Description: The highlight of our entire trip for me was a chance to swim with Beluga whales at Sea World! I managed to squeeze into the largest neoprene wet suit they had and marched right into the Arctic cold pool where the whales took to me like I was one of their own!? A trainer taught us some simple commands, then we floated and played with the animals. How do you describe the feeling of being with these animals?!? It was exciting and humbling at the same time. We think of ourselves as the apex of creation but perhaps we should instead look at ourselves as the caretakers of creation. Their skin felt a bit like wet leather--very smooth and wet, not slimy at all. With some courage, I include several pictures of myself below interacting and getting a kiss from a Beluga whale. It was truly a marvelous experience!
There are two encounters each day. We chose the first one. We arrived at the park about a half hour before it opened and someone from the encounter was there to meet us and let us in. We then walked a short distance to the encounter area which is behind the scenes at the park (not available for casual visitors to see). Everyone who was actually getting into the water as well as anyone who came with them was seated in a room and a short movie was shown about the animals and how we should act and react while in the water. If I could boil that down to a few words it would be "have fun and OBEY the trainer!"
Those of us getting in the water then went to the changing room where a wet suit (a lined wet suit) was fitted. The water these animals are used to is Arctic cold. The water temperature, if I remember correctly, was REALLY cold, around 58 degrees! But the lined wet suit made it seem more like just cold. I enjoyed it, but then I have a bit more meat on me than several of the children there. Not to worry though, after the first shock everyone adjusted and the water seemed fine.
There are other interactions available. Currently you can swim with sea lions or have a close encounter with sharks or stingrays. Shortly before we visited the park they had a dolphin encounter as well. However, all the trained dolphins were shipped to Orlando for the opening of Discovery Cove which is a huge dolphin encounter theme park in Orlando. They told us that the dolphin encounter will be available again as soon as they train a new bunch of dolphins how to interact appropriately with humans.
Now just a word for a potentially worried parent. The trainers keep very good control of the situation. We had to stay on a ledge in the pool that was about 3 feet deep. The whales came to us. Try this with you family.
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