Dolphin experience for 4 year old
 

Hi folks -

Anyone know somewhere around the Orlando or Tampa area that our 4 year old can get to touch / interact with a dolphin? Most places have a 5 or 6 year old restriction on interaction and it seems really hard for her to have to watch her older brother swim with a dolphin and to try and explain that she's not allowed to.

Discovery Cove say she could have a very brief moment touching one while a family photo is taken [ie while they try and make more money out of you] but I'm looking for a bit more than this time-wise.

Any suggestions? I believe SeaWorld has a dolphin place where you can feed / touch the dolphins? Anyone any experience of this or anywhere else?

I don't really have an answer for you, but I can tell you that at SeaWorld, the Dolphin pool has a waist high wall that reach over to feed and touch them vs. Discovery Cove and other Dolphin encounters where you are in the water with them. This pool can get very crowded at feeding time, and you may or may not actually manage to touch one. At Discovery Cove, groups of around 10-12 people have half hour "appointments" with a Dolphin and trainer (and a photographer), but since your youngest can't fully participate, it might be better to wait a couple of years, since with the price of admission, it's not something that most people do very often.

I assume from your other message that your son is 6. Why would you want a 4 year old or a 6 year old in a tank with a large strong wild animal? Would you throw them over the side of a boat in the ocean if a dolphin was swimming around the boat? Or put them in a monkey cage at a zoo? You will have to sign a waiver of liability releasing the company running the program from any harm done to your children - and that should tell you something (the legal status of these waivers is unclear after a recent Florida Supreme Court decision - but you will be signing a document saying it's ok if my kid gets hurt). FWIW - when swimming with dolphins programs used to be required to report "accidents" to the government (there's no requirement now) - most "accidents" involved women and small children (and the "accidents" tended to involve acts of sexual aggression against the women and children). BTW - your kids probably watch a lot of cartoons and think dolphins "smile" and therefore like them - when we adults know that's just the way their faces look.

Besides - why set up a fight between your 2 children (I can do it and you can't). Better to come up with some activities that both can do. Robyn