Anyone done the Sea Lion encounter @ US Virgin Islands Coral World Ocean Park?

[fredandkell]

We were eyeing this for our fall Fantasy cruise. https://coralworldvi.com/activities/sea-lion-swim/

Disney's Port Adventures has several itineraries that go to Coral World, but the Sea Lion encounter isn't one of them. The Coral World website says "If you are coming from a cruise ship and this tour is offered through your cruise line, you must book through the cruise line" so clearly some cruise lines must offer this as an excursion?

Anyway, has anyone swam with the sea lions at Coral World in the USVI, and if so, do you recommend it? Any ideas why Disney would shy away from offering it as a port excursion?

 

[StlZNF]

We did the Sea Lion Swim in March of 2016 and loved it! I booked it on my own through the web site. We hired a private car to drive us from port to Coki Beach, which was amazing and not crowded in the morning! Some wonderful snorkeling there! Then we did Coral World and the Sea Lion Swim around 11am. Back to the beach for a little while in the afternoon which was more crowded by then and our car picked us back up to head to the port.

The Sea Lion Swim was unique and Coral World had some other fun features to visit. I do not know why Disney doesn't offer it since they offer other excursions to Coral World, at least they did at the time of that cruise.

Hope this helps a little bit!

 

[fredandkell]

Thank you so much, that was really helpful!

 

[joycsk]

I also did this, but back in 2009! Booked it privately with NO issues. Back then, DCL had NO relationship with Coral World at all. I have a guess as to why DCL does not offer it, but have No real information. In the 5 DCL cruises I've done, from what I have, mostly, witnessed second-hand, DCL only plans excursions that have a large scale. I have Only ever done 1 DCL excursion, and I hated it because it was SO big, crowded and impersonal. In AK, we could See the Giant, crowded DCL whale watch boat from our tiny, private, customized excursion. We did the sea lion excursion with 8 family members. At that time, Coral World only had 3? I think, no more than 4, and only the 1 pool for the excursion. It is not scale-able. If you have ever seen the DCL dolphin excursion, DCL books at least 100 passengers or more and go to places where they have 10 or more interaction stations, etc. I definitely recommend it. We did dolphins in 2014 in Cozumel. For me, I Really preferred the sea lion experience. My MIL was with us, and she had done Discovery Cove and could not compare the experience as they were so different. The sea lions play with you rather than pushing you as the dolphins do, but we completely LOVED it!

 

[Dug720]

I believe DCL does do a very limited sea lion encounter at Blue Lagoon in Nassau - and that is definitely small. They also have private tours available at most places I've looked at. Also not large-group. So I don't think "scalableness" has anything to do with it.

If the one in Cabo is not offered likely either there was no agreement with DCL and the terms for offering it or there was something else that made DCL uncomfortable with offering it there.

 

[fredandkell]

I believe DCL does do a very limited sea lion encounter at Blue Lagoon in Nassau - and that is definitely small. They also have private tours available at most places I've looked at. Also not large-group. So I don't think "scalableness" has anything to do with it.

If the one in Cabo is not offered likely either there was no agreement with DCL and the terms for offering it or there was something else that made DCL uncomfortable with offering it there.

You're right, I did see that Disney does sea lions in another port, so that does make me feel better that there isn't "something about the sea lions" that makes them any worse than dolphins. We had originally wanted to do the dolphins but it's in the same port at the Baths in the British VI and we would rather do that.