We arrived at Discovery Cove about 8am and checked in. We had booked a Cabana but they don’t open until 9am so we had breakfast first. Discovery Cove is an all inclusive resort (with some additional extras like the Dolphin encounter or cabanas). Pre-Covid the breakfast was buffet but it isn’t at the moment – we ordered our food and it was delivered quickly.
We were then shown to our cabana which had a nice private beach access … well other than the lifeguard literally sitting on top of us. Mark went to complain and they showed us another one but it didn’t have the beach access which the kids were really happy with and it still had the lazy river running past it so we decided to stay where we were and just keep our voices down (if that is possible ?). If they just moved the lifeguard slightly it wouldn’t have been an issue at all.
We lazed in the cabana and the kids went looking at monkeys, otters and around the lazy river before it was time for our dolphin encounter. The dolphin encounter was a great experience and better than other dolphin encounters I have done in the past. The kids absolutely loved it, although TJ wasn’t so keen on having the dolphin swim with him. Our dolphin was Rose and she was the matriarch of the pool. We also had Rose deliver a bouy to the kids, as part of the cabana package. More photos to come when we can download package.
The kids were stoked with the free soft serve, pretzels, snacks, unlimited soft drinks etc. – I gave them free reign to have what they liked so I think they thought all their Christmas’ had come at once.
We spent the afternoon lying in the sun, snorkeling in the reef and swimming around the lazy river (the kids failed to mention to me that I had to swim through the aviary to do this and also under two waterfalls so there was no way my hair was staying dry ???). The lunch was decidedly average but the kids more than made up for it with the pizza and soft serve ice-cream.
Once we were packed up we headed north to REI (an outdoor store) as Mark had a package to collect. Sophia reminded me we hadn’t yet tried a Crumbl Cookie and there just happened to be one very close by. We each got a cookie and one to spare before heading home for bed.
