamarindo as one of the flavors. When I didn't recognize the flavor, he wrote it down for me. I had still never heard of it but said "what the heck". It was good - brown color, kind of mango/citrus taste. A few minutes later the waiter pulled me up to the counter where he and the other staff had pulled "tamarindo" up on their computer so they could show me what the fruit looked like. Again, very friendly.

 

I and my daughter had the quesadilla which was very good and my husband and so each had the tacos. DH love it as the beef was more "steak-like". My DS would have preferred the "ground beef - taco bell" variety. But he still ate two!