My son and I went swimming with the whale sharks today. Yes, it is very cool. They are so much bigger inside the tank. They really do swim right up to you and under you. We were quite impressed.
The down side is that they make you wear heavy, awkward equipment that you don’t need. Besides the fins and snorkel and mask, you will have a tank of compressed air strapped to the front of you. This makes it difficult to move around and limits your visibility. And, once they put the tank on you, they tell you that you can use your snorkel if you wish???? I think the tank is more of a floatation device. As far as a ridged line of swimmers, I did not see this so much. I just felt as though we were snorkeling with the master divers in the tank with us. The sharks tend to swim along the edge of the tank and so they do keep you off the sides, and for good reason. These guys are really big.
When a shark swims up to you, you have to do “the dead man’s float” to stay really still. However, they tell you they will tell you when one is coming, but even though you are swimming on the surface, you can not hear the dive master. There where many times when I would look beside me and, there was a whale shark.
It is, however, a very worthwhile experience. At $190 a pop we will not be doing it again, but I would have to say that is was money well spent.
When you are done, they have a DVD of your swim for $50. I was not impressed with this, it was more a video of the tank than the swimmers. I was hoping they would have regular photos, but they didn’t.
I hope this helps anyone who is planning on going.

Happy Travels,
Seth Pope