While enjoying our day at Discovery Cove, our entire family participated in the Sea Venture experience. My mother had a similar experience on a cruise excursion and said it was a unique experience that we shouldn’t miss. I wasn’t nervous about it at all until I saw the safety video and signed the papers – they kept saying how important it was to breath normally, made us all wonder why we wouldn’t breath normally. I kept telling myself that it is only 20 minutes and there are quite a few divers there to make sure everything is fine.
The experience is in the Grand Reef, the same waterway where you can snorkel all day long. You are required to wear a wet suit for this experience so we got our wet suits when we were passing by the area after our 1st lunch. In August these can be a bit hot so we just tried them on and then left them 1/2 way down until we checked in.
We purchased an underwater 
camera safe up to 65 feet for our trip (review to come) but if you do not have an underwater camera, Discovery Cove will loan you one and allow you to purchase the pictures after your experience.
Only 9 people are in each group and your group time is scheduled as you arrive to Discovery Cove in the morning. Note: If you are in the water when there is bad weather, they will take you out and then let you complete your experience after the weather has passed.
The helmet is heavy but you don’t notice it under the water. All of us felt differently about the helmet. Of course, it is necessary to have the air to breathe and to keep the water out of the helmet but it is loud and a very unique experience. I had to belch every few minutes to alleviate a tightness in my chest, my husband felt the need to take a deep breath every few minutes and the kids didn’t have either of those problems. My daughters both had pony tails and they both advise a low pony tail for the experience.
The helmet has a weird shape. If you are looking forward you can see very well. But, you can also see some things in your peripheral vision – so you naturally turn toward it. Nope, can’t see it until you turn your entire body. You have to turn your entire body to see the person beside you. Along with the slow movement, this was a little strange.
There are divers leading you around while you are under the water. They taught us all some signals before we walked down the ladder and they used them to make sure we were all ok. They also used an erasable writing pad to tell us information about what we were seeing. They even took lots of pictures on our camera for us.
We were able to hold several underwater animals and the divers fed the fish while we were all standing there under the water. The fish were all around us – if you are a little bit claustrophobic or “fish” phobic, you will have a problem with this because there are lots fish and they are very close to you. The large ray even swam by us while we were underwater.
This experience is an add-on and begins at $49 (price depends upon the day you attend). I know that if you are able to participate in something like this event as a Cruise Excursion, it will cost more.
All 5 of us felt like this was a great addition to the day (even my teenager who paid for this part himself) and we recommend that you add this to your day at Discovery Cove.
I just ordered a key-chain diver’s helmet to use for this year’s Christmas Ornament — family tradition to get a new ornament from our vacation each year. I will put the link at the bottom of the post so you can see it — it looks super cute.
Please call us or click the link to Discovery Cove on our website to schedule your day (we receive a small referral commission at no extra cost to you which will help pay our website costs). If you are not a Florida Resident, please do not reserve your space at those rates but click to the regular page as Discovery Cove requires your Driver’s license or State ID when you enter.
Published 8/20/17
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