The Dolphin Research Center is easy to find, offers a variety of programs with dolphins, and boasts fame as the former home of Flipper, perhaps the most famous dolphin, from tv. If you have little time and little money to invest, you can just take a one-hour walking tour and learn about the marine environment of the dolphins and view a training session. These tours happen five times a day.

If you want to get to know dolphins in the water, set aside half a day and somewhere upwards of $125, at least $125, for their Dolphin Encounter program. There's an orientation, a walking tour, and then the finale is a 20-minute session with the dolphins, in the water. The Dolphin Reserach Center boasts small groups and a low human-to-dolphin-ratio. Be sure to make advance reservations for this ultra-popular program. The reservation system is complicated: you must call on certain days of the month, the 1st and the 15th, the month before the month you'll be in the keys.

The Dolphin Splash program is for people who don't want to or who can't get in the water with the dolphins. You get an orientation and 10 minutes with the dolphins, and then a walking tour. All the programs have height and age requirements.

Dolphin Lab offers students the chance to earn college credit, with a series of encounters and seminars, and you live on the five-acre grounds of the Center. They have excursions off-premises to places like Key West for students, as part of the package.