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Allure of the Seas Cruise - Dolphin Shore excursion


mceagle

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My little daughter who is 5 saw a video of a shore excursion with dolphins on youtube.  I'm now having to research if the dolphin experience in Cozumel on our Oct 22nd Western Cruise is worth it or not?  Any reviews out there?  Feedback?  Should I purchase through RCL or is there a reputable place to buy a better package?  Thanks everyone!

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The most important piece of information for you is to realize that there are 2 different kinds of "dolphin" excursions. 

A dolphin "encounter" is more of a wading and petting kind of experience.  A dolphin "swim" or "push-pull" is where you actually swim with the dolphins and "ride" them (for lack of a better term).  The encounter is usually significantly less money than the swim for obvious reasons.

With your daughter being 5 I suspect they would want to limit her experience to the encounter but I am unaware of what the age restrictions are, or if there are any at all.

We did the swim experience a few years ago and it remains one of my top 3 excursions of all time.  We did ours in Curaçao (I think !) so I cannot rate the one in Coz but I imagine they are all fairly similar.

I highly recommend it if you can afford it and I almost guarantee that your daughter will remember it forever. Hopefully someone else will have a review of the Coz excursion.

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See if you can find reviews of it on TripAdvisor or another site. Like @WAAAYTOOO said, there are many of these, and the level of care afforded the dolphins varies from place to place. Try to find reviews that indicate the people running the place show consistent care and respect for the dolphins they're taking care of (and let's face it, showing off for a profit).

Not trying to be a tree hugger type here, but if the animals are well cared for they'll be under less stress with all those unfamiliar humans around them and you'll also have a better experience. For reference, you can look at the reviews of Dolphin Discovery on St. Kitts. This is the one I have booked for my cruise on Freedom next year; plenty of complaints about the exorbitant photo package price (like all these places), but also consistently good comments about how the people who show you the dolphins and take care of them really visibly care about them and treat them well.

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29 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Not trying to be a tree hugger type here, but if the animals are well cared for they'll be under less stress with all those unfamiliar humans around them and you'll also have a better experience. For reference, you can look at the reviews of Dolphin Discovery on St. Kitts. This is the one I have booked for my cruise on Freedom next year; plenty of complaints about the exorbitant photo package price (like all these places), but also consistently good comments about how the people who show you the dolphins and take care of them really visibly care about them and treat them well.

I love that you mentioned this. This is generally why I avoid "animal encounter" type excursions because I fear supporting businesses that are treating animals badly and basically just using them for profit. I'm generally good with either snorkeling, or seeing dolphins hop alongside the cruise ship while in port. 

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On 8/23/2017 at 5:00 PM, mceagle said:

My little daughter who is 5 saw a video of a shore excursion with dolphins on youtube.  I'm now having to research if the dolphin experience in Cozumel on our Oct 22nd Western Cruise is worth it or not?  Any reviews out there?  Feedback?  Should I purchase through RCL or is there a reputable place to buy a better package?  Thanks everyone!

I'd say get rid of YouTube ?

We did a dolphin "swim" in The Keys, when I was a kid, and loved it.  Hopefully you can find the info you need to make a good decision, it'll be a fun experience for her.

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