Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove 2025

During the kids' fall break we flew to Florida once again to take mom on her very first cruise. The cruise left on Sunday October 19th, but we all arrived on Tuesday to spend a few days in Florida first. Mom and Kathy got in a few hours before us and were able to check in and get settled before we arrived around 9:30pm Eastern Time. We wanted to spend multiple days at Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Aquatica now that Allison was tall enough to ride the roller coasters she couldn't go on last year, so it worked out best for us to purchase the Discovery Cove +14 days in the parks bundle. The 14 day pass on it's own was the same price as buying the Discovery Cove bundle minus the dolphin swim, and buying another Sea World San Antonio annual pass would have only saved us about $15 per person. Since it was unlikely we'd visit other Sea World parks this year, we figured we might as well enjoy a day at Discovery Cove too. Mom and Kathy weren't up for Discovery Cove, but they did want to go to the parks with us, so they bought two day passes and joined us at both Busch Gardens and Sea World.

Though we were all tired after our late arrival on Tuesday, we woke up early to walk to Sea World and catch the 9:00am shuttle to Busch Gardens the next morning. It would have been nice to have a rest day, but our Discovery Cove day was already booked for Thursday, and Sea World was scheduled for Friday so we could be there during their Spooktacular celebration. Spending Wednesday at Busch Gardens made the most sense in order to avoid visiting either park on a busy Saturday.

It took awhile to get our tickets sorted out since we hadn't been to Discovery Cove yet, but once we were in the park we took mom and Kathy on Cheetah Hunt and Montu. I was surprised they were willing to do Monto since it's a pretty intense roller coaster. Oscar and the kids repeated Montu while I took mom and Kathy to use the bathroom and use their meal plans. Mom accidentally lost her ticket at the first restaurant, but they'd given her a wristband for her meal plan, so at least it didn't cause any complications the rest of that day. 

After we ate we saw part of the Rhythm of Nature show then tried to do the train. The train had been closed our entire visit last year. I knew mom and Kathy needed something less intense than coasters, but the train was just leaving as we arrived at the station, and it was going to be another 40 minutes until the next one. We went over to the Serengeti Flyer instead, which had also been closed all of our previous visit due Hurricane Milton. Oscar and Kathy opted out of riding it, but mom rode it with me and the kids once. Tyler and I repeated it on the other side before we all walked back to the Nairobi train station.

The train ride gave us a nice tour around the safari area of the park. We enjoyed seeing some animals before getting off at the Congo station. Oscar and the kids rode Kumba while I took mom and Kathy to the Dragon Fire Grill to grab some more food. We weren't too hungry after the meal earlier, so we mostly grabbed salad and dessert along with an entree for Oscar. 

After eating mom and Kathy wanted to stay and listen to the live music inside the Dragon Fire Grill while Allison and I rode Falcon's Fury. Oscar and Tyler came out to ride Phoenix Rising with us too. 

We then grabbed mom and Kathy and continued walking around the park. Though we took the long way around his enclosure, we still got a nice view of the tiger.

From there we walked over to the new Wild Oasis area that just opened a few months earlier. It's a giant play area for kids with lots of fun new animals for them to see as they play. There were capybaras, some very energetic spider monkeys, lots of birds, a giant anteater, and more. We could also see an orangutan in the distance. 

There were benches for us to sit on while the kids played, though they were up a flight of stairs into the structure, so we couldn't find them at first. There aren't great seating areas on the bottom floor where the splash pad is. Allison got herself good and soaked in the splash pad. Good thing is was plenty warm that day.

After the kids played we used our meal plans at Chick-Fil-A where we saw a photo of the Chick-Fil-A cow sitting on the front row on Iron Gwazi. Allison and I weren't very hungry, so we just had a few bites of an ice cream cone then went over to Sheikra. Tyler and Oscar ate with mom and Kathy then dropped them off at the Zagora cafe seating area and met up with Allison and I to ride Iron Gwazi. The lines were longer for Iron Gwazi than they would typically be on an off season day since they were only running one train at a time. We had about 10 minutes left before closing, so the four of us rode Cheetah Hunt again just in time before we needed to catch the shuttle back to Sea World.

The next day was our Discovery Cove day. Mom and Kathy rested at the hotel while Allison and I got up early to walk down to Discovery Cove. There was a long slow line to get into the park and schedule our dolphin swim, but we still made it to most of the 8:30am shark feeding. It was interesting to see how they make sure that each shark gets their own personal breakfast rather than just dumping a bunch of fish in as a free for all. I noticed one shark with a lot of bite marks on her fin and asked what happened to her. They explained that mating underwater is challenging, so sharks have to hold onto each other with their teeth. If a female has a lot of bite marks, it means she's popular. 

The food at Discovery Cove was endless and super tasty. They start breakfast at 7:00am, but they have snacks all throughout the day. We wanted to wait for our main meal until after Tyler and Oscar got there, but we did go in and grab a quick pastry to tide us over. There were also snacks available all day long, including delicious soft, warm chocolate chip cookies and ICEEs. Allison was especially happy about the unlimited soft pretzels. 

Throughout the day there are several spots in the park where a trainer will bring out an animal for you to meet and learn about. There are also many natural Florida birds hanging around waiting to get any leftover food you leave. Several birds started eating my food once when I dropped it off at a table then went back to grab utensils. The birds have enough fear of humans that they won't come near your food while you're there, but if you leave it alone, it'd up for grabs.

Allison and I made it over to the aviary just in time to feed the birds at 9:00am. They offer bird feeding all day long, but I'd been told that you want to be there right at 9:00 since the birds get full later on and it's hard to get them to come to you. 

The bridges in these photos actually go over the lazy river, meaning you can swim in some sections of the lazy river while the birds fly around you. There are small waterfalls you swim through to prevent the birds from escaping. 

Oscar and Tyler didn't realize how long the opening line would be. They didn't arrive until we'd already been feeding the birds for 15 minutes. They did get to do some bird feeding, but the birds were starting to lose interest shortly after they arrived. One bird decided Oscar's head was a great place to sit on.

I liked seeing Tyler's happy face when he fed the birds. We also saw a few maccaws on our way out to get breakfast.

The kids and I had fun in the river. Oscar opted out since the water was cold. Here's Allison about to go through one of the waterfalls that keep the birds in.

When we went to our Dolphin Swim later that day, they told us it's 10 degrees warmer in the river than in the dolphin pool. I'm wondering if they forgot to heat it that day since the two felt exactly the same to us. It's understandable that the dolphin pool would be cold since that's what the dolphins are used to, but the river doesn't have any animals in it and there's no need to keep it that cold. The river also has portions that go up to 8 ft deep, which is the deepest lazy river I've ever heard of. At first we grabbed these pool floats, but we gave them up not much later. Even though there are deep portions of it, it goes back to shallow anywhere people enter the river, so you're never swimming too long in the deep. 

He we are exploring the caves before walking over to the Freshwater Oasis to see the otters and marmosets.

Fortunately this water was much warmer, and Oscar was willing to come join us. I'm guessing the river was supposed to be the same temperature since there's no way the river was 10 degrees warmer than the dolphin pool, but the freshwater Oasis definitely was. Here we watched three super cute and playful river otter sisters during their feeding. 

We also saw a few marmosets. They're so small I probably wouldn't have even noticed them if they hadn't been doing an enrichment session.

We saw a pygmy owl on our way out of the freshwater Oasis.

After grabbing a quick snack the kids and I got checked in for our dolphin swim. Oscar took pictures since he hadn't wanted to pay the extra cost to be in ocean cold water. 

First we met our dolphin and were taught various hand signals to see her make noises and do some small tricks (splash, blow out air from her blowhole, etc). 

We each got closeups of us with the dolphin. Tyler was super cute with her, just beaming from ear to ear. 

Discovery Cove had a photographer there for close up photos. Oscar had to photograph around her, and I cropped her out in these photos.

We also got some group shots and got to watch our dolphin do tricks. She was a former show dolphin from Sea World San Diego.

They then switched out our dolphin to a different dolphin we were going to do our dolphin swim with. They explained that they do this regularly so no dolphin gets worn out. Unfortunately Oscar thought we were done and ran to the bathroom, so he missed the chance to see us do the dolphin swim. 

The swim is more of a glide since you don't actually do any swimming. Dolphins are much more powerful swimmers than any humans are, so you basically just hold on around their dorsal fin while they pull you along for a few seconds. It was super fun! I wish we could have done it more. I considered buying their photo package, especially if they'd gotten video of our swim, but I wasn't impressed with it enough to spend $250. I thought the photos were just okay, Allison didn't look at the photographer very well during her photos, and they didn't take any videos. 

After our dolphin swim we grabbed some lunch then went over to the snorkeling pool. Oscar thought the water was too cold for this too. It was cold, but it was also awesome! We were surrounded by fish and stingrays, and you could snorkel near the sharks (though they were in their own enclosure so you could only see them underwater). I took some video, but it was difficult to do with the waterproof case my phone was in. I had no way of seeing what I was taking a picture of and had to use the selfie camera. I spent several minutes taking what would have been amazing footage of the huge leopard ray swimming right beneath me only to realize I hadn't pressed the record button (it's harder to press in the waterproof pouch). 

At one point I accidentally swam up into a feeding and was completely surrounded by rays. It took me a minute to empty the water out of my goggles and get situated before I realized everyone was yelling at me to swim away from the feeding. 

All in all we had a great day enjoying the animals and eating way too much delicious food. In my opinion it's worth the admission cost if you go on a less expensive off season day and you add on the 14 day park package like we did, but it probably wouldn't be otherwise. 

We were also able to spend a day at Busch Gardens nearly two weeks later on our final full day in Florida. This time it was just the 4 of us since mom and Kathy had flown home the previous Thursday after we got back from the cruise. Without mom and Kathy we were very coaster focused. We rode Iron Gwazi first then rode Cheetah Hunt and Montu multiple times.

I went to the bathroom rather than doing Montu twice then took a video of Oscar and the kids riding on it. When they were done Tyler sprinted to the front row where there was an empty seat and got in a third ride.

We then walked to Serengeti Flyer and this time Oscar decided to ride it. The employees let in too many people, and I ended up without a seat. I took a video of them then went on the next ride with the kids.

We got some lunch then Allison and I rode Congo River Rapids. I thought it was a beautiful looking ride to float through, but as far as thrills on river rides go, it was pretty average. Unfortunately it wasn't a great experience for Allison. At one point she got thrown to the edge of her seat which slammed her hip painfully into the buckle of our two person seatbelt. 

After that both kids spent a good long time playing in Wild Oasis.

I wanted to ride the train again since we'd only done part of it on our previous visit. Tyler decided to join me. We stopped at the Nairobi station and took the long way around so we could see the primates. Oscar and Allison rode Tigris while we were on the train. It'd been closed all of our first visit and most of this day too, but Allison was able to get her Tigris credit in just a couple hours before the park closed. 

Tyler and I also watched the Rhythm of Nature ice skating show then met back up with Oscar and Allison to get some food. Allison and I tried to go on Iron Gwazi again, but after a 25 minute wait we ended up getting rained out. The rain was absolutely pouring. We walked onto the shuttle bus completely drenched.