One of our favorite things to do as a family is to head to Panama City Beach, Florida for vacation. The beach is absolutely gorgeous, the water is nice, and there is always a lot to do there. Being only a 12-hour drive for us, we typically visit the Panama City Beach area at least once a year. We recently had the chance to spend my daughter’s birthday there and found a great little touring shop called Blue Dolphin Tours.
Shell Island
Located very near to St. Andrews State Park, Blue Dolphin Tours is a wonderful adventure on which to take your family for a special event. The 2-hour boat tour brings you out into St. Andrews Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. There you will be able to ride on the water, enjoy the sun, and visit the popular Shell Island.
We spent about 30 minutes actually on the island, searching for shells and swimming in the calm gulf waters on the bay side. Our captain dropped the anchor in the sandy bottom of the bay, just off the coast of Shell island, allowing us to get out of the boat and explore. The captain pointed out several different trails that we could use to walk to different parts of the island, and we took off to find some shells!
Shell Island itself is extremely narrow and very manageable, even with a 2 and 5-year-old. The island gets its name from the vast amounts of shells that used to inhabit the island. Although there are no longer as many shells to be found as there once was, and many of them are broken, our kids didn’t know the difference. They were all smiles as we traipsed along the island’s coast line, picking up their favorite sand dollars and seashells the entire time.
Swimming with dolphins
The highlight of the Blue Dolphin Tours experience is getting up close and personal with Panama City’s resident pod of wild bottle-nosed dolphins. Our tour took us right off the coast of St. Andrews State Park, which is where many of the dolphins love to hang out. There, you will have the opportunity to see dozens of dolphins in their natural habitat. Blue Dolphin Tours even allows you to get out of the boat, jump in the water, and swim with the dolphins yourself! According to our captain, they try to limit the human impact on the dolphins. Therefore, they typically allow the swimmers to get into the water before spotting the dolphins. This gives the curious creatures a chance to come up to the swimmers and examine them on their own. The tour also provides snorkeling gear, so you don’t even have to bring your own in order to get a good look.
We actually took the tour on my daughter’s birthday and planned to get into the water and swim with the dolphins. However, the weather did not cooperate with us. It was pretty windy that day, and – for safety reasons – we were unable to get into the water. Lucky for us, the dolphins did not disappoint! We were still able to see dozens of dolphins from the boat, swimming and jumping so close to us that we could almost reach out and touch them. My daughter was convinced that they were putting on a show just for her on her birthday, and they just may have been!
Blue Dolphin Tours Pricing
Priced at just $49 per person, the 2-hour tour is definitely worth the money. Unlike many of the larger dolphin cruise boats which carry up to 50 people, Blue Dolphin Tours has 4 smaller boats that carry just 6 people. This allows for a more intimate experience that leaves a lighter impact on the dolphins’ environment. The regular tours leave 4 times a day, with the first tour beginning at 9:00 A.M. and the last departing at 4:30 P.M. If you have a group of 6, or if you’d just like a private tour, you can rent out the entire boat yourself for $249. (Price is reflective of the date this story was published.) This is what we decided to do, and I would totally recommend this option.
The tour and the captains are very family friendly, and my daughter was even able to “drive” the boat on her birthday. All in all, I think Blue Dolphin Tours offers a highly enjoyable wildlife experience, and I would highly recommend them to anybody hoping to take a dolphin cruise in Panama City Beach!
I absolutely LOVE this experience. I’m very environment conscious and hate to see the animals costricted in zoos and waterparks, and this tour is perfect to let the kids see and play with the animals in their habitat in their total respect! When I’ll have kids, that’s where I’ll bring them 🙂 thanks so much!!!
Absolutely! We are also very environmentally conscious. We no longer do zoos or aquariums, so we thought this would be the perfect way for the kids to get out and see some wild dolphins. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to swim with them…but we saw dozens! It was really neat. Thanks for dropping by!
With all the hype going around about how awful “swimming with dolphin” tours are, I was hesitant to click on this, but I’m glad to see that this company allows people to interact with dolphins in their natural habitat as opposed to captivity. So long as the dolphins are allowed to come swim on their own terms without being coerced or trained with inhumane practices, I think that this sounds like an awesome experience, especially for kids (or adults who refuse to grow up haha)!
Yeah, this company actually is pretty cool. They don’t bait the dolphins in any way, and there are times – I suppose – when you may not see any dolphins at all. I wish we would have had the chance to get in the water with them, but it was just way too windy.
I’m glad that the company makes an effort to try to limit human impact! I didn’t know this before, but apparently swimming wild dolphins could be detrimental to them too. So it’s good that on this tour, the dolphins get the choice on whether they want to come say hi or not.:) It’s too bad you didn’t get to go in, but seeing them jumping alongside the boat must have been an awesome experience too!
Totally. That is one of the reasons that we decided to book this tour. I’m just guessing that Florida law is probably much stricter than some of the laws regarding swimming with dolphins in other parts of the world.
this is amazing! I prefer these rather than going to aquatic theme parks. The price is a steal too, and with just a small group it doesn’t create that much of a stress to the dolphins. Would love to do this one day 🙂
I agree. We would rather do this than go to an aquatic theme park any day. We’ve made a conscious effort to stop seeing animals held in captivity, and we thought this was a good way to get up close and personal with the dolphins And like you said, you can’t beat the price. Knowing a little about you from your blog, I think this is something you would love Jean!