Blue Dolphin Tours

If you are looking for a dolphin tour this is the one… We had 6 people so the boat was all ours and we found dolphins right away! Capt. Roger was amazing!!! We only wanted to see the Dolphins and swim with them and that’s what we got to do!
The boat ride out was fun and exciting! 2 hours was plenty of time to spend with them:)
The price was great and to have our on boat with no others was the way to go! Definitely worth doing!!! You won’t be disappointed!

Was great tour. Found Dolphins multiple times. Guide helped fund shells. Found some average one and a larger than average. We had 4 kids with us. Everyone really enjoyed. From the ride to the Dolphins to the shells.
Would recommend to anyone.

Just took our family out with Captain Tim and had a great time. Price was great for private tour with our family. 2 hours was just the right amount of time for a 5 year old and a 3 year old. Super flexible on what we wanted to do. Kids loved swimming at shell island. Would definitely recommend!

Excellent tour company! We did the 2 hr dolphin tour for $ 50 a person. The boat only takes 6 people, which is very unique. Our captain, Mike, was super friendly and knowledgable. He took time to find the Dolphins, gave us a great boat ride, and went snorkeling with us. It isn’t guaranteed you will see Dolphins as they are obviously wild creatures, but even if you didn’t the tour of the bay and ocean and snorkeling are worth it in their own. Highly recommend!

We had a great tour with Captain Mike today! We were late getting there, but he still took us out & kept us out longer than our scheduled reservation. It was a very wavy & windy day, but that didn’t stop him from taking us out on the Gulf to find many, many pods of dolphins– we even saw a baby. Our kids were having so much fun in the rocky water, that he stayed out & battled the waves to our kids delight! He was a great tour guide, pointing out many of the land marks & points of interest along the way. The kids got a real kick out of shell island too– Mike made sure to have bags for their shells & helped them find sand dollars too! If we ever decide to return to PCB, we would definitely come back to Shell Island Blue Dolphin Tours & Captain Mike!

We scheduled our trip in advance, so the weather wasn’t great when we went. It was too cold for us to really ‘swim’ with the dolphins since we weren’t getting in the water, but it was still AMAZING! Our captain was very good at pointing out different things along the way. He spotted dolphins long before any of us did, and even though we didn’t get in the water, the dolphins came right up to the boat. It was so much fun we will definitely take another tour when we come back!
A fantastic adventure at a great price, what more could you ask for!

OMG… IT WAS AWWWWESOME! Capt Tommy was fantastic! He brought us right on top. of the dolphins and when he said jump u better jump in! The first hour was spent swimming with the dolphins then the second hour snorkeling where we saw a sting ray, a lot of sea urchins, sand dollars and fish fish and more fish. Just know it is a workout swimming with the dolphins… u jump off the boat then climb back in to follow them. Overall I’d give it a 10+ out of 10… thanks again Capt Tommy!

I’m a bit torn on how to review this place. On one hand, my wife and I had a great time, but on the other there were some bits about the tour that stuck out funny. But since we ultimately enjoyed ourselves, I’m going to rate this positively and leave all the details below for everyone else to make their own judgement on if they’d like to read through it all.
We took the $ 50 per person 2 hour trip to snorkel with the dolphins and visit Shell Island. Our captain arrived to the dock about 15 minutes late, but wasted no time shoving off once he arrived. To our amazement, even though we were the only two people who signed up for the trip, they still went out. So we basically had the boat to ourselves!
On the way out, the captain did not really point out any landmarks or any points of interest to us, and basically just sped to the primary destination near Shell Island. It could just be that we are used to the more laid back dolphin tours of St. Pete. It just seemed odd to me that he wasn’t pointing out anything even though there were a lot of interesting structures, sunken ships, and houses we went by. Otherwise the captain seemed more than happy to answer any questions. I also think he might have been trying to minimize how much he bothered us since we were alone– possibly to make things more romantic.
Once we arrived at the first stop, we spent a bit of time looking for dolphins. The dolphins here seem to hang around more because of people giving handouts rather than it being a natural habitat for them. So consequently, they’ll approach you, but leave quickly when they realize you don’t have food. This of course is not an encouragement for you to feed the dolphins as it’s against the law and encourages really harmful behavior.
Anyway, we spotted an interested male and got him to hang around for a bit while my wife got pictures. The captain encouraged us to pretend like we had food and reach into our pockets to get him to hang around. However, it really didn’t seem like a good idea to me to tease a male dolphin like that so I just observed the dolphin until he got bored and swam off. Definitely the closest I’ve ever been to a wild dolphin!
We also passed over a very old shipwreck, which the captain didn’t even make mention of until we asked about the dark shapes below. Once he told us what it was, he suggested we snorkel a bit around the area and we did. There was quite a reef system going so there was plenty to see, from sting rays to juvenile groupers! He also took us near some breakers where another artificial reef had formed that was even more abundant with life. This was my favorite part of the trip as I haven’t seen so many fish in one place since we had the good fortune of visiting the Florida Keys a few years ago.
We didn’t end up going to Shell Island at all, but that was also because we were enjoying snorkeling so much. So on one hand the captain was very flexible which I commend, but on the other he didn’t seem to provide the kind of guidance I’ve received on other similar cruises. So take all of this as you will. As I said, my wife and I enjoyed ourselves, but I wanted to point out a few things that may irk some people.