Beep beep beep 5.45 am – what a god forsaken time to be up on holiday ???
However, everyone except Frank and Bob were up and ready to go at 6.30am. (The men were going to play golf again today).
This was an expensive extra to our holiday, to swim with the dolphins and enjoy a day at Discovery Cove – hope it’s worth the £200 each? !!!
We joined a small queue outside waiting for the doors to open. We were soon at the desk, checking in and were given an 8.30am slot for the Swim with Dolphins which was great as it’s best to do it in the morning before the dolphins get tired. Just enough time for a light breakfast then on to get
kitted out in our wetsuits and snorkels,
we arrived at Sand Dollar Cabana for our pre swim video 10 mins before. Then we were off to the Beach in our group of 9, to meet Kayleigh a 13year old teenager dolphin with an attitude ! The water wasn’t as cold as I expected and the wet suits helped but the floor of the pool was a bit slippy. We got to touch, stroke and feel the dolphin between the blowhole and tail- not her head as she wasn’t happy being touched there. Then one by one we got to hang onto her fin while she swam across the water – you could feel the muscle and power of her movements – fantastic. They did photos of everyone stroking her, kissing her and the trainer showed us some of the sounds she could make. A couple of times she just swam off to see what the other groups were doing but fortunately she did come back to us. Dolphins only usually live into their teens/early 20’s because of predators in the sea, but in captivity they can live to 40+. In the park they have 44 dolphins. Great experience highly recommended even though it was £200 each we had all food and drinks included all day, towels, sunbed, dolphin experience and use of all facilities – excellent!
Need something warm now so back to the restaurant for a cooked breakfast and a hot drink before the next activity 
which was to swim and snorkel in the reef – really cold water- where we saw 10,000 fishes swimming around us – pretty mind blowing when a stingray the size of a table umbrella glided underneath me followed by wrasse, angel fish, parrot fish and loads more – the colours were amazing. In one corner of the reef there was a glass wall and on the other side were the sharks ! One if them must have been 10ft long!!!
Time to get warm again so we all headed for the lazy river which had heated water … ahhh. A long slow current that wound its way through an aviary where amongst others, spoonbill, toucan, white peacock, budgerigars and lots more swooped the water and watched the humans floating past – excellent. Adi and the boys went round a couple more times while mary, lucy and I went for pina colada/lemonade and white cherry slushi – never had one before but this was lovely except for the brain freeze !!!
After lunch, a bit of peace and quiet and a short 30 minute snooze in the sunshine on my sunbed as we were up early. Another round of lazy river, watched the Otters playing and Marmosets hiding before we were thrown out of the park almost an hour after it closed. 
This has to be the best day so far. Hope Bob and Frank had a good day too???