dolphin swim or encounter

[Princess1963]

Is a dolphin swim or encounter worth the cost. If you think it is then which one would be the better choice.

[Ergates The Ant]

No, it is not worth the cost to the dolphins. These animals lead stressful and dramatically shortened lives.

It may seem a wonderful opportunity to interact with these amazing creatures, but both they, and we, the potential customers, are being exploited by operators with only their profits in mind, and no concern for the animals' welfare.

 

Tripadvisor has recently announced that it will no longer allow users to book activities involving contact with captive wild animals or endangered species.

 

Depending where you are going, you may be able to find approved whale or dolphin watching boat tours, so you can enjoy the wildlife without the guilt!

[Princess1963]

Thanks for your feedback

[Ergates The Ant]

Sorry to be so negative! I absolutely love whales and dolphins and would love to get up close to them. In the past, I was a frequent visitor to SeaWorld, but after all I've read and seen since, I feel so guilty to have supported them.

Hopefully on your cruise, you will be lucky enough to see dolphins swimming freely alongside the ship. We also took a cruise to Alaska one year, and saw loads of whales, it was fantastic.

[Cyclops32]

Sorry to be so negative! I absolutely love whales and dolphins and would love to get up close to them. In the past, I was a frequent visitor to SeaWorld, but after all I've read and seen since, I feel so guilty to have supported them.

Hopefully on your cruise, you will be lucky enough to see dolphins swimming freely alongside the ship. We also took a cruise to Alaska one year, and saw loads of whales, it was fantastic.

I would have to disagree. Several places animals may live longer and happier lives. They are protected from predictors,. Always have food and good places have trained medical staff to make sure they are healthy. Dolphins also like to play a lot and human interaction can be fun for them.

 

A lot of the SeaWorld things that are written are just negitive hype.

 

I for one have a swim scheduled for this summer. Have done an encounter before but can't wait for a swim.

 

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[cb at sea]

Take a vacation in Virginia Beach. Because of the coastline and the location of the Chesapeake Bay, dolphins swim along the coast at LEASt 2 times daily..sometimes, more! They are barely offshore, and if you are on a small boat (like a sailboat), they will be all around you. These are wild dolphins....they are under no stress, not captive, and you can view them to your heart's content.

 

I'm not a fan of the "captive" thing, either....it's so cruel to those poor animals. Not a fan of zoos, either. This is NOT how life for these animals is supposed to be lived.

[kbset]

We did a dolphin push, pull and swim in Cozumel in 2012 and it was amazing!!! Something I definitely would do again.

 

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[wdsted]

Why do just an encounter? Instead, bring a baseball bat and club them to death. That will end their miserable lives much more quickly.

 

 

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[tjt87]

Is a dolphin swim or encounter worth the cost. If you think it is then which one would be the better choice.

 

 

Not on a cruise but on the Florida Keys check out the Dolphin Research Centre. https://dolphins.org/home

[Oakman58]

So I'm guessing those who think the dolphin swim is so cruel to the animals also never visit zoos either.

[sanger727]

Ok. So not going to address the animal rights issue, simply the question asked. We did a dolphin swim a few years back. To me, it wasn't worth the money. To my stepmother, it was. I was hoping to literally swim with the dolphins and be able to interact with them or at least watch them interact with each other.

 

What we got were concrete pens with 1 dolphin per pen and 15ish people. They had you swim to the middle (in a life jacket); pose for a picture, then the dolphin came up and did his part. Picture snapped, on to the next person. It's really just a photo shoot with a dolphin. If I do anything like it again I'd like to go somewhere we're the dolphins are out, swimming in the wild, behaving like dolphins.

 

 

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[Oakman58]

Wow sanger727, that sounds like a pretty sucky dolphin encounter. Not all dolphin encounters are created equal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cyclops32]

Ok. So not going to address the animal rights issue, simply the question asked. We did a dolphin swim a few years back. To me, it wasn't worth the money. To my stepmother, it was. I was hoping to literally swim with the dolphins and be able to interact with them or at least watch them interact with each other.

 

What we got were concrete pens with 1 dolphin per pen and 15ish people. They had you swim to the middle (in a life jacket); pose for a picture, then the dolphin came up and did his part. Picture snapped, on to the next person. It's really just a photo shoot with a dolphin. If I do anything like it again I'd like to go somewhere we're the dolphins are out, swimming in the wild, behaving like dolphins.

 

 

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This sounds more like an encounter then a swim. Just look at the place you want to visit and read the details. This is the reason I booked outside of NCL for our swim. They only offered limited interaction etc same place offered other options that where cheaper on top of it.

 

For those who think it is cruel to dolphins...Remember animals are different then humans. An animal spends most of not all of its life looking for 3 things. Food, safety and reproduction. Not like they are swimming around an ocean sightseeing. Every place I have seen dolphins has had a ton of room to swim. Feed them well and took care of them. Any business knows it is cheaper to take care of their dolphins then to let them get I'll and die early and then need to replace them.

 

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[Ergates The Ant]

Take a look at us.whales.org

Then you can make your own mind up.

[Oakman58]

It’s hard to wade through all the information on the Internet about the treatment and lifespan of dolphins in captivity. It’s really difficult deciphering what is true and what is exaggerated or even false. In reading the research from both sides of the aisle it seems to me that both captive and wild dolphins that are already one year old will have about the same life expectancy. Baby dolphins in the wild are preyed upon by the larger shark species and Orcas.

 

The small number of dolphins that are in captivity receive excellent medical care and don’t have to fend off competition for their next meal. Captive dolphins also don’t have to deal with those ugly parasitic critters that latch onto the fins of dolphins. If you look at the dorsal fin of these wild dolphins I photographed you can see they are hosts to those ugly xenobalanus globicipitis.

 

 

[Cyclops32]

Take a look at us.whales.org

Then you can make your own mind up.

 

 

You can also look at this link:

 

http://www.ammpa.org/faqs.html#1

 

That shows just the opposite, showing that some captive whales and dolphins can live almost twice as long in captivity.

 

I am just sawing you can back up any side with links to things on the web. People and groups post what they believe to be true and find facts to match those believes while dropping or ignoring things that counter that belief.

[sanger727]

We did the 'dolphin swim' at dolphin discovery grand cayman.

 

Tried to copy the link but it got blocked by cruisecritic.

 

Oakman... we did the single dolphin version instead of the two dolphin version - but I don't think our experiences were that different. I have all those types of photo too... I just didn't enjoy it or feel like it was worth the money. We did the kiss, a belly pull, high fives, etc..

 

Like I said, my stepmother loved it; it just wasn't for me. I'd 100% prefer to have an experience without touching the dolphins or having photographs if I got to watch dolphins acting like dolphins instead of performers in a show. Like stingray city - loved that. Stingrays being stingrays and you are able to interact with them in an authentic way.

 

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Edited March 4, 2017 by sanger727

[tpnebraska]

I love dolphins and did the dolphin encounter at Blue Lagoon when stopped in Nassau. I was awesome!

[phoenix1181]

I did an encounter at Sea World in San Diego and loved it. Then I did the Ultimate Adventure at Dolphin Quest in Bermuda & was VERY disappointed. Obviously it depends on where you go but I won't do it again.

 

Now I watch for dolphins from my balcony.................

[mamasylvia]

I did a dolphin encounter in Nassau. Would have preferred the swim but not physically able - telephoned them beforehand from the U.S. to see if they could accommodate my disabilities. They did and it was magic. Both DH and I will never forget it.

 

I also paid attention to the dolphin's behavior and didn't see any signs of stress. Admittedly I'm not a specialist in sea critters, but I *am* a nurse and dolphins are mammals. He came freely to the handler and and didn't show any behaviors that looked like trying to get away. He clearly trusted his handler, rolling over to expose his belly without hesitation. The dolphins had a large lagoon to swim in and at the end, he unhurriedly swam out of the encounter area (which was not fenced or gated or otherwise holding him in). I asked a couple of helpers if he liked interacting with people - they laughed and said he was lazy, that he was fine with anything that didn't require him to do more than lie there. That sounded like people who knew their animals and paid attention to their characteristics.

[SNJCruisers]

Depending on where you're doing it, they can sometimes have as many as four different tiers of interaction with the dolphins. The basic is an encounter, there could be two levels of swim and there could even be a "trainer for a day". The most expensive one will give you the most time to interact with the dolphins and thus give you more bang for your buck and provide you with more value. I did it twice over the years, the first time about 25 years ago in Hawaii on the Big Island and I will never forget it, being able to actually swim with them and even playing catch with a hand sized pool basketball.