Sea Lion swim at Coral world-ship's excursion or on our own

[lilcruzr]

We are looking at going to Coral World to swim with the sea lions. We are not sure if it would be about the same price to go on our own or do the ship's excursion (NCL) so we don't get left behind. From looking at other threads it looks like fun! My husband would like to use the ship's excursion which is $40 which includes Coki Beach and Coral World. It does not include swimming with the sea lions. I've looked on Coral World's site and it only states the combination fee (entrance and swimming with the sea lions) which is $106. I've read that transportaion on our own would be about 20 dollars round trip for each of us. Has anyone just paid for swimming with the sea lions when they got there? I would be greatful for any information.

[Ms411]

If the ship's excursion to Coral World/Coki is $40 and includes the RT transportation from your ship, that's about the same price you'd pay if you went to Coral World on your own. Taxi is approx $10 pp one way, and admission to Coral World is $21 (though you can usually get a discount coupon saving yourself a few bucks).

 

You can't do the sea lion swim without buying admission to Coral World.

 

The advantage of doing it on your own is you get to set your own schedule. You could easily have a full day going from Coral World to Coki beach if you attended all the feedings and lectures at Coral World, and went to the beach, too.

 

The sea lion swim is very popular, and you have to make reservations in advance. Do a search for the sea lion swim on google. Most people who've done dolphin and sea lion prefer the sea lion, and everybody says it's worth it.

[parothead]

I just booked today for our sea lion swim next tuesday. I was afraid they would be booked up, especially with 5 ships in port but we got lucky.

[Tak8]

I did the Sea Lion excursion last Christmas cruise. I did it on my own. Went to Coral World and did the swim at 10am, then went to Coki Beach, right next door. If you want the photos, it takes about an hour to get the CD ready. Enjoyed the beach in the afternoon, then went back to the ship. As long as you leave the beach early enough, you should have no problem getting back to the ship on time, unless you are in St. Thomas for a short port time. Enjoy.

[dmndlil]

Thats great! I was hoping to be able to swim with sea lions....:eek::D.... Our ship (Freedom of the Seas ) does not offer it.

[SF]

Enjoyed reading this thread. We plan on doing this tour at the end of November and I was wondering how warm the warm will be at this time. Would appreciate any info.

[ricew001]

I just read on another thread that the water in the Carribean is warm year round. You may want to search for more info.

[krewzin]

Careful when booking Coral World on your own....they cancelled our pre-booked date (sea lion swim) and rescheduled it even though we were only going to be there for 1 day on our cruise.

 

Make certain you reconfirm a few days before getting there, as they're quite independant in this regaurd, and (in our case) would not return phone calls and emails asking about attempting to reschedule.

 

We called and left messages SIX TIMES.....and sent 3 emails. Never heard a word back from them. So if you aren't booking thru the cruise line, be very careful with Coral World.

[amistad]

We have done it twice on our own, no pre-booking with Coral World, we just took our own transportation and signed up when we got there.

[SF]

We have done it twice on our own, no pre-booking with Coral World, we just took our own transportation and signed up when we got there.

 

Did you enjoy the sea lion swim? How did you find the area going to Coral World....did you feel safe as we've read some negative reviews about that.

[patterson3]

Has anyone done more than one activity at Coral World? I'm interested in doing the sea lion swim and the shark encounter but wasn't sure of the time frame?

 

Also, has anyone here done the shark encounter? If so, is it worth it?

[amistad]

When we went to Coral World we took our grown kids and Grandchildren, first we walked through the exhibits, let the little ones feed the lorikeets, looked at the sea turtles, watched the inside sea lion exhibition ect. Then some of us took the small children next door to Coki beach and the others did the sea lion encounter/swim. The sea lions are so much fun, think of an oversized puppy, very sweet. I have read all of the bad reviews of the area, but we have never encountered any problems there or at Coki, we were never approached to buy drugs and we did not see anyone using or trying to sell drugs. The good thing to about going to Coral World first and then the beach is that you have access to the restrooms all day. The driver we used to get there made arrangements with us for a time to pick us up and left us his phone number incase we decided to leave early, said the folks there would call for us if needed, we did not leave early.

[cruise pup]

I did the sea lion swim last Saturday through the shore excursion offered on the Caribbean Princess. It was terrific. It was fine for me to book through the ship since I knew for sure I would be going. I spoke to a mother who was waiting for her daughters. They did this on their own and there was no space left for the mother. Since I wasn't interested in the rest of Coral World I had more than enough time. The surf was rough at Coki Beach so I didn't bother looking into going to the beach and returning on my own. As for the cd, we only waited 5-10 minutes for it to be ready.

 

The sea lion swim was awesome. The trainers are terffic and very helpful. The sea lion my group swam with was named Remo. His buddy, Omar, swam with the other group. They were a lot of fun to be with and you really got to interract with them. My cd photos are a lot of fun too. This was a memorable experience and I was happy I did it.

[SF]

I did the sea lion swim last Saturday through the shore excursion offered on the Caribbean Princess. It was terrific. It was fine for me to book through the ship since I knew for sure I would be going. I spoke to a mother who was waiting for her daughters. They did this on their own and there was no space left for the mother. Since I wasn't interested in the rest of Coral World I had more than enough time. The surf was rough at Coki Beach so I didn't bother looking into going to the beach and returning on my own. As for the cd, we only waited 5-10 minutes for it to be ready.

 

The sea lion swim was awesome. The trainers are terffic and very helpful. The sea lion my group swam with was named Remo. His buddy, Omar, swam with the other group. They were a lot of fun to be with and you really got to interract with them. My cd photos are a lot of fun too. This was a memorable experience and I was happy I did it.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. Glad to hear you had a good time. We have this shore excursion booked with Princess also for the end of this month. Was wondering how cold was the water? Is it a self contained pool that you are in with the sea lions? We've done the dolphin experience swim on past cruises and had a blast so we are looking forward to the sea lions. :)

[Tak8]

It is a self contained pool. The pool temperature was fine. We were there the week of Christmas and I don't remember it being cold and I'm not fond of cool water temps. Enjoy. It's a great experience.

[SF]

It is a self contained pool. The pool temperature was fine. We were there the week of Christmas and I don't remember it being cold and I'm not fond of cool water temps. Enjoy. It's a great experience.

 

Thanks. That was one of my concerns as I also am not a fan of cold water temp's. Being that we live in a warm climate all year we aren't use to lower temps.

[cruise pup]

I just found out that the sea lion swim at Chankanaab in Cozumel is $59. including admission to the park. You only have to pay for the taxi there and back. So anyone planning to cruise to Cozumel keep this in mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the Coral World experience and don't regret the fantastic day I had there. I would add, though, that the photos they took were a bit disappointing because there were no real close-up photos. The person taking the photos didn't seem to be very experienced.

[Carnivalcruiselover!]

My son did the turtle encounter at Coral world! He LOVED it. We didn't pre-book with them. We just showed up. It was $35.00 extra for the turtle encounter, plus the entrance fee...oh, and did I mention that our taxi driver - Andrew (posted in another thread), also gave us discount coupons for coral world - and we got there for $6.00/person in our open air bus/taxi! He really rocked! :)