|
Bird's Underwater Manatee Tours are a truly unique experience which will leave you with great memories for the rest of your life. The following paragraph contains a description of what you can expect on a Florida Manatee Swim with Bird's Underwater.
When you arrive at the main building you will be shown a video
(filmed
in cooperation with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service)
which demonstrates how you should behave when you are interacting
with manatees in the water. After viewing the video, you may
rent a wetsuit and other gear, or change into the gear you brought
with you. Next, you and your Coast Guard Certified Captain
will proceed to the dock area and board one of our enclosed pontoon
boats, where fresh donuts and coffee are available, free of charge
(hot chocolate and juice are also available).
All our boats have changing rooms and toilets.
While you are touring Kings Bay in search of manatees, your
friendly and knowledgeable Captain will answer any questions you
have about the local ecosystem. After the Captain has found
a good location, he or she will drop anchor and everyone will quietly
enter the water and snorkel with the manatees. The Captain
will join you in the water, to supervise your experience and shoot
digital quality videos, which you may purchase.
Each Florida Manatee Tour lasts approximately three hours (depending upon a variety of conditions). Your tour may not return until after 11:00 a.m., so if you are staying in a hotel, you should request a late checkout time. Note: Our tour times are from when the boat embarks until you disembark from the boat, not "shop to ramp" as some services use. If you would rather not deal with the hassle of staying in a hotel, you are welcome to rent one of our Waterfront Vacation Homes.
Note: Reservations are required (via credit card). To make a reservation, Contact Us.
|
Prices
Manatee Snorkeling Tour
As
of Nov. 1 this tour will be
$35.00 |
$35.00
|
| DVD of Snorkel or Dive |
$40.00
|
| Wetsuit Rental |
$12.00
|
| Mask, Fins and Snorkel Rental |
$8.00
|
| For Group Rates,
Call: (800) 771-2763 |
Note: U.S. Currency Only
Ask about our Manatee Awareness Program
|
|
Start Times
Florida Manatee Tours are conducted throughout the year.
Tours begin at 6:15 a.m. Due to the high number of requests for afternoon Manatee Swims and the wonderful conditions, we have begun running an additional manatee tour at 11:00 a.m. However, these midday tours do not have the same chance of finding manatees as our morning tours. We encourage people to come early, especially on the weekends, because conditions are usually better in the morning (before other boats are on the water and before the manatees move away from the springs to feed).
Note: This summer our
tours were great with the exception of about 4 days of difficult
conditions. We will no longer display summer tour information,
because we have had consistent success with them for the last 4
years. We will continue to book tours all year.
Download Movie
| Manatee Snorkeling Tour (Windows Media Format) |
| Filesize |
K bits / second |
Compression |
Quality |
Download |
| 1.2 MB |
56 |
High |
Low |
Download |
| 3.1 MB |
128 |
Medium |
Medium |
Download |
| 14.8 MB |
512 |
Low |
High |
Download |
Current Manatee Count:
The current manatee count for the Citrus County area can be found on the Manatee Information page.
Cancellation Policy
We require seven (7) days notification if you wish to cancel a tour.
This is consistent with airline, car rental agency and hotel policies.
If you have
reserved a tour for a group of 10 or more, we require a 3 week
cancellation notice. We will not refund short-notice cancellations. We pre-charge all credit card reservations for the cost of the
tour.
We have always required a credit card to hold a reservation. Unfortunately, we have
had a lot of people reserve spots on a tour and then not show
up. We make a commitment to you, who often travel long
distances to get here, that you will have a seat on one of our
boats. We need the same commitment from you that you will
arrive and be on time. Otherwise, we needlessly disappoint someone
else who would have liked your space(s) on the tour and / or we pay a
Captain that we did not need.
This cancellation policy is to give us time to re-sell any seats left
vacant and helps us keep our prices reasonable for you. Thank you for understanding.
If you have a question that was not answered on this page, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page. |
