Florida - Need I say more?

The family and I took a trip to Florida last week (thus the lack of blog posts) and boy was it a blast.  In fact, we splurged a little because we bought two tickets to a resort called Discovery Cove in Orlando.  I have never been to a more relaxing, well maintained, and very polite and helpful staff than I was at Discovery Cove.

You first enter into a massive entryway with beautifully tiled floors where you check-in, take a photo for your access badge, and from which you are guided down a well designed nature path to the lockers and suit-up area.  You are given either a wet-suit or a wet-suit vest, snorkel kit, and locker key.  Once we had changed into our stylish outfits we headed down to the coldest section of the Discovery Cove experience.  In this pool were many types of tropical and non-tropical fish, sting rays, barracudas, & even sharks.  Of course, the barracudas and sharks are in underwater glass cases to protect us swimmers but it was still a bit unnerving anyway.

After that experience we moved to the closest snack hut where we are provided with all the drink (including beer) and snacks we could ask for at no extra charge.  Of course I down a few cold ones and had a bag of chips but I couldn't spend too much time there because we had much more to do.  Just a few feet to the right was the relaxation pool which featured a massive waterfall and MUCH warmer water.  The temperature here was more like an indoor heated pool than the previous frigid ocean temps in the last pool.  Anyway, the waterfall actually has a huge artificial cave behind it which you enter via the right side.  The current easily takes you through this massive cave with inner pools you can relax in and look through the raging waterfall.  From there, unbeknownst to us the current was actual a lazy river that changes depths from 1 foot of water to 8+ feet of water (no tubes are provided so you better know how to swim ) which continues into the massive, departmental, aviary.  The lazy river seems to go through a massive majority of the park and takes quite awhile to complete from start to finish which ends right back in the massive relaxation pool from which we entered.   The birds in the aviary were awsome and introduced us to many species which we'd never seen before.

From there we enjoyed a hearty and unlimited lunch buffet.  The buffet is served by chefs and staff with everything made fresh and very tasty (I'd highly recommend the cheeseburger & cheesecake!).  We could of had breakfast there as well but opted out because we were too exited to get our day of exploration started.  After lunch we headed over to the dolphin experience.  We paid extra for Andrea to do this and although it lacked in personal attention and depth it was still a fun experience.  To tell you the truth it felt more like a petting zoo than it did a "dolphin experience".  In any case, I got to see Andrea ride on the dorsal fin of the dolphin just like you do with SeaWorld performers and that was something not everyone gets to do.

We then walked through the aviary to get a more close up experience than down in the river previously.  We were surpised to see staff members generously handing out as much bird food cups as you could handle.  They must put crack in the food because the birds were on us like crazy!  We had big birds, little birds, peacocks, owls, you name it all around and on us.  At one point we saw a woman throwing dead baby mice at a row of birds who lined up like Marines at chow.  It was kind of gross to see dead babies being fed to the birds but hey.. we all gotta eat don't we?

From there Andrea and I spent the rest of the day drinking, snacking, and returning to the lazy river and sting ray pools again and again until they kicked us out.  At the end we were presented with the opportunity to purchase any professional photos of us that had been taken throughout the day.  A touch screen computer allows you to hand pick the images you like.  We had purchased an underwater camera to capture some of our moments so we opted to only purchase one of the photos of which we made keychains and a single large photo of.

If you ever take a trip to, or live in, Florida and haven't made it to Discovery Cove it is definetly worth the price.  I would like to recommend to the Discovery Cove leadership that they rethink their "dolphin experience".  Don't make it a petting zoo.  Allow the guests to really interact with the dolphins on a more personal and free manner.  Don't line us up like children and have the game come over for a petting.  I don't recommend the extra $100 it cost to swim with the dolphins unless your heart is set on it.  Other than that it was truly the best park in Orlando we've ever been to and was a truly relaxing and entertaining experience.

I've posted some of our photos from that specific park on my facebook account.  You can see them here (please excuse the quality as it was one of those one-time use underwater cameras):  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023633&id=1413432373&l=90d5e57344