I arrived for the 6:15am trip on Dec 31, 2019. The check-in staff were great, the were friendly and accommodating. We watched the briefing video which showed that reaching out to touch one manatee as long as you're not chasing the manatee is OK. The trip went downhill once we were on the boat. Our captain was Rhonda and the guide was Megan. While looking for a manatee Rhonda was bad mouthing other boats and complaining about how loud the dive guide was and how they're all just putting everyone in the same spot and etc etc etc. Once in the water we were swimming around and we finally found a manatee grazing by the bank, the guide led the whole group over to it. The manatee quit grazing and left the area within a minute. While leaving the area, it swam directly underneath one of the guys on our tour. He reached out with one hand to touch the manatee as it swam past him (about 12" below his chest), it did not react to his touch at all. Next thing you know this guy is being berated in front of his family and the group by the guide because "the manatee didn't want an encounter" even though the manatee was swimming directly away. She blamed him on chasing the manatee away and how he should never touch a manatee (contrary to the briefing video which says it's ok). The other really awful part about the guide was the fact that she wanted everyone right next to each other. She would tell everyone to get in a group (even though there were 10 people all within 5ft of each other) and if the group didn't she'd make some kind of a snide comment about people not following directions or talk down to them. She also made comments about how she was "using her intuition" to find manatees which was total BS... there were people on the boat pointing them out to people (not to mention we got out of the water and moved to a different spot.
Summary: Great shop but awful boat crew, after reading the other reviews I would consider giving this shop a second chance as long as I was not on the boat with Megan again.