Dolphin Royal Swim, St. Kitts

Today we arrived at the island of Saint Kitts. Our Carnival Cruise ship docked at Port Zante, which is the dedicated port terminal for the capital city of Basseterre, St. Kitts.

I love how open they built this port terminal! As we got off our ship, we walked through the arched gates welcoming us to a wide open beautiful shopping area with its own dedicated taxi area. 

We took a taxi from the port to the Dolphin Discovery center for our swimming with the dolphins excursion. It was $5 per person to the Bird Rock Beach Hotel Dolphin Facility. When we got there, we went into the gift shop to check in.

Location: Bird Rock Beach Hotel, Basseterre, St. Kitts (Map)

We checked in and confirmed that we were signed up for the Dolphin Royal Swim Excursion. 

This program features the famous dolphin Foot Push where two dolphins will lift you out of the water. This program also includes the dorsal tow, where two dolphins will pull you across the water as you hold on to their dorsal fins. You will also get to kiss the dolphins and interact with them too.

We headed down and around the building to the locker area.

We put our backpacks in the locker area and kept the key. There is no charge for the lockers. We then went to the observation area, which allows you to watch the other group going through.

When the other group finished, we got our life vests and went into the water. We were first introduced to the dolphins. We put our hands out and the dolphin would swim by and we could pet him. We then got to give the dolphin a kiss.

We got to reach our hand up and the dolphin went up and touched our hand.

We also got to touch both fins.

Then we went to a different water area that had 2 dolphins. We got to hold onto both of their dorsal fins and they took us for a ride. It was hard to keep our eyes open as the force from the water went pretty high.

Then we swam to the other side for the dolphin to push us through the water by our feet. We put our hand out and kept our feet straight. The dolphins would swim directly under us and pushed our feet up and we rode on their noses out of the water.

The last one was to hold the dolphin like a baby for pictures. It was really fun.

We finished up and gave our life jackets back and went to our lockers to get our backpacks. We then went inside and they had a computer where you could go through all the pictures and choose all of the photos with us in them. Then out of those photos, we got to choose 1 picture each to be printed. We also got two dolphin towels with our package.

We purchased this excursion at $149 per person for 2 people through Expedia’s Shore Excursion Group. ($298) While we were in the office they gave us the option to buy the photo package at a discounted price for two people for $145. They don’t let you bring in your GoPro or any type of camera so if you want to pictures you have to buy their package. That brought the total for this excursion to $443. It wasn’t till we got back and I started researching this, that I found a better deal directly through Dolphin Discovery. At the time of this post, they were advertising the Dolphin Royal Swim Excursion with photos for $189 per person. If we had booked through Dolphin Discovery, we would have paid $378. (A savings of $65) Even though we paid more, this was an amazing experience and I would still recommend it.

Dolphin Discovery –Bird Rock Beach Hotel, Basseterre, St. Kitts

(Click on the map above to go to a Google Maps larger view.)

The Taxi ride to the Dolphin Discovery Center was $10 for two adults.

The Dolphin Royal Swim Excursion cost was $298 for two adults.

The Dolphin Royal Swim Excursion Photo package for two adults was $145.

The total cost for everything was $453

These are the things that I recommend you bring:

• You’re not allowed to bring a camera or GoPro so bring money to buy the photo package or buy the excursion with the photo package. We paid $145 for the photo package.
• They have lockers for your things and you don’t have to pay for the lockers.
• We didn’t bring a change of clothes, but if you wanted to change into something dry, they you could do that after the excursion.
• Cash if you want to buy any other souvenirs at the gift shop.

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