Coral World Ocean Park — Attraction in Saint Thomas

I am baffled by all these positive reviews. From start to finish of this excursion it was a bizarre nightmare. The transportation was so sketchy, we were almost in 3 seperate accidents before even exiting the parking lot of the cruise port. After driving for about 5 minutes our driver pulled over near some tent shops and a woman walked up to the vehicle and handed the driver something and then walked away with a handful of cash?? The drive to this place was SO FAR, normally this would be fine but there were so many of us crammed into this weird open air bus truck thing and it was so hot. We also only had about 4 hours in Port and spent about 45 min each way driving.

This was advertised on Royals excursions as some kind of cool aquarium situation with (what sounded like) a private beach. When we arrived we were handed a map of the place and it looked like there was tons of stuff to explore - no the tanks for all the animals were SO small. The Stingray and turtles were trying to get out. The poor sea turtles tanks were so small for how big they were. Every single person who saw the same thing. The "research room" had 2 or 3 tiny fish tanks with a couple urchins and shrimp and conch in it in a weird dark room. There were randomly macaws and some little tiny birds and then a bunch of iguanas and humping turtles. The observatory thing was cool because you can actually see some fish swimming freely but it was so dirty and dingy. The dolphins were so far away we just saw their heads pop up a few times. The last room with tanks of huge fish was cool but we walked in and 2 employees were just sitting on the bench inside gossiping acting like we interrupted them, and then a third employee came in talking om speaker phone in Spanish yelling at someone so we just left. The bathrooms were filthy and gross, some of them didn't work and the lights were flashing on and off. The employee that was talking on her phone was "cleaning" the bathroom when I went in and her phone was charging on the counter, she took all the trash out so there was nowhere to put paper towels. Then they just start locking the gates because they close at 4! We weren't supposed to get picked up for another 45 minutes! So we went down to the "beach" it was Coki beach and it was PACKED there was barely room to stand and I watched some random guy wander in from the streets and snort something off his hand and then just sit in the shallow end with a bunch of kids. Finally it was time to leave and a couple of the open air trucks pull up and some of us ask if he wanted us to get on and he said no you weren't on my truck I'm not taking you! And we said ok ?? and the guy goes who was your driver you were supposed to get his name and one of the people from our transport says "we asked his name and he said 'I ain't telling you my name cause I'm not coming back here' and he left". So then this guy starts trying to put us in this random white van that pulled up! Finally this girl comes out of the park that was there originally and has no idea what's going on or where our driver is and is like telling us to absolutely not get in the white van! 10 minutes later this guy is like yelling at us and trying to force people into this van and another open air truck pulls up and we all pile in. It was SO STRANGE the entire experience was absolutely awful.

If you do the snorkeling or the helmet thing you might get your money's worth but I strongly suggest picking a different excursion. The entire park is so run down most of the staff is consistently on their phones and you will have looked at everything...

It pains me to give a 1-star review, but this place is nothing but a cash grab under the auspices of protecting the wildlife. We booked two separate encounters one for my son and I for the shark encounter and one for my daughter and wife for the sea lion encounter. Total at this point $388.00. We wandered around the property and checked out the very small park. Understand there are very few attractions at this park. Make sure to check the map on their site. They have an observatory tower which is dangerous and in disrepair needing work on the stairs which are breaking away from their mountings. The touch pool which had 3 types of marine animals. A Caribbean reef encounter which had fish from the area. A small pool for the sharks. A small pool for stingrays. Two turtle pools. A very small lorikeet enclosure. A very large dolphin enclosure which is where they seem to have sunk their money and that’s about it. We did both encounters the shark one was in that small shark pool. The pool was green slimy and not like the video they sent me prior to the encounter. Plus, in the video they send they show people petting the sharks. This is something that you can’t and won’t do. This was very disappointing to my son because he watched the video coral world sent us prior to check in and showed people petting a shark in a small container. If it wasn’t for Taylor and her love of marine life this whole experience would have been a bust. My daughter seemed to enjoy the sea lion meet. Here’s my huge problem with this park we went to go get our pictures for the encounters. When we asked Monique about the pictures, she said it would be $30 for the shark and $30 for the sea lion as we were looking at pictures. So, $60 is a bit steep but we were willing to pay. We were all looking at the pictures then Monique said “oh no it would be $30 per person for the sea lion adventure”. This was after my daughter saw the pictures and wanted them. So, if you went with a friend and they didn’t want the pictures and you did, you would be forced to pay $60 instead of $30 for the one photo link with the same pictures. That’s not right, plus there is nothing showing this pricing on the site and we didn’t see this anywhere in the giftshop so it definitely seems made up. When we got home, I reached out to coral world and was emailing Wade Werner who said we overpaid for the child admission but the photo pricing was right, then he said in the email “Sea Lion Encounter: $119.00 (adult) & $74.40 (child) - Paid $60 for the photo package ($30 per person)” but then backtracked in a future email stating we were charged the correct amount. We spent a total of $500 at Coral World and definitely feel ripped off. If you don’t want this headache and frustration your best bet is to...

Once in a lifetime experience!! Our family of four visited Coral World at 930am on a Saturday in January. Upon arrival, we asked if there was a dolphin experience that didn't have a lot of other people signed up and there was a time slot that day that didn't have any sign ups at all! We purchased the experience for the four of us which also granted us entry into the aquarium.

While we waited for our time slot, we explored the exhibits. The aquarium offers an underwater observatory where guests can walk down two flights of stairs and view the coral, fish and other sea life through windows under sea. There is also signage throughout with the names and pictures of the sea life. It is so cool, I could have stayed here for hours and watched all the creatures in their world!!

Back above ground, there is a touch pool which our family enjoyed. We've been snorkeling our entire vaca but have followed the rule to not touch any sea life so it was really fun to interact in this way.

My kids also LOVED the lorikeets - we bought nectar for them to offer the birds (two for $5) and the birds were friendly and fun to interact with. The staff member had great info to share about the birds, many of them were rescued after the hurricane and have overcome trauma.

Our dolphin splash and swim started at 11am so we explored for just under 90 minutes and then checked in at the dolphin sanctuary. Jasmine met us at check in, she was friendly and fun right from the start. We were asked to secure everything in a free locker and we put on some borrowed water safe shoes and a life jacket. We then watched a five minute video about the work that the aquarium does. Afterwards we walked down the stairs and on to a knee high deep platform to meet dolphins! It was magical. We met Nola, Cavello and Noelani. We fed them fish and rubbed their bellies. We then jumped in the water and they swam around us, gave us kisses, played with toys and splashed with us. Once we were back on the platform the dolphins did jumps and turns as a grand finale.

Jasmine and the other two staff were so helpful and kind + offered great info about Coral World and they work that they do + answered all of our questions. Our nine year old daughter wants to become a marine biologist because of this experience, she fell in love with it all.

A photographer takes pictures for purchase, we paid $120 for the digital package which included 100+ photos of our family with the dolphins. Some of the pics we posed for but most of them are candid and soooooo sweet. Our photographer was awesome.

This experience was a splurge, meeting dolphins is not an every day opportunity. I am so glad that we did it, we made memories to last a lifetime and it was truly...