Rachel has an intense love of dolphins, so when I told her we had the opportunity to visit Marineland near St. Augustine, Florida and participate in one of their dolphin encounters I’m pretty sure everyone in the campground heard her squeals of delight!

When We Visited: February 23, 2016

Ages of Kids: 10, 8, 5

Location: Marineland Dolphin Adventure – just 30 minutes south of St. Augustine on the eastern Florida coast.

Marineland offers a variety of dolphin encounters to fit different needs, and we chose to go with The Immersion which is a 30 minute encounter including time both in shallow water as well as swimming in deep water with a dolphin.

Upon arrival, we were greeted warmly by all the staff. Before our actual dolphin experience began, we were treated to a tour of the grounds and facility by Terran who manages education for the facility. We loved her enthusiasm, experience, her patience and interaction with my kids, and her  knowledge of both the marine life and the history of Marineland.

We learned that Marineland originally opened in 1938 as Marine Studios – a facility for Hollywood filmmakers to shoot underwater footage! How cool is that? Instead of filming out in the ocean, the founders wanted a place where they could simulate the ocean environment but still have great lighting for filming. They built the large tanks with plenty of windows to let in natural light. They were unprepared for the general public appeal, however, and since then they’ve opened their doors for millions of guests to observe marine life up close and personal.

Although the facility has evolved over the years, Marineland is dedicated to conservation, science, and education. They figure if we can love and respect dolphins and other ocean life we will be more inclined to help protect them.

After our tour, Terran dropped us off near the dolphin habitat where we waited for our experience to begin. We were given some background on the dolphins, their typical day, and talked a bit about dolphin anatomy before changing into our swimming suits and donning our life jackets.

Our dolphin friend for the day was named Zac, and he was great! We were able to pet him, give him kisses, feed him fish and Jello-O (for reals!) and spend time playing in the water.

I was also very impressed with the trainer assigned to work with us. She was fun, obviously loved her job, and was great with my kids.

Although our experience was overall incredibly positive, there were two frustrations I feel the need to mention.

One frustration was that we just had a larger group. There was a smaller group of two in the water at the same time, and they were able to move more quickly through various interactions that just took our group of 5 (with 3 kids!) longer. I’m so grateful for the photos we have, but it also just took a long time to get each of posed with Zac and I think my kids would have preferred to be interacting or playing with him instead. Plus it was just bright outside and being a photographer I knew we’d all be squinting anyway!

My only other frustration was the snorkel masks. At first I thought it was a fabulous idea, but that quickly changed. We were able to go out into the deeper water and watch Zac swimming underwater. Unfortunately, even though we tested Cara’s snorkel before getting out there, she still had problems with it not sitting right or letting in some water (hello! She’s 5!).  Then she’d get frustrated because she’d miss what was going on and even threw a small tantrum that frustrated me.

We were also able to watch Zac jump pretty high and going from under the water to out was kind of cool, but mostly hard to see out of the snorkel when your face isn’t under water.

With kids its always to hard to gauge their abilities, so I totally understand why they have their program set up the way it was, but I think I could have skipped the deep water part and been just fine.

After Zac towed us back to the shallow area, we played for a few minutes and then said good-bye! My kids were surprised how fast the time went by and were sad to leave.

We did have a fabulous time, and if you ask Cara what her favorite thing in Florida was she’ll tell you “swimming with dolphins!”

Being up close to such an amazing creature was fabulous, and I’ve always been impressed with the intelligence and friendliness of these aquatic animals. The staff at Marineland were very accommodating and friendly and we had a wonderful afternoon!

Sponsored post :: We were provided with a complimentary immersion experience at Marineland in exchange for us sharing our honest opinion and experience with you. As always, all opinions are our own.