What to know: Royal Dolphin experience with Dolphin Discovery

When I was on a Caribbean cruise this past winter, one of the things I really wanted to do was have a dolphin encounter.  After looking up reviews and locations, I decided my best bet was to do the Royal Dolphin Experience at the Dolphin Discovery center in St. Kitts. They have many sites around the Caribbean (including Florida and Mexico).

If you want to go, it is best to buy your tickets online, you’ll get a good deal on photo packages, and have your choice of times (the cruise lines generally only offer one or two options, but there are many more times and options available).
This experience takes about an hour and is a short cab ride from the cruise terminal.  When you go off the cruise dock, you’ll see a little stand on the right that sets up taxi rides (without going through the gauntlet out by the shops).  If you are there with other people, you may be able to share a ride like we did.  All the experiences take around the same time, so you can likely share a ride back as well.

Once you pick up your life vest, you go out to whichever enclosure has the dolphins you will work with that day.  Anyone not going in the water can hang out at some seating in the area (there is plenty of seating in the shade, as well as bathrooms, showers, and lockers).

When dolphins aren’t entertaining humans, you can often see their trainers working with them, or they play with basketballs in their enclosures.  They seem to have a great time pulling the basketball under and releasing it, letting it fly through the air and land with a slap. It’s fun to watch them.

Then you’ll be introduced to your dolphins (mine were Watson and Paris) and do the traditional whistles and waves and kisses etc. as well as touching their skin and holding them.  If you choose the royal experience you will also get to be pulled by both dolphin’s dorsal fins, and (the really fun one), pushed from below by their noses on your feet.  This is exhilarating because they propel you out of the water until your knees and you are flying through the air.

While that is the most fun experience, the pictures of that don’t show the dolphins, so I actually liked the pictures of the dorsal tow better, and that is one of the rotating headers for this site.

You only get one successful try at each thing, so try to listen to the instructions carefully about how to position yourself in the water, and what to do once you start moving.

When you are done, you can go use the showers, bathroom and changing rooms after getting your stuff out of your locker.

Overall, I highly recommend this experience.
 
 One thing you may want for this experience is a UPF long-sleeve shirt like this one to protect you from the sun while you are in the water without putting sunscreen chemicals in the water. I like this brand for their swim shirts and their short-sleeved shirts that are quick dry.