Discovery Cove in Orange County, Florida

Photograph: Aratinga solstitialis -Discovery Cove -Florida-8a.jpg by eric from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Orange County attraction

Discovery Cove

Orange County · Central Florida

An all-inclusive reserved-entry park beside SeaWorld where a capped number of guests swim with dolphins and snorkel a built reef.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Discovery Cove opened on July 1, 2000, and works on a different model from every other park in Orlando. Entry is by reservation only and the park admits at most about 1,600 people a day, so the paths are never crowded and there is no line in the usual sense. One price covers everything: meals, drinks, wetsuit, snorkel gear, towels, lockers and parking, along with a set number of days at SeaWorld and Aquatica. The dolphin swim is what most people book it for, a structured session in the water with a bottlenose dolphin and a trainer. The Grand Reef, which opened in 2011, is a snorkeling lagoon with eagle rays and a rope bridge over a pool of sharks behind glass. The Explorer's Aviary holds more than 250 tropical birds across some thirty species, with food in hand so they land on visitors. Freshwater Oasis, from 2012, is a wading river with Asian small-clawed otters and marmosets. United Parks and Resorts owns it

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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