Carnival Excursion - Dolphin Encounter Nassau, Bahamas

[Nikkoli110]

Well since some people asked, I'll just post this here. On my trip aboard Glory 4/15, we did the Dolphin Encounter that Carnival offers. My boyfreiind (24) little sister (18) and I (22) did the encounter. Here is my review:

 

First, we got off the boat, and waited a while for the tour (we were off at 9:15, tour left at 10) we sat around and enjoyed the sun. Tour was ready at 10, we all marched in a big ol line to the boat to take us to Blue Lagoon Island. We stopped on the way to pick up some more people. Got there around 10:45 or so, and everyone got off the boat. We all walked down the dock, and up to a bunch of benches under a covered area. We all watched a little while the tv's they had on, of other people's experiences. Then two guys came up, and explained all about the dolphins anatomy, some dolphin behaviour, how to touch them, and what we were going to do. After this, we were split up into groups of about 15. You stay with whoever you want. We made a Red Sox friend, too, who told our guide to take care of us. :D Then, we went to our area, sat down with our feet in the water. It was a U shaped floating dock type thing. There were some other families in our group. The first family got into the water, a dad and two sons, I'm guessing 7 & 9. They were pretty afraid of the dolphins, looked like they were scared to touch them. Next came the picture, Chippy kisses one person in the group, for the group picture, and then you can either have individual pictures getting kissed, or move on to the rest of your encounter. Each of us got to get a hug from Chippy, a kiss on the lips, dance, feed her a fish, and do some more little tricks. Then he would send Chippy out to do some jumps, call her back, and we got to feel her heart beat. It was really cool. Plus, Chippy was 6 months pregnant, which we thought was even cooler! Then, Chippy would go off, do a wave with her tail, and that was the end. Your whole time in the water one on one was probably 10 minutes. But it was neat watching other people's experiences, too. After your encounter, you got to go grab something to eat, if you wanted, shop their gift shop, where the prices were actually pretty cheap, and go look at your pictures, and buy them if you wanted. The pictures came out awesome. They also have a video availible if you want to buy it, which has your encounter, and some more dolphin info. Then you just got to enjoy the island until the boat arrives. :) It was sooo worth it. All of the staff at Dolphin Encounters were very very friendly, well educated, and really seemed to love what they do. The dolphins are well cared for and loved. I heard many people say that its not worth it, do the swim, but I have to strongy disagree. For the price, $109/pp for what we did, compared to some that I've seen from $230-280, it was so worth it, and I would recomend it to anyone!

[poptart]

Nikki, thank you for all the details. That's just what I wanted to hear. The encounter is a better fit for me because I'm not a real strong swimmer. How much were the pictures??

thanks

[Nikkoli110]

Well we got really taken care of, but the regular price is $14 a piece, heres the website with the photo prices and packages.

 

http://dolphinencounters.com/photofrm.htm

[S.S.Oceanlover]

you didn't buy the tape of the whole encounter?

 

We bought it and have watched it numerous times already!:)

 

Bill

[LenaDaLlama]

We had a fantastic time on this excursion. We were lucky and had two gorgeous young ladies in our group...so we were in the water for about 35 minutes with the dolphins and had an absolute blast!! Our dolphin was Andy and his trainer was Henrico. They were both wonderful. Henrico definitely loves what he is doing. The facilities are very nice and well taken care of. We bought pictures and the video....The Blue Lagoon area is very pretty, hopefully it will reopen to the public soon.