Coral World Ocean Park

JUST FYI...The Splash and SWIM is not a swim with the dolphin experience. We gifted this experience to our kids for Christmas. We talked this up and showed them videos of what to expect, and this was the thing they were most excited about on Christmas Eve. We left completely disappointed after our experience with my son bawling. He was so excited to get pushed by a dolphin and was devastated he didn't get to. The website clearly states that this is a SPLASH AND "SWIM" experience. It even states that you get to "SWIM" with the dolphins in the description. VERY MISLEADING! What a waste of over $1,000 including the transportation and pictures. Wish we had booked a different excursion and not wasted our day and money here!

SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GO ELSEWHERE TO "SWIM" WITH THE DOLPHINS!!

Great little ocean park. Staff is very helpful and courteous. Clean. Snuba and ocean trek are great activities. On coki beach which is clear clear water.

We had a good time and would recommend the experience, but be aware that the location is small and has a bit of a mom & pop feel to it. Don’t go expecting a Sea World clean and manicured experience.
That said, the sea lion experience was terrific and the reason we went. We swam with dolphins, played with sting rays, fed manta rays, sat on beaches with giant turtles, but sea lions? Now that was something different! We arrived, and went directly to our sea lion experience, we swam with them, fed them, played with them and even kissed them — yuck! But it was really loads of fun for the entire family and we got some terrific pictures and memories to last a lifetime.

We paid extra and did the sea lion swim and it was so cool! We were up close and personal with three different sea lions. It was amazing being able to touch and swim with them. I would highly recommend it! The photographer took tons of pictures and we were able to purchase the thumb drive to take home with us. There wasn’t a ton of stuff in the rest of the park, however the staff were super sweet and did a great job of making us feel welcome and talk to us about the animals. Kids would love this:)

Spent a couple hours here it was great the people were nice and explained each of the different sections of the park. We signed up for the shark encounter and it was amazing. They took us into the shark pool and the Sharks would swim around you coming up right next to you. The instructor was very polite and talked about the different sharks and the history of their park.

We had a fantastic time yesterday at Coral World! It’s about a $ 20 cab ride each way from the cruise port. I’d booked the shark encounter in advance. We got there about an hour prior to our scheduled time so we got to see the sea turtle feeding, the aquarium feeding and the sharks being fed so get there around 9am so you don’t miss the feedings. Our shark encounter with Nicole was very cool. It was about 20 minutes long in the water and we loved every minute. Afterwards we checked out the lorikeets and they had fun crawling all over me. It was well worth the $ 59/​person and I’d highly recommend it. We had an amazing time despite the rainy, dreary weather we had that day.

Love love love this place. Awesome customer service, the people here are extremely nice and helpful. Loved doing the sea trek and the guys there were so helpful and made us feel comfortable and safe. Thank you

Had a lot of fun and saw tons of fish.
The lorikeets encounter is only 3 $ for nectar and the birds come and perch on ur hand or shoulder.
Ate at their café. Hot dogs were yummy.

This review is for a basic ticket (no add-​one) only. The park is small, but nice. The underwater observation tower and the Caribbean reef experience were especially cool. The ray and shark tanks were less well done. All in all, it’s a nice 2hr trip with kids in the morning.
If you’re visiting, I recommend eating at Off The Grid next door at Coki Beach.

Loved this place! We went here during our honeymoon trip to St. Thomas. We did the swimming with sea lions activity. It was our favorite part of the whole trip. We had Franco as our sea lion and he was fabulous! We just loved him. He was sweet and friendly and loved being petted. It is a little pricey but my husband and I both felt it was totally worth it. We would so do it again. It was an amazing and unique experience that anyone who goes to St. Thomas should do! You are not allowed to take your own photos because they take the pictures for you. If you want photos of the event you do have to pay for them. The put all the pictures on a USB that has the Coral World Logo on it and it was (if i remember correctly) 59.99 or so for the USB. We wanted the pictures so we bought the USB. I think it would be easier if when you bought your ticket, you checked a box that had you include the price of your pictures so all you had to do was pick them up. It did not say anywhere that you have to pay for the pictures. I think it should include that in the fine print. Other than that it was a blast!

We had a great day here, mostly due to the sea lion swim that we paid extra for but it was well worth the money. We were in a small group and we were introduced to our sea lion, Remo. We got to pose with him and then our handler explained some stuff about him. We got to feed him and Remo entertained us with some tricks. Later we all got in the pool with Remo for some more fun and games.
Afterwards more photo opps. The sea lion was amazing and we got to pet him and feed him. There is a photographer taking pics the whole time and you can take the pics home for an additional fee. Well worth it.
As for coral world itself, there’s not a whole lot to see but there’s a lot to do, all for an extra charge. Sea trek, snuba, turtle, and sea lion encounters, etc. If you don’t mind spending the money, it’s a great place to have some unique adventures. I feel like the sea lion swim was the best thing there. We had such a great time. You need to do this!
We didn’t eat at the snack shack but the prices are reasonable if you would like to eat lunch there.

For the people who can not dive, this is about as close as you can get. It’s a great place to wander and break up a beach day. The turtles tanks are really nice, built into a natural rock formation of sorts. You can snorkel right off Coki beach which is attached, there’s some fish but don’t expect an aquarium variety of fish.
The cab stand guys that hang out at the entrance and exists can be a pain to deal with. It’s $ 9 max for an air conditioned cab back to the ports. So if your in an off-​road open air safari wagon, negotiate accordingly before you get inside. They can be really shifty and greedy so be careful and know your prices.

This place was a lot of fun! The people here are friendly and very knowledgable. I highly recommend doing the sea lion encounter. The sea lion I got to meet was Remo and he was so sweet & smart. The sea trek was pretty neat too but I definitely enjoyed the sea lion more. My only complaint is the fact that you had to buy photos & videos from a USB port. I wish they had individual photos that’s already printed out for you to choose from. But that’s not really a big issue or anything. Overall, Coral World was a great experience.

The customer service and experience i received was world class. My wife and 3 children and I did the sea lion swim. We had 4 trainers with us. They explained how to react with the sea loin, what to expect, all with a smile and very personal. We where the only customers in the sea lion area. We took over 100 photos with there photographer, great photos!
Ask yourself this… when did u ever feel that you where a star in a sea lion show? We did… this was a once in a lifetime experience.
The manager greta, trainers whitney and Chris where all great.

Mixed feelings i do not know how to get attention to this post. I did the sea trek which was great and the whole coral world is worth it because when you buy sea trek tickets it comes with the park tickets.
The one upsetting thing is the sea lion. Man these guys are cruel and heartless to the sea lion. It has cataract and they don’t spend money on that. It has only 10% vision. And they still make it do all the BS tricks for food. I feel bad.
They are teaching it to do tricks when it loses it’s eye sight by touch feel. which clearly tells that they are gonna make it go blind and wont spend for it.

This is a really nice park, but unless you’re doing multiple activities, you’ll get board quick.
The staff is super friendly, and extremely knowledgeable. I would highly recommend the Seal Lion Swim and the Turtle Swim. Both sets of trainers are very knowledgeable about their animals and have a command of their subjects. The helmets are fun, but feedback we got from others is that it went too quickly, also there is snuba, but if you don’t like open water it might not be your bag. Lastly there is shark swim, but you see them as you walk in and the iguanas at the concession stand are more interesting.
Overall– good park, wish there was more, but well worth the visit.

We were just at Coral World during a cruise with Carnival. Snuba was an offered excursion, and I decided to see what it was all about. Wow, I am so glad that I did!
After a short bus ride from the port, we arrived at Coral World. We had one hour to browse the park before our snuba began. Just WONDERFUL! Iguana were roaming the park, huge sea turtles to see, birds, shark, etc. However, I must say the best part of our visit was snuba. Our instructor, Todd, was just perfect! He was most calm and collected while helping me feel comfortable with the respirator and going under water. I was terrified! Todd worked with me until I was 100% comfortable. He kept me close while underwater until I felt ready to venture off myself. Thanks to Todd, I was able to dive 20 feet and my husband did not even have to worry about me at all! He got to swim right next to me and enjoy his dive as well.
If you are looking for a place to visit, or an excursion, I highly recommend.

I would highly recommend stopping by this aquarium/​park. Nestled off to the side of Coki beach welcoming center is where you will find the entrance-​way.
We hopped the local bus which took us here, this is not close to the port and is probably about 20 or so minutes away.
A Coki beach employee followed by a large Iguana (we will call him Jub-​Jub) showed us the way back to the park. At first it was a little scary being we were new to the area and did not know where this park was located as we had to walk a little bit.
The guy at the ticket booth was very nice and explained to us where we will be meeting for the Turtle Encounter. Next stop was to the ticket scanner to put our wristbands on us. We had some time to wonder around before we had to meet up at the check in area. We were told that they were going to be feeling the various fish in the large aquarium tank followed by the morning feeding in the shark tank.
We made our way over to the area that we thought we had to go to, except either he didn’t explained it correctly or we were too excited because we missed the stairs to where the aquarium was located. Instead, we took some other stairs that took us to the Tropical Nature Trail where we found a desert turtle habitat that had some humping turtles (amusing). We also found a duck pond filled with cute little ducklings.
The stingray lagoon was neat to watch them swim around; a couple of them at different times would slap their wings against the wall of the pool hoping for a handout of fish from us.
They also had a bird area where lorikeets are, I am too chicken to be around birds that fly so we stayed way away from that area.
We finally found the aquarium, which were down a very different set of stairs. We made it just in time to watch the all the beautiful fish come out to be fed by the marine trainer. There was so much to see in this big tank (all different color and shaped fish, lobsters, stingrays, sharks). After the feeding was over, we were told that the sharks were going to be fed as well in the shark lagoon. We made our way over there to watch that as well. The staff is very knowledgeable while the marine trainer was getting into the lagoon. Unfortunately, we could not stay through the whole feeding, as we had to make our way over to the turtle meet up area to check in.
Yes, as a surprise from Minh we got to swim with the sea turtles. Something that I have always wanted to do. After we checked in, we were told to wait for our marine trainer to go over instructions.
She did not keep us waiting for long; Maggie was our instructor and was just as sweet as pie. First thing was getting us crocs (yes those ugly shoes and I can just say they are not as comfortable as everyone says they are). We then had to sign a waiver then she talked about the different turtles, their habitat, and what to expect when we get into their lagoon. After all was said and done, we were walking with two other people to the turtle area.
I was so glad we did not have to wear a wet suit, entering into the water was cold at first but Maggie promised us it would get warmer as we stood there.
There were two big beautiful 100-​pound turtles swimming around as we walked into their world. As instructed, we stood without back again the sea wall as Maggie introduced us to the two turtles whose names I totally forgot. We got to scratch their shells (they love that) and under their arms. Taking photos of these amazing reptiles was so much fun as they are total hams for the camera.
We had more than enough time in the lagoon (probably around 20 – 25 minutes) which was nice.
This park is a lot smaller and better-​kept then sea world, as we could see that all the marine and animal life habitats were kept clean. There was no performing killer whales or sea lions playing the trumpet. Instead these animals are rescued and either rehabilitated and placed back into their normal habitat or if they are badly injured then they will keep them there and have them live as normal as a life as they can for them.

I love this place. It was a bit hard to find, but once we did, I couldn’t have been happier. I was dying to swim with the Sea Lions. We got lucky and on the day we were there (even thought there was a cruise ship at the port) this place was empty. My daughter & I ended up getting a private swim with the sea lions. It was worth every penny. The trainer was friendly and taught us so much! The sea lions were a blast.
The park is beautifully kept, staff was very friendly. The iguanas just walk up to you while you are sitting there eating. Drinks were cheap.
Do not miss out on this place while visiting St. Thomas.

Coral World is a pretty neat place you can go in St Thomas. It’s basically an aquarium where you can see local fish without having to go out into the ocean. You can also choose to go into the ocean for the underwater treks which look fantastic (you can see the people walking around on the sand bed from the underwater observatory). Also of note are the feeding times. The ones that really stick out are the shark pool feedings and the stingray lagoon feedings. For the stingrays they let you feed them by holding the fish chunk on the side of the wall. The stingrays will swim right up sometimes out of water and eat it out of your hand.
I have three gripes about this place though. For a place called «Coral World», you’d expect to see some FANTASTIC coral specimens. However, what this place lacks the most is what it’s named for. Most of the corals in their tanks are less-​colorful versions of ones you can buy at any saltwater fish store. The only cool coral I saw were the ridiculous amounts of sun coral in the underwater observatory and their coral propagation tree growing some SPS. Also, most of the corals AND MORE you can also find just by going down to the FREE Coki beach nearby and snorkeling 10 feet from the beach.
All in all the price of admission is $ 19 per person and I would say that the shark and stingray feedings make it worth it. The rest you’re better of snorkeling.
There are also wild local iguanas running around so watch where you step!

Whatever else you decide to do or skip doing, make sure you go for the Sea Trek Helmet Dive. What fun to walk around on the sea floor, taking to time to marvel at and interact with marine life! The only reason why I took one star off is that I felt like there was too much human intervention in this natural environment: chains, post and tires to mark the trail. I had been sea-​trekking in Grand Cayman, and it was a much more natural setting, where they actually took you out into the sea on the boat to a spot where you would descend to the sea bed.