The Best Day of My Life

Today was officially my favorite day of all time. I went to Discovery Cove at Sea World with my sister. Let me just tell you - it was worth every penny! We did the Trainer for a Day program and it was AMAZING! I don't think I can even explain how awesome it is to swim with dolphins! We learned so much about them and it was so cool to see what trainers do all day long! I learned a lot of the hand signals they give to the dolphins and how they teach the dolphins the signals. The trainers let us do the hand signals and the dolphins did lots of aerial tricks, waving tricks, splashing tricks, and sound tricks. I thought they could only make one sound, but they actually make lots of sounds! The really cool thing is that each dolphin has their own signature whistle sound. Their moms teach it to them when they're babies. It's kind of like naming them. The mom names them this whistle that no other dolphin has. Then when she wants them to come, she calls the whistle. The dolphin learns to call itself by that whistle so for the rest of its life, the dolphin uses that whistle to communicate to other dolphins! Some of the dolphins at Discovery Cove will do their signature whistle on command, so we got to hear Kaylee the dolphin do her signature whistle!

We also got three dolphin rides! One was a dorsal fin pull where we put one hand on the dolphin's dorsal fin and the dolphin pulls us through the water! Here's a picture of me riding Dot the dolphin! She's 4 years old and she's just learning tricks, but she's VERY, VERY good at them!

The next ride that we did was a double dorsal fin pull. That's like the first one but there are two dolphins so you put one hand on each dorsal fin. They go REALLY fast for this one! The dolphins who pulled me were Rascal and Capricorn!

The third ride was called a double foot push. That's the one I was the most excited for! It's the one that you see the riders doing in the shows! There are two dolphins and each dolphin puts his nose on your foot and then pushes you through the water! My dolphins were CJ and Capricorn. I FLEW through the water! It was so much fun!

I even got to kiss Dot the dolphin! She was so cute!