Making some fishy friends

Florida 2011, Day 9, part 1:

2nd December, 2011

At this point in our trip we moved away from Disney for a few days.  Today we got up and took the iride to Seaworld. From Seaworld we took a courtesy bus to our actual destination for the day which was Discovery Cove:

We arrive about 9.30 and got checked in. They gave us a map, took our pictures and gave us our fancy passes which would also work as our Seaworld tickets and told us which Cabana to go to for the swim. I was given an 11:45 swim with the dolphins. So we strolled along the path taking in the little paradise:
 

 Breakfast was calling so we headed into the Laguna Grill:

For those that don't know, in Discovery Cove you pay for your entry and swim if you're doing the swim and after that everything is included as in the give you wet-suits, sun cream, food and drinks all day so technically you don't need to bring anything but yourself and your swimming gear. So for breakfast it was pretty much the usual eggs, sausages, breakfast potatoes etc:

There was also loads of pastries and buns and stuff these are the ones I tried:

The maple and pecan plait was fine but the little muffin tasted of banana and I didn't like it so I shared it with this dude:

We sat outside under one of those porch torch heaters so it was nice. It was a nice dry day but not boiling hot it wasn't freezing either but could have been warmer like. Anyways after breakfast we went for a browse around the shop as my mother and I are big shop fans. I loved how even Discovery Cove had Christmas decorations as well:

After that we headed towards the wet-suit area to get changed. Of course I took pics along the path as well. The showers looked really cool:

Once we were changed we headed here:

to Serenity Bay. Mother lay down on a sun chair while I went for a swim around the lazy river which goes through the aviary and under waterfalls and was alot longer than I expected so once I finished that it was time to head to the Dolphins. I went to the Starfish Cabana where they get you to sign some papers about safety and such and then play you a short video educating you about Dolphins and then bring you out to the water in groups of 9 for the swim. The water where the dolphins are is freezing. The serenity bay area the water was 85 degrees so dolphin water was cold in comparison. If it was a warmer day you prob wouldn't notice the difference to much. In my group there was eight people from England who were all the one family and me so our trainer, who was called Mike, straight away started calling them team England and me team Ireland. So he brought us all out on the rocks to meet the dolphin and those rocks are super slippy! He also asked if we wanted a deep swim or shallow swim. They're both the same length but this was a new feature since I last went to this park and remembering the last time I chose shallow. Anyways the first dolphin came over she was called Kyla and he got her to pose for pics and taught us how to fed her and rub her and gave us more information about dolphins like when they swallow fish they push their tongue up which pushes salt water out of the side of their mouths and allows them to actually swallow the fish. So then we got a second Dolphin who was older called Tyler and the trainer got him to do some tricks before we all did our swims:

Again he asked if anyone wanted to change their minds on which swim they picked. He was not shifting me off my shallow swim choice. Once everyone did their swim he got the dolphin to do a few more tricks including a super soaker goodbye and it was all done and everyone could go warm up once you made it safely across the slippery rocks. My mother and I stayed on the beach for a while watching the dolphins before we went back to the Laguna Grill for lunch.

We grabbed a table outside that had one of those patio heaters beside it and then my mother went in to get her food this is what she came back with:

Once she came back I went in and got my food:

The portions on each plate was small so you could get a few and wouldn't be to full. There was a huge selection as well everything from salads to I think chicken curry as well or something. The food was all lovely as well especially that chocolate brownie thing.

While you are in the water with the dolphins the park photographers take your photo so after lunch I went to check out my photos for 60 dollars you could get three large and two small pics and you could get four different pictures. The two small pics had to be the same picture though. There was a lot of different photo options and prices. You could order a package that had key-rings except they said they were out of the key-rings that day, there was also a disc you could get with all your photos from the park but I think that would be more worth the money if you had a bigger family. For just me it wasn't worth it because there wasn't that many pictures anyway. You could also order a DVD of the swim I decided just to go for the four photos and the free photo they take when you come into the park. Once we picked our pictures we went off to explore the park a bit more stopping to take a picture of some underwater treasures:

This little dude hopped up on the wall beside me and started hissing at me. I was there first you furry little fuss pot: