Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, photos and videos can be taken of any public activity at the park.  We ask in some areas that we allow plenty of space for our animals to feel comfortable and have designated standoff areas for the public to use.  If you are wanting images or footage for commercial use, you  must first seek approval from management, e-mail manager@petporpoisepool.com.

We are located at 65 Orlando Street, Coffs Harbour, NSW which is on the beautiful Mid North Coast 6 hours by car from Sydney or only 4.5 hours from Brisbane.

Yes we do, the Creekside Cafe overlooks Coffs Creek and is open from 7:30 am for breakfast, and then lunch. Creekside Cafe Through the busy school holidays we also offer a cheaper alternative with a Sausage Sizzle in the park at a very reasonable price.  

Yes we do.  We have discounted prices for groups 10 -25 people and over 26, if you arrive in a coach the driver is free of charge.  Please give us a ring at 02 6659 1910 for group bookings so that we can reserve seating.

Allow 2 - 3 hours either morning or afternoon.  Make sure you arrive early (twenty minutes to half an hour) before the Marine Magic presentations for seal and dolphin kisses while during the busy school holiday periods, we recommend guests being at least arriving at thirty to forty minutes before presentation times (9:30am, 12:30pm (and 3:30pm in summer holidays)) 

We are open everyday of the year, including all public holidays as all our animals need love, care and attention every single day. 

The park opens every day at 9:00 am, but if you are looking for breakfast or a cup of coffee before that the cafe opens at 7:30 am.

We have two Marine Discovery Presentations, 10 am and 1 pm, but in the summer school holidays we add another one at 4 pm.  Make sure you arrive 30 minutes before the start to receive your 'FREE' seal and dolphin KISSES. 

Steve brings in animals to the park every NSW school holidays.  His shows start at 11:15 and 2:15. Reptile World

Our busiest days are generally through the week, as most people think we get busy on the weekend.

At Dolphin Marine Magic we inspire realistic, attainable and sustainable behavior changes to conserve the marine environment through the empathy guests feel for our marine life after our unique, hands on animal interactions and educational Marine Magic presentation.  

As a part of this work, Dolphin Marine Magic cares for the amazing animals that call our park home on daily basis and we also rescue and rehabilitate sick or injured marine animals and release them back to their natural homes. LINK

Aside from presenting our animals to the general public, we also take our role as educaters further by inspiring the next generation to change their behavior through unquine, hands on education programs at the park where school children interact with our animals in a lessons they will remember forever. LINK 

Dolphin Marine Magic also leads the way within the local business and industry community through our partnership with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage in their Sustainability Advantage Program. Through these sorts of programs, Dolphin Marine Magic is demonstrating realistic and attainable ways for businesses to go 'green' and the park was recently honored with a bronze partner award and achieved 'Zero carbon footprint for waste to landfill'. LINK 

For more information on what we do at Dolphin Marine Magic, please read on through our website.

No, absolutely not! Aside from the fact that it is against the law in Australia  to bring healthy marine mammals into captivity for public exhibition, Dolphin Marine Magic does not support at either a company or operational level the live capture or trade of any species of wild marine mammal for display.

All our dolphins and seals have either been born under human care or have been rescued and rehabilitated but then deemed unsuitable for release by an independent body (usually National Parks and Wildlife Services) and so must remain under our care in order to survive. 

We deplore the annual drive catches at Taiji and strongly believe that all animals belong in the wild wherever possible, doing our upmost to return all rescue and rehabilitation cases to the ocean if we are able. For more information about the personal histories of our animals and the reasons they have been rescued, please go to 'Meet our stars'. 

Dolphin Marine Magic deplores the drive catches and senseless slaughter of dolphins in the 'Cove' at Taiji and fully supports the efforts of the brave volunteers in Taiji who attempting to record the the horrific slaughter, bringing attention to the world through peaceful and law abiding means. 

Because of our strict stance on the capture of wild dolphins, Dolphin Marine Magic has never in the past and will never in the future purchase or obtain a dolphin or the offspring of a dolphin that has been captured through driving catches that occur in Japan or any other location around the world nor do we associate with or support any facility that does.

There are many people who claim that simply by having dolphins in our care, we are supporting the capture of the dolphins from the wild, regardless of the fact that all our dolphins have been rescued with injuries or born at the park. We believe that this is an extremely unfair generalisation and the same as claiming anyone who works in a clothing store or buys clothes is supporting child sweat shops in China, regards of where the clothes actually come from.

We believe that through our strict stance on wild dolphin capture, along with similar stances from other like minded facilities around Australia and the world, we are leading the way in the marine mammal care industry and we hope that we can one day change the views and stances of these facilities that do still support the needless capture of dolphins from the wild.

The animals at Dolphin Marine Magic are unable to be released into the wild due to either injuries that they have previously sustained in the wild (which were the reason that they were rescued) or because they have been born under human care and don't possess the necessary skills and abilities they need to survive in the open ocean. 

Past attempts that have been made to retrain animals that have lived under human care for release into the wild have not only been notoriously expensive but it also has a very slim track record of success. Even Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepard, has noted that money spent attempting to release high profile animals back into the wild is wasted money that could have been better spent highlighting other major environmental issues.    

Many famous release attempts have ended tragically for the animals released including Keiko, the Orca made famous in Free Willy, who died suddenly after tens of millions of dollars was spent attempting to training him for release back into the wild or the dolphins from the Atlantis Marine Park in Western Australia who either vanished upon release and are assumed to have died or had to be returned to human after been found in extremely poor health. 

Although our animals cannot be released, we firmly believe that we provide our animals the best possible care at Dolphin Marine Magic and through the hands on experience our friendly animals offer our guests, we believe our animals inspire guests to make more of an effort to conserve and protect the wild animals that could our oceans home.  

All our animal enclosures are of varying sizes although our largest pool, Dolphin Lagoon, contains a volume of over 1.5 million liters of water.

Each animal enclosure at Dolphin Marine Magic either meets or exceeds the standards for exhibition of animals as laid out by the NSW Department of Primary Industries, with the NSW marine mammal standards being some of the most modern and stringent in the whole world.   

These standards have been developed through consultation between ourselves and our peers within the marine mammal care industry, various government departments and other non-government organisations and groups and these standards are now being used as the basis for developing new animal standards for other states within Australia. 

Yes we are, though at present we only have the facilities to rehabilitate marine turtles and sea birds. We hope to build a dedicated marine animal hospital onsite at Dolphin Marine Magic in the near future which will give us the facilities and ability to once again rescue, rehabilitate and release pinnipeds (seals) and cetaceans (whales and dolphins), but first we need to find the needed dollars to do so.  Recently we received a grant from the Australian Federal Government which will help us build these new facilities. You can find a copy of our rehabilitation licence in the 'download' section at the bottom of each webpage, which specifies all the rehabilitation conditions we have.

Contact Dolphin Marine Magic or National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) immediately.

Dolphin Marine Magic can be reached on (02) 6659 1900 during office hours.

NPWS can be contacted on during office hours or after hours on 6652 0900.

It is important to remember that seals regularly haul to rest on beaches and rocks.  This is not a sign that they need help, but if you are worried about them please contact either Dolphin Marine Magic or National Parks and Wildlife Services on the numbers provided above.  Please do not approach these animals and make sure you keep your domestic animals at bay. Wild animals may have an illness that might be transferable to you or your pet.

Yes they can, they do have to meet certain age requirements, and advanced bookings are recommended.  For more information click on this link dolphin + seal experiences

Unfortunately the answer is no. While we would love to allow you to experience the magic of being in the water with our animals whilst pregnant, we do not wish to endanger you or your baby.

Although our animals are all well trained and very friendly, some of our animals weigh more than 150 kilos and if they could still cause you harm or injury by mistake if they were to bump against you by accident during your program.       

Come and see us after your baby is born and both you and your baby can enjoy an experience with both seals and dolphins in our 'Meet The Stars' (LINK) program or when your little one is a little older, join us for a 'Private Shallow Dolphin Experience' (LINK) which is the ideal program for families with young children. 

Yes, we allow disabled people in the water with our animals, although we need to ensure your safety. To address this issue, we will ask you some questions. We will need to know if you are mobile and can follow direction from our trainers, if not we will ask that you have your personal carer in the water to assist you, free of charge. We offer 'Special' experiences all year round, but if you want to do it in the peak holiday periods, it can be more than triple what it would cost on the shoulder and off peak periods.  Therefore, to guarantee you a 'one on one' with our animals, we ask that you try to book your 'Special' experience in our shoulder and off peak seasons, which are outside all school holidays and not from about mid December to the end of January. 

The human interactions in which some of our animals participate are a part of our animal's daily enrichment program.  This program is designed to keep the animals happy and healthy, with meaningful activities for them to do each day. Our animals also have regular rostered days off from interactions and presentations each week, just like we do!

Our animals are only asked to interact with guests for a maximum of two hours on each rostered working day, although they are free to interact with guests of their own accord outside of presentations and interactions for whatever period of time the animals wish. See here for more information about the care and enrichment we provide to our animals.