Swimming with dolphins in Punta Cana, Dominican republic
Dolphins are my favourite animals. I fell in love with them when I was three years old - there was a documentary on TV about sea mammals and this is when I saw them for the first time. Well, for the first time on television. To see them in real life, I had to wait quite a few years. More precisely, until I traveled to the Dominican republic.
When I was making a bucket list for my trip there, I noticed that the Bavaro area has three different facilities where you can interact and even swim with dolphins. Since swimming with these sleek marine mammals has been my life long wish, and the whole experience was not too expensive, I decided to do it. Of course I had mixed feelings when I was booking the experience, but at the same time I knew I would regret not doing it. In this blog post, you can read about my experience.
One of the places in Dominican republic, where you can do the dolphin swim.
Choosing the place
There are three different places in Punta Cana, offering the swimming with dolphins experience. I did mine with Dolphin discovery Punta Cana. The other two companies are called Dolphin island park and Dolphin explorer.
The Dolphin island park is actually situated in the ocean, and you have to get there by a boat, which is an interesting concept, and I was playing with the thought of doing my dolphin swim experience there.. But the Dolphin discovery Punta Cana had the best reviews of all three, so I decided to do my experience there.
The entrance into the Dolphin discovery complex is beautifully made.
The place is situated in the Downtown Punta Cana, with several other attractions nearby, such as the famous nightclub, called CocoBongo.
How much does it cost?
Prices vary from place to place, ad it also depends on which experience you choose to do. At Dolphin discovery Punta Cana, you have three different experiences to choose from, and each one of them has a different price. The cheaper the experience is, the more people will be in your group, and the less time you will get with the dolphins.
The first option, that will cost you seventy dollars, is called the Dolphin encounter. This experience includes only three moves - a kiss, a hand/fin shake and a move where a dolphin will touch your hand that you will hold above the water.
The second option is called the Dolphin swim adventure, and it will cost you one hundred and five dollars. This experience has a much smaller group than the Dolphin encounter, and it includes hand/fin shake with the dolphin, a kiss, a move when a dolphin will touch your hand that you will hold above the water, and also a move where a dolphin will push you across the water by your feet.
The third option is the one that I did. It is called the Dolphin royal swim and I paid one hundred and forty dollars for it. There were only seven people in my group, and the time in the water was fifty minutes (and we received a briefing that lasted about ten minutes before going into the water).
We were taking turns with the dolphins when they did a hand/fin shake, a hug, a kiss, they pulled us across the water while we were holding their fins, and they pushed us by our feet. There were two dolphins that were playing with us, but one of them was not very cooperative, so the dolphin trainer had to take frequent breaks in attemot to make the second dolphin interact more.
Our dolphin trainer was very friendly, but sometimes a little too pushy in asking us to ask him something about the dolphins. To his credit, I have to say that he indeed told us some pretty cool facts about these incredible marine mammals. There is also a professional photographer on site, that will take pictures of you, regardless on whether you want to buy them later or not. But I will tell you more about the pictures later.
The experience
First of all, I would strongly encourage you to arrive there at least thirty minutes before your experience is supposed to start. Once you get there, enter the gift shop and check in at the main desk. You will also get a special bracelet, confirming that you paid for the experience. And while you are waiting for them to call you, you can browse through the gift shop. They are selling some pretty neat souvenirs in there.
After you exit the gift shop, you will see this big sign, which describes all the dolphins in the facility.
Once it is your turn, your dolphin trainer will show you where the lockers are, where you can put all your belongings. Then, it is time for a short briefing, where you will be told that you are not allowed to touch the dolphins until they tell you to (because that might confuse them), and if you do not follow that rule, you will have to leave the pool. Then, you will get a life jacket and you are ready for your dolphin encounter!
Then, it was time to go into the water. There are steps that make it pretty easy to get inside the pool, and while the middle of the pool is very deep, you will be standing on a special platform where the water is very shallow. The trainer once again reminded us that we are not allowed to touch the dolphins, and then it was time for us to be introduced to our two new friends - the dolphins.
Like I already mentioned, everybody in our group took turns in interacting with both dolphins, and despite the fact that there was seven people in our group and we had limited time in the water, I never felt rushed to finish the interaction.
The worst part of the experience is definitely getting the pictures after the experience is over. The salesperson almost made me cry. So, the situation is the following. The professional photographer on site takes some amazing pictures, which you can purchase later. And here comes the part that gives me headache - I will never again complain that the pictures in amusement parks are expensive.
One single small printed picture at the Dolphin discovery will cost you forty dollars. I know, what the *. You also have an option of purchasing a whole set of pictures on a CD, including two printed pictures, for ninety dollars. An even bigger what the *. I mean, why would I pay for the pictures almost as much as I paid for the whole experience?
Since I was a broke college student, I decided to just purchase one printed picture. And when I wanted to pick the one I like, the salesperson told me that I cannot pick the one that I want - they will pick it for me, and of course it was the ugliest one where my eyes were closed. Needless to say that you can pick the two pictures that you want to print if you purchase the whole package.
But I did not want to pay for the whole package because of the following reasons. First of all, that is an awful lot of money. And secondly I read some reviews on TripAdvisor that some people purchased the CD with pictures, and when they got home, the CD was empty and the customer service did not even try to resolve the issue. No thank you.
I have overheard some people trying to barter to lower the price, and they even offered the salesperson a generous tip if he would let them pick the photo, but he blatantly refused. I have to say that the whole picture thing somehow ruined my dolphin swim experience.
At the end, I decided not to purchase any pictures. After all, I keep the best memories inside my head, and for the price of that picture, I can buy myself another amazing experience. Or quite a few cocktails at the beachside bar.
By the way, prepare for the water to be ice cold. They have to keep it at that temperature because of the dolphins. An older lady in my group was shivering the whole time and her teeth were clattering and I felt really bad for her. And during the last ten minutes, I just wished everything was over so I could get out of the cold water and take a warm shower.
Also, make sure you are using environment friendly sunblock because a regular sunblock can harm the dolphins.you can buy it for pretty cheap at local supermarkets, or you can buy it at the gift shop at the facility, but it will cost you almost double the price you would pay in a supermarket. Oh, and bring a towel.
Some people in my group had a genius idea - they all bought one sunblock there and just shared the cost. So if you forgot the sunblock and see some people also needing it, just approach them and ask them if they would like to share it. Worst case scenario - they will look at you like you are crazy and say no. Best case scenario - you will be able to use sunblock, it will not cost you a fortune, and, who knows, you might even make some new friends.
Conclusion: A thought about keeping animals in captivity for entertainment purposes
In the past few years, more and more people have started to boycott places where they keep animals in captivity, even some ZOOs. But places with marine mammals are a more popular target. A few years ago, a documentary Blackfish was released, and it highlighted the life of marine mammals in captivity and how life in small pools affects them. After the documentary came out, more and more people spoke about Seaworld and wanted them to release the marine mammals.
Basically, the dolphin experiences in Punta Cana are the same thing, but possibly even worse, because the dolphins have to perform continuously, and they also have to be in a contact interaction with visitors. And even though all the dolphins in the facility appeared to be healthy and well taken care of, they are still living in captivity and performing for entertainment purposes.
The bottom line is - I am glad that my wish of swimming with dolphins came true, but I will never do it again. At least not with the dolphins in captivity. Of course, I will be more than delighted to swim with dolphins in their natural habitat.
