so you have free icees too? enjoying every minute of this! Free rice krispie treats,
chips this is probably going to be one of my top five things that you could do with a family
it's very very early right now 5:52 a.m to be precise but today is something that's really
special because today is the day we finally give our kids their Christmas present because we value
experiences over things and so for Christmas this year we gave the kids a day at discovery
cove here in central Florida and since we knew we were going to be here during these winter months
we knew that this was going to be a fun place so I'm excited that we're going to
have our experience today finally oh my gosh it's like 5 54 in the morning hashtag I'm
excited you excited I am too this is gonna be fun all right I'm going to hide my excitement
because I love my time now I'm going to be literally bouncing off the balls
the cool thing about discovery cove is it's an all-inclusive experience so things like drinks and
food are included as part of our day so we don't have to worry about packing a lunch or bringing
a bunch of extra water along um pretty minimal as far as what you need to bring with you guys
excited snacks and snacks unlimited snacks it's every teenager's dream unlimited snacks we made
look at how pretty that water is
so what thing are you most excited to see today?
what are you most excited about definitely the dolphins i love dolphins eventually i
think I want to get like another tattoo with a dolphin got it all right let's go
it's right up you are between 14 and 16. try it out
can I have one of the short ones?
super warm whenever you are feeding you see a big fish just take your
hands out of the water take the fish out of the water for your own safety awesome
we started our day with a small group of people feeding the stingrays
it was amazing having these beautiful creatures swimming around
brushing up against our wetsuits with their wing-like bodies
wearing the wetsuits kept us nice and comfortable while we were in the water
this is definitely an experience our kids will never forget and we are so thankful to
have chosen this particular adventure for our family to enjoy and be together our rays are
used to us feeding them so we make it really easy for them if you're pulling your hand away
believe it or not they do remember that and then they go to somebody else and they may not come
to you again to feed them so make it easy for them I'm sorry but they're a little bit lazy
we've uh we've done that all right so also please don't try to pet them when you have
your gloves on when you're done feeding you're welcome to take a glove off and then pet them
um their skin's a little bit sensitive they have a slime coating just like fish do
uh fish guts it's a dead fish dead fish all over your fingers
now uh put it down further a little bit yeah down down a little bit there you go here he comes
he shook
like he bumped me and I dropped the fish and he sucked my hand
how did he not see that right here i got ice cubes
one's looking this one's looking chicken no
i didn't see that one
there you go keep it right up why not
i just want to know what happens if you fart in your wetsuits
so we want to thank you so much for uh spending your time with us doing your morning with us
and we hope that you had a great time so whenever you're done i
take off this glove scoop them together and give them to me in this bucket
what'd you think guys
we're gonna go eat because we have to swim with the dolphins oh it's only 8 30.
but 10 o'clock is our dolphins so you have three icees too
enjoying every minute of this
free rice krispie treats spices chips wow
thank you
so many of you i can't see my hand
so we just had the most incredible like dolphin encounter where we got to have the dolphin kind
of like tow us through the water and just pet the dolphin and interact with the dolphin and they're
just such cool cool amazing creatures this is one of those experiences that when you come here you
will remember it for the rest of your life like it's a lifetime memory and even dakota earlier
when we were walking asked mom is this a once in a long time experience or is this a once in a
lifetime experience and it really kind of depends on you know what you choose to do but this is
definitely one of those things for us that's a once in a long time thing where it's been a lot
of fun so far we would probably want to come back at some point but it is on the higher end of the
budget so it's one of those things where this was our kids christmas present so that's where we save
those resources throughout the year and choose to buy an experience versus just buying more things
but awesome all inclusive with food and beverage so we actually kind of over packed they even
provide towels which i brought towels we didn't need to so you can really just kind of walk in
with maybe an extra pair of clothes if you want and that's about it that's all you need everything
else is provided for you which is just awesome so when we were in the water with the dolphins the
trainers actually told us that the way that they train the dolphins part of the training they do is
they teach them to ignore any sort of input from any individual other than the trainer sometimes so
if you go up and you tap your foot in the water or something like that they're trained to ignore
that oh cool only listen to the trainer or the trainer has some sort of signal that they can give
to the dolphin to then like okay you watch this person and then you know they tell that person
okay this is the hand signal or whatever so the dolphin knows okay you're watching this person
but the way that they do that is it's like they don't want overload so they train them
don't pay attention to anybody but me who would i say this is interesting i feel like all we're
doing is eating eating eating and i don't know i think maybe that's like one of those things with
an all-inclusive place if you've ever done a cruise or something like that you just eat
all the time so we're eating again now lunch let's go lunch time you hungry all right
hello chocolate cake you should probably eat one of those nice green salads trinity
oh dakota here there's some melons here so what is over there it's like a playground but
water it's just a cave yeah a place where we can play nice an underwater playground
that sounds amazing cool well let's go check it out all right let's go get towels
and our snorkel here and then we'll go over there and let the kids frolic in the water
so one of the cool things that we are seeing about this place when it comes to just things
to do in the orlando area is that because of how that this particular area is set up you're not
experiencing wait times or having to wait in line for things we're in just a smidge of a line when
we got here this morning to just kind of check in but once that you're checked in you have an
assigned time to go experience the dolphins we did a stingray feeding experience this morning
that we had signed up for extra it's just very relaxed or vibe so you can just kind of come
and go with all of the food stations and the snack stands and get drinks when you want the kids have
just been in a lot of the water areas and there's like a lifeguard every five feet it feels like
just so much supervision that's happening everybody's having a good time
this is probably going to be one of my top five things that you could do with a family
in the orlando area and that goes from whether you've got younger kiddos to even older kiddos
there's definitely something here for everyone and it's just a nice relaxed way to spend the day
MUSIC Playing
oh my gosh thats so cool so another really cool thing that they have here is kind of like a lazy
river but it's like a lazy river on steroids where you can actually swim around this loop
you're going through caves you're going through waterfalls you can actually get
out on this little trail and go see the otters which is really really neat
just a very cool experience of being able to swim around what feels like a river
out in nature just because of how everything is and all of the greenery
and the trees and the vegetation just this whole day has felt like I'm back in Hawaii which is
just incredible so tons of stuff to do here and tons of stuff needed today this is definitely an
uh when i was over there i found like a sweet spot for stingrays and the singers were like
they're coming over here and they're coming over here and everywhere it was crazy it was fun even
the lifeguards said i found a sweet spot sweet spot really yeah like super fun so what did you
think of your christmas present i wanna come back next year yeah that's awesome so do you guys want
experiences or do you want things for christmas next year for me for you it depends what do you
say experience this year yeah what do you want to go to experiences like this or things it depends
it depends he's a teenage boy great experience would highly recommend this as an experience if
you were in the central florida area especially if you are going to be spending the winter months
here or something like that make sure you put this on your list this is a reservation only
type of day and i notice online the pricing does seem to vary based on the season so definitely
want to just kind of check that out as far as if you maybe go at a different place in the winter
the other thing is is that wetsuits are provided so you're plenty warm the whole time that you're
in the water because they allow the use of wetsuits they provide those wetsuits
and they also provide a snorkeling mask can i take off my gloves and pet the birds now i mean
stingray hair in the mouth