Long-Awaited Family +1 Vacation Trip report 1/18/14-1/25/14 About This Page:

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures! Glad you enjoyed your meal at Le Cellier! Sorry about Rob's back! Continued pixies!

[stardust190]

Sorry that Rob had to sit out of so much at DHS. Although sometimes I wish I could just take a nap on a bench at a park. Sounds like you had fun at DHS even though you didn't get to see all the shows you wanted to. I don't get park hopper passes anymore because I much prefer to stay put than waste my time traveling.

Glad you enjoyed your LeCellier dinner. We've always had nice meals there.

for Rob's surgery. Hopefully it will improve his life a great deal!

[HopeAnna79]

Originally Posted by lfredsbo

Sounds like a great day at DHS! I hear you about feeling like missing out on shows, it's hard to do it all. Glad that the boys got to have their own meal! We are doing something similar on our next trip - friends of ours trip overlaps so the adults are going to Le Cellier while the kids - all teens will be hanging out in my villa with pizza! Funny about the pillow!

for your husbands surgery!!! Mine has had 2 back surgeries as well and going in for 2nd shoulder surgery on the 28th so I feel you!

I wish we had videotaped his reaction when we gave it to him.....it was priceless. Thank you so much for the pixies and understanding. I just hope he isn't in the amount of pain he is in now.

Originally Posted by Cam22

Though you didn't get to some of the stuff at DHS, you all still managed to cram in quite a bit of fun. Your dinner at Le Cellier is making me think we need to eat there again as it has been several years now since we have. I love the filet there.

Sending lots of for Rob's surgery that all goes well, that the recovery is smooth, and that life on the other side is much better.

Yes, we did. You should go there again. It was perfect. Thank you so much. I truly hope it lessens his pain back to where he was able to manage it at least, if not less.

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great pictures! Glad you enjoyed your meal at Le Cellier! Sorry about Rob's back! Continued pixies!

It was amazing. thank you.

Originally Posted by stardust190

Sorry that Rob had to sit out of so much at DHS. Although sometimes I wish I could just take a nap on a bench at a park. Sounds like you had fun at DHS even though you didn't get to see all the shows you wanted to. I don't get park hopper passes anymore because I much prefer to stay put than waste my time traveling.

Glad you enjoyed your LeCellier dinner. We've always had nice meals there.

for Rob's surgery. Hopefully it will improve his life a great deal!

I'm starting to think that I don't like the park hopper all that much although on Monday it was nice to change parks. I think if we were closer to it all it wouldn't be such a problem to park hop, especially from AKL.
Thank you! I hope so too.

[HopeAnna79]

I apologize ahead of time for the rambling words coming up next. I still can’t quite grasp what happened and I don’t want to leave anything out.

We were up, fed (well, sorta, we decided to eat at the park. I’m VERY glad I went and got a muffin that morning!), and out the door by 8 for our full day at Epcot. On our way there, I received a text message, again from a number I didn’t know. It said: “Ms. Haas please report to guest relations outside the main entrance to Epcot.” Okay….well…after the incident Monday, I was on high alert and very anxious about this. I then get another text message telling me to “Please arrive by 9:30”. I am on pins and needles by now. Totally confused and seriously thinking it had something to do with the whole incident (forgetting the fact that there is no way Disney would know where the heck I was going that day!!!) and very nervous. I quickly disembarked from the bus and made a beeline straight towards the guest services asking for directions along the way. Mom kept trying to slow me down (I should have known something was up, she was so nervous) and was trying to get me to take pictures, etc before I made it there. No way…I HAD to find out what was going on and I had to figure it out NOW so I could get on with my day and enjoy it.

The poor, poor CM at Guest relations……I handed her my phone and asked if she knew anything about my text messages and she had no idea. I was about to ask to talk to the other CM when my husband walked up behind me and asked the lady to please confirm a reservation for him. What? She asked for more clarification and he said well, can you tell us where my wife needs to go for the Dolphin Encounter. Um WHAT???!?!?!?!?!?!?! What on EARTH? I have no idea what was going through my mind other than sheer confusion and joy and shock.

Shortly after I found out, I had been crying although thankfully you can’t really tell. My mom insisted on taking this picture. I say I look happy, Mom says I just look shocked.

I’m STILL shocked and it’s been almost a month!!
A little back story. Way back in May or June Rob and I had talked briefly about the trip (Rob was really hands off on all the planning and pretty much left it all up to me) and I mentioned off-handedly that someday I would love to swim with the dolphins knowing it wasn’t going to happen this trip. Fast forward to January and a lot of hard stuff happening in my life between grandpa, Rob’s back, and other “stuff” and my dear, sweet, amazing husband calls my mom the MONDAY before our trip and asked her if she could find out what needed to be done to do this for me. 1. I’m stunned he remembered a conversation that happened 7 months ago when he can’t remember the conversation we had earlier today! 2. I was stunned to learn Mom was able to get me in to do this less than 10 days away from the event.

A little more fun: We have been trying to build our savings back up and we were given some unexpected cash before our trip. I told Rob I was going to put x-amount in the savings account and my husband vetoed me! WHAT?? He never does that when it comes to savings and told me he needed that amount of money in cash the very next day. HUH? Well, this irritated me a LOT and I spent a good amount of time over the next 10 days or so grumping about the fact that he has this money and won’t tell me what it’s for to either him or Mom. All Rob would tell me is that I’d find out after the trip which told me that either A) he bought something before the trip we had already discussed and I was vehemently against or B) it was for me and he was up to something. Mom mostly just murmured in response to all my complaining. I do NOT like surprises. I mean, I like them if I don’t KNOW about it but I knew something was up. Mom and Rob spent a lot of timing laughing at my stubbornness (and getting a bit irritated with my tenacity) and telling me to “let it GO!” which I would for about 24 hours and then it would have me all mad again! Lol.

Words still cannot express the emotions I felt when I found out. I was crying. Mom was crying. Linn was crying. Rob had watery eyes. The Boys were grinning. I’m tearing up as I’m writing this. It meant so much to me, still does. Talk about the dream of a lifetime coming true!!!!!!!!!!! I never expected this, EVER.

Shortly after I found out about the Dolphin Encounter my Fairy Godmother texted me again, telling me to have fun with the dolphins.
Everyone but Ronnie and Rob took off to start their day in the park. Rob wanted to wait with me until I went back but Ronnie was getting antsy and while I really appreciated Rob wanting to stay with me and make sure everything went smoothly, I needed some time to process the events of the morning alone before I actually got to do this thing!!

Eventually 9:30 arrived and I discovered that while they usually have to up 8 people doing the Encounter at a time, there were only 2 of us this morning! WOW!!! Another amazing development. Her name was Sonja (I think) and she was from Ireland (how awesome is that! I LOVE Ireland and hope to someday travel there). I seriously enjoyed listening to her speak all morning long! We had the normal legal stuff to go through and were told that we were not able to bring cameras because we were going “behind the scenes”. We were both very sad to learn we would only get ONE picture of the whole 3 hour experience with the dolphins. That leaves a lot for me to remember and share!!! (and a lot of words for you all to read!)

I can’t remember the name of the nice CM (Diane, Donna, or Diana) who was our escort for the day. She works behind the scenes with the sea animals and used to work for SeaWorld swimming with the Orcas. We were given a locker in the locker room and we had to leave our jewelry, phones, and MagicBands behind. Then we were off to see the dolphins. On the way we had a brief lesson on the manatees who happened to be out and about swimming. They are huge! We had to put together a puzzle of a dolphin to learn about all the different parts of the animal and between the 2 of us we got all but 2 of the parts correctly named. I loved the “melon” the most. We were again told that they cannot guarantee that the dolphins will interact with us and they explained that we wouldn’t actually be swimming with the dolphins because they aren’t set up for that. I for one am okay with that. I had no desire to be out in 40 some feet of water with a 500-lb animal!! I was also okay if the dolphin didn’t want to interact with me because he was in an “off” mood because when I’m in an off mood I don’t want to be around people and he’s really powerful! We stood in a little “ante” room I guess you would call it where the dolphins could be away from the rest of the aquarium. There were 2 smaller pools in the room attached to the aquarium. They had it set up so that 2 of the 4 dolphins could be in the room while the other 2 were off in the aquarium. They would then switch them out throughout the day. This was also the “vet” room where they do all the things needed to care for the dolphins, do routine checks on them, etc. It was fascinating to learn how they weighed them and worked with them I guess the dolphins, if allowed, would all always be in the “ante” room because it’s much quieter for them. They can hear and see perfectly through the aquarium wall and all those people can make it a bit crazy for them.

The dolphins are in pairs and are all male. We had the 2 younger ones in the room with us. The CM talked with us for almost 90 minutes in that room about the dolphins, telling us all about them and answering all our questions. When we walked in the room, we immediately had the dolphin’s attention. It was a bit odd feeling because they were literally making eye contact with us. I finally asked about this and was told that yes, they were indeed checking us out. There was an intense feeling of being watched the whole time. We learned that dolphins have to tell themselves to breath and thus they never really sleep. We were able to actually watch one of them take a short “sleep” cycle and were told that was a very rare thing to observe. He was laying at the bottom of the pool and stayed there for quite a while. She said that dolphins have the ability to turn off one side of their brain and the non-sleeping side of the brain will tell them to go get air and then switch the other side off and in this way they “sleep”. She said it was much more common to see them swimming in a continuous circle for a period of time, constantly sending out echolocation with their melon to find out if there was anything in their way. I said that gave a whole new meaning to the saying “using your melon.” J
Dolphins don’t actually talk with their mouths, but rather through their blowhole. They open their mouths to help send the sound out but no sound actually comes from there. This time in the room was amazing and almost as awesome as actually being in the water with them.

The dolphins had a period of high excitement when Barb, another CM who works with the animals, brought in a pail of fish and left it near the pool. Oh man, talk about animated dolphins! They thought they were going to get fed and really gave us a show!!! Barb came back in and said that was really unfair of her to leave that pail of fish in with them since it wasn’t for them. They didn’t like it too much when the fish disappeared and they didn’t get any!
Next we went into the big aquarium area. It is really weird to see an aquarium from that point of view instead of down below. We got to watch the 2 older dolphins for a few minutes and learned a very interesting fact. They have the aquarium sectioned off with huge fences from the top to the bottom to protect the rest of the animals from the dolphins because the dolphins are big bullies. I think that they are more like big huge teenagers just wanting to have fun but at any rate, if they got a hold of a sting ray, they would fling the 300 lb sting ray across the water like a skipping stone or grab a turtle, flip it upside down and spin it like a top!!!! I never knew that. I actually laughed at the stories because it reminded me of living at home with 3 males!!!

We were then ushered down a staircase in the middle of the aquarium to watch a quick training session with the dolphins. They would project a shape into the pool for the dolphin to see and then he was to go find the shape hanging in the other window…….let’s just say he simply wasn’t into the game today! It was really funny to watch him be very obstinate!! He would do it but he certainly wasn’t going to take the time to do it right today. The handlers award the animals for participation and not if they do it “right” or not and he was just happy to just get fish! Silly dolphin! As his goodbye they had him swim in front of the window and blow a long bubble out of his blowhole. They say that when they taught him this he added his own twist to the trick, he sticks his tongue out the whole way down the window!!!!!! It was SO funny to see a dolphin sticking his tongue out at us!!!

Next up was our turn to change into wetsuits. This was a point in time in which I was VERY happy cameras were not allowed because well, wetsuits reveal everything I hide from the general public on a daily basis!!! We also had to watch a short movie about all that Disney does to protect wildlife and again learned that messing with dolphins in the wild is a very bad, dangerous thing to use. Our CM told us that if we were in a ship sinking between dolphins and sharks we would be better off jumping overboard where the sharks were than where the dolphins were. I personally don’t think dolphins are intentionally harmful but rather big oafs who want to have a good time and don’t realize that humans are much more fragile than their counterparts. However, I was told this isn’t the case and dolphins can be very aggressive.
The hardest decision of the day was to walk through the public area of the aquarium wearing our wetsuits or to go outside in the bitterly cold wind and avoid the crowds. Being the bigger of the 2, the decision was left to me and I decided that the guests in the public area would never, ever see me again!! I was so ready for the time in the water with these amazing animals, I didn’t care what someone would say after I breezed past them in my wetsuit!!!
We went into the water with Barb and another CM. On the opposite side of the tank they were doing routine care for the sting rays and we were able to see a HUGE stingray up close as well.

We were given several instructions before we got in the pool including the fact that if we were told to do something we were to do it right then, no questions asked. They would explain to us later what was going on if need be. Thankfully this was never needed.

We were able to meet all 4 dolphins. I can only remember one of the youngster’s names, Calvin. I honestly can’t remember what happened in what order and I apologize but it was just so much to take in and remember it all as separate events.

First we got to pet one and I got in a bit of trouble because I was petting him too close to his eye and I couldn’t process what Barb was telling me fast enough to move my hand further away quick enough for her. Thankfully that was the only snafu we had and I learned to keep my hand away from the eyes! They feel so soft and smooth. I can’t describe it other than it felt much like very firm baby skin. We then had our pictures taken with which ever dolphin we wanted before the real fun began.

I had my picture taken with the oldest dolphin there. They say he served in the Navy before they got him. Rob scoffed at this but I am pretty sure it was true. His name started with an R and he was a regal, lean, beautiful guy. I want to say he was 37 years old or so.

It was not the easiest thing, getting my picture taken with a dolphin. The area we were standing on was sort of slippery and sloped at a gentle angle, you had to crouch down, put your arms and hands in very specific places around the dolphin, hold yourself upright, and smile at the camera. Smiling was obviously the easiest part!!!

We went on to have interactions with each of the 4 dolphins. We were told to do a hand motion and that would cause each dolphin to do a different set of tricks. We saw back flips and front flips, twists and end over end jumps. I got to dance with one. We saw one race around the enclosure and then felt his heart beating and his warm tail fin. We were able to see where the vein is that they use to draw blood from them on another. We were tail splashed and SOAKED 4 different times!!! Each dolphin did the tail splash so differently. The oldest dolphin did it with finesse….he held his tail up for about 5 seconds before the first slap and we had just enough time to realize what was coming (the trainers didn’t tell us!) and go “OH NO!!!” before we were splashed a dozen times. The next tail splasher was just crazy, we didn’t get very wet because he splashed all over the place in an erratic fashion. The third was a slow tail splasher but he drenched us! The last one had to really think about what he was doing, lol. It was a very slow, methodical splashing. This time feels like a whirlwind of emotion and images all blurred together as I think back over what all I saw and experienced. It was an amazing, phenomenal experience and I don’t think I will ever forget it even if I can’t put it all into words to describe it all. We were able to spend SO much time with them since there were only the 2 of us. I was in awe the whole time. Sadly our time was over too quickly and we were off to shower off the salt water and return to the real world and reality.

I have no idea what anyone else did while I was in with the dolphins other than explore Epcot!

As I was leaving I came across Rob and Ronnie leaving the park because Ronnie was coming down with a really bad cold and was so tired he needed to go back to the hotel and take a nap. Rob wasn’t going to turn down a chance of a nap either. I bid them goodbye and then came across Mom and Linn. Linn was also on his way back to the hotel for a few hours and a nap. He was worn out. This meant Mom and I were left to explore the World Showcase on our own, with a few sightings of The Boys.


UP Next: The rest of Epcot.

[chezp]

Oh wow, that was so worth waiting for - that truly is the surprise of a lifetime! I'm so glad your mom took a photo of you after you found out. I think you look absolutely delighted, although perhaps a little shocked.

Thank you so much for the detailed account of the experience. It sounds truly amazing and I absolutely adore the photo of you with the dolphin, you just look so happy.

[Cam22]

What a sweetheart, Rob (and your Mom) was to arrange this experience for you! You might not have been able to describe everything you felt and did, but I could clearly tell that you had an incredible time and enjoyed every moment of the experience. I was even tearing up with everyone when you found out.

[lfredsbo]

Another one tearing up with everyone else reading your surprise!!! What a great experience! My daughter wanted to do this and now you have me thinking

[HopeAnna79]

Originally Posted by chezp

Oh wow, that was so worth waiting for - that truly is the surprise of a lifetime! I'm so glad your mom took a photo of you after you found out. I think you look absolutely delighted, although perhaps a little shocked.

Thank you so much for the detailed account of the experience. It sounds truly amazing and I absolutely adore the photo of you with the dolphin, you just look so happy.

I'm so glad!! It was so hard to wait to write up this part since it happened so late in the trip! It was the first thing I wanted to share! I don't think I could have smiled any bigger!

Originally Posted by Cam22

What a sweetheart, Rob (and your Mom) was to arrange this experience for you! You might not have been able to describe everything you felt and did, but I could clearly tell that you had an incredible time and enjoyed every moment of the experience. I was even tearing up with everyone when you found out.

awww, thank you!

Originally Posted by lfredsbo

Another one tearing up with everyone else reading your surprise!!! What a great experience! My daughter wanted to do this and now you have me thinking

It is SO very much worth the money! What I have been told is you get an amazing experience for the 3 hours you get. Most places, again from what I am told, cost just as much for just 30 minutes of time with the dolphins and that time includes changing time (and let me tell you, putting on them wetsuits is NOT an easy job!). Again, Disney goes above and beyond in this, like normal.

[xwewhisper]

What an amazing surprise! Soooo thoughtful, no wonder they insisted you were up early for Epcot Sounds like it was a really great experience and you got a lot of personal time with the dolphins (which is not the case at a lot of "swim with the dolphins" places in the bahamas!)

[melduckie]

Such a great surprise!!

[Russi01]

What a great surprise!! Swimming with Dolphins are so much fun. Glad you were able to enjoy that experience. What a great hubby and mom you got there!!

Good luck with your husband's back surgery. My hubby has had 2 of them and he feels so much better. I am sure your husband will have good luck and will start to feel better when it is all over and done with!!

[lauriep]

Very cool surprise. I always feel so bad for the dolphins that they're confined. I know that for various reasons the ones Disney has cannot be released, but it's still sad.

[wheezie]

Wow, what an awesome surprise!! I would love that-well, up until I had to change into a wetsuit. (Trust me, that is a sight NO ONE wants to see, LOL).

[twins4me]

Thanks for sharing that wonderful experience! It sounds perfect! We'll be doing Discovery Cove in just 72 days and hearing about your experience makes me that much more excited.

Can't wait for more of your TR!

[OhToodles!]

What a great day at DHS followed by dinner at Le Cellier! And wow - what an amazing experience with the dolphins! So awesome and sweet of Rob (and your mom). Did you ever figure out who was sending you the texts though?

for Rob's surgery!