Dolphin superpods 2026
Costa Rica
This a 5d luxury expedition on a superb yacht tracking down massive aggregations of spinner dolphins to swim and interact with them. These superpods sometimes number more than 5000 individuals!
Occasionally the dolphins will get a group of lanternfish trapped at the surface and other predators will come to join them. Other predators include: mahi, mobula rays, marlin, silky sharks, tuna, and others. We saw this on half of the trips in 2023. Video of what that looks like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vwY1bN6bx8. These encounters are not guaranteed, but it does, and can happen!
In 2023, in addition to the dolphins,we also saw and swam with orca, sperm whales, pilot whales, yellowfin tuna, mahi, marlin, silky sharks and massive schools of mobula rays.
Schedule : 6 to 10th OR 15 to 19th FEBRUARY 2026
Day 1: Arrive to SJO anytime on the day before with overnight stay either near the airport or in the city near the yacht. Arrange a hotel as you prefer. Uber works in Costa Rica.
Day 2 : Depart at 8:30am on the boat to head out to find the dolphin pod.
Day 3, 4, 5: At sea with dolphins.
Day 6 : At sea with dolphins then come back in the afternoon to the harbor. You can choose to stay in the city this evening, or depart.
Cost of the dolphin trip :
$7000 per person. Includes accommodation on the boat with all meals, second chase boat, 2 scooters, permit fees, and 5 crew members.
What is not included:
Airfare SJO and transit to/from the yacht and any hotel nights before or after.
Spinner dolphins use to range up and down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica especially in February and march.
We'll leave and return out of Puntarenas which make for easy acces to San Jose International Airport (SJO airport).
These dolphins are particularly playful with people. However, if they don't want to come we never chase them. Respect to the wildlife is always our golden rule.
Logistics:
We depart from the port on the mothership and use it as our base. Along with the mothership, we bring a 25ft dual outboard speedboat in order to be nimble around the dolphins. The mothership has four bedrooms with ten total bed spaces and four bathrooms with showers. The dolphins are normally 15 to 30 kilometers (10 to 15 miles) offshore. It's not that far out, however, we have to rapid charge the scooters and will need a mothership to be our home base.
We will stay five days and four nights on the mothership, with a cook to make all of our meals. This exclusive luxury expedition is limited to a small number of guests, five at the most, making it easy to accommodate any food preferences, allergies, etc. Some days we catch tuna or mahi from the yacht and eat that in various forms (ceviche, carpaccio, steaks, etc).
A typical day :
On the first day, we leave the harbor at 8 am and head out to find the dolphins. Hopefully we find some this first day, and if we do we load the gears into the tender and go out and try to interact with them. We then head back to the yacht, have dinner and go to bed early to be ready for the next day. The captain and two other crew members will wake up early, typically 5:30am, and begin looking for the pods using the radar and binoculars. Some days we find them at 6am, some days they are spotted later.
Finding dolphins everyday isn't a guarantee but on our last trips we found them everyday. If we locate them early, we will get up and go interact with them before breakfast. Otherwise, we will eat breakfast and then load into the zodiac and go to the pod. The scooters last about an hour each of continuous run time, and we find that each person usually gets a bit tired after about 15 minutes of continuous riding with the dolphins. When one person is tired, we change riders.
We are on the yacht five days and four nights, depending on where the dolphins are when we leave them, on the last day we usually arrive in Puntarenas fairly early in the afternoon. On the last night people either stay at a hotel in Puntarenas before departing the next day head off to explore other parts of Costa Rica once we dock. See the schedule below.
