Crystal River Manatee Swim or Boat Ride from Orlando

This is a wonderful tour where you get very close to these gentle creatures in their habitat. No snorkeling or dive experience required. You get a noodle to keep you afloat and they swim right up to you. Such a special expertise not to be missed if your in Orlando.

This was a pleasant day for sure. It was towards the end of the season for the manatees (went in early March) so it took us a while to find them but eventually we were able to swim with 4 of them. The nature park in the afternoon was decent as well. Our guide was excellent, unfortunately I've forgotten his name but he was great all day.

I would choose a different operator if not for the diving shop they took us to. American Pro Diving's Phil Eledge was our instructor on the meet the manatee swim. He was patient, courteous and I definitely recommend his place for diving adventures. The Gray line bus tour was a disappointment to say the least..its supposed to be a 10-12 hour day trip that includes breakfast, lunch. But 2 people in my group including myself didnt get breakfast- reason was that they ran out of supplies!! No apology nothing! The driver was quiet and grumpy all along the way. We spent 2 hours for the swim with manatee 1.5 hours in water, half hour to change into swimwear and watch the instruction videos etc , 2 hours or so in the State park. Thats it. Rest was all commute and picking/dropping people. I don't think they behaved courteously with international travelers on top of that! I went on another trip with Dolphin tours and they were definitely better than this ! I won't be back to this group !

Our guide was informative and really wanted us to have a good experience. Despite it not being manatee season, we were able to find a few manatees including a mom and her calf.