Jennifer Rumple

I HIGHLY recommend the dolphin encounter. That was the highlight of the trip for me. Before meeting the dolphins, we were given an educational talk about dolphins, told about the 19 that lived there, and all kinds of information that I thought was really interesting. It was meant to both teach us but also to make sure our interactions were safe for the dolphins as well.  Then we were escorted down to the encounter area where we put our stuff in lockers and proceeded down to the water.  We all sat around the perimeter of a floating rectangular area that was open in the middle for the dolphins to swim up into the area for interaction or they could swim in the lagoon area. We all sat with our feet dangling in the water and first thing the dolphin splashed us all with their tail so we are all wet which helped when it came time to submerge ourselves in the water on a floating platform.  Our first encounter was to get into the water as a family group and the dolphin would come out of the water and kiss one of us for the photo (Kayla was kissed as this trip was for her). Then we were split into two groups of ten to go into the water.  The first thing we did was dance with the dolphins. Shaun (our 10 year old dolphin who is a movie star) and I forget the 2nd dolphins name (I'm tired), would rise out of the water, we held their fins and danced while they made happy loud noises out of their blow hole (his nose). They did this with each of the participants and then we held a small fish as high as possible and they would come out of the water to take the bait and eat. The next encounter was just as unbelievable. The dolphins hugged us by coming right up to us, lifting themselves out of the water and laying their heads on our shoulders so we could put our arms around them and hug them. (We were on our knees on a platform in the water up to our chests). Then they kissed us, and wanted us to kiss them back. Two of them kissed Courtney at the same time and then the trainers signaled them and the dolphins opened their mouths and moved their tongues quickly from side to side like they were giving raspberries.  They let us pet them on their backs and then rolled over so we could pet them on their bellies.  They jumped and splashed us, splashed us repeatedly. It was amazing...lots of fun, and quite incredible to interact with God's creation of the seas.