When setting out on a trip to see any living creature in captivity; if you’re anything like me a few moral questions rear their ugly head, which you give a fleeting thought to, push to the back of your mind whilst telling the excited children what wonders they will see from the animal kingdom today.
I guess the hope is that you will find these creatures you have come to gawp at in a fantastic enclosure, in good health and maybe even part of a breeding programme and suddenly its all ‘happy days’. In all fairness, in many places that is exactly what you do find and you can look on it utter amazement at the wonderful animals getting on with their daily lives, guilt free.
Whatever your view on animals in captivity, or if like me you are ‘sat on the fence’, it is hard to get through life without at some point seeing a dolphin show or two.
So, after numerous days sat by the pool and on the beach with two young girls, it seemed a change of scenery was in order; introducing a day trip to the Dolphinarium, Varna.
Getting there:
Hiring a car was easy through our hotel concierge. The car came via ‘Sixt’ and was just 200euro for 5 days for a 5 door Corsa which was in excellent condition.
The route is well signed and as soon as you come into Varna big blue signs took us straight to the Dolphinarium.
From Sunny Beach it was around a 2 hour drive.
When you arrive you are turned away at the entrance and told to park miles away and walk in. Ignore this, as soon as you turn in, drive round to the right and follow parking signs. There are a few little parking areas and you pay the guy when you return just a few lev.
If taking the independent route isn’t for you, then there are coach trips to visit Varna and the Dolphinarium for the day which could be booked from your hotel concierge or one of the many Tourist Information kiosks scattered around the coastal resorts.
Not wanting to let the ticketing experience spoil our fun, we entered the arena full of excitement for the show and ready to be wow’d.
My initial impression was that in this 40degree heat, this arena has a glass roof and no aircon. Brushing off the hot and stickiness of it all and now two very hot and bothered children, it was a relief and all cheers to see the four dolphins start their display.
The show is spoken all in Bulgarian so don’t expect to understand the parts of the show that are aimed at being humourous. Bring snacks for this part, the children will switch off.
My initial animal welfare thoughts of the morning also came flooding back when I realised that the pool they were performing in appeared to be the largest and possibly only tank within the facility. Needless to say, the pool itself was a little on the small side.
“It’s no ‘Seaworld’…keeps the kids entertained for 20mins”
The show is nothing amazing. It is around 20-30 minutes long. It has some good parts and the dolphins themselves are of course spectacular but if you have been to dolphin shows before this one is bound to leave you a little disappointed and wondering if you have just supported poor living conditions for dolphins in captivity.
There are no other animal enclosures to see whilst there, it literally is just the 20 minute show and an opportunity afterwards for a photo with a sea lion.
Photo with a Sea Lion:
To try and string out our time here we thought we’d go for the picture with the sea lion for 12lv (£6.00).
Again, the hosts there were just rude telling us to hurry when we were just asking the children who wanted to be closest to the sealion. No opportunity for the children to even give him a quick pat or even look at him. Understandable if the queue was huge or they wanted to get the animal back to his enclosure, but I couldn’t see that it was either.
It felt purely like a money-making production line and I again felt like the animals welfare was perhaps not at the forefront of anyone’s mind here.
Had this been more of an opportunity for children to see this beautiful animal up close and gain an understanding of their size, feel and temperament etc. then it could have made for a worthwhile activity. Assuming Mr Sea Lion is happy to perform of course.
Cafe:
There was a good restaurant/bar at the rear and you can sit outside and have a great view whilst enjoying a refreshing drink and a toastie. Really good value for money at around £20 for the four of us!
You can go inside to eat/drink (costs you 1.50lv (about 75p) per person just to walk in and you can look through the glass into the underwater of the dolphin pool and see the dolphins swimming.
The water is very murky and you can see the poor condition of the tank floor. Again doesn’t make you feel too good to be supporting this.
Staff in the restaurant were surprisingly friendly! We haven’t found that often here in Bulgaria I’m sorry to say. So was a refreshing change.
All in all, if you have nothing else to do, have young children under 10 and aren’t caught up in any morals surrounding dolphin shows, then it’s worth a quick visit but don’t expect to be amazed.
It’s a good idea if traveling up from Sunny Beach area to tie it in with a few beach visits on the way back. Kamchai is a great beach with a river running straight into it. Ibzor is a little further down and is a more commercialised beach resort.
Did I feel strongly enough that it was a cruelty to animals site?, No I wouldn’t go that far, but I still can’t help to conclude that I would much rather see these creatures in all of their glory out in the wild in their own habitat.
Perhaps this all dates back to my first encounter with dolphins many years ago on a trip to Australia.
On passing through ‘Tin Can Bay’ I had been told that wild dolphins can often be seen there and if you paddle in the waters they sometimes swim up to you. I did exactly that and as sure as anything a wild dolphin swam up allowing me to stroke his head. He stayed there for a while flipping around in the waters whilst I paddled, then off he swam back out to sea.
Then of course there is no sight more spectacular when it comes to sea lions than seeing (and hearing) them all ‘hanging out’ of their own free will on Pier 39, Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco. Another memory I will be unlikely to forget.
For me, that is how I want to say ‘Hi’ to a Dolphin and a sea lion but I guess not everyone is lucky enough to have these opportunities or stories to tell.
myfootprintontheworld 