Monterey Bay Whale Watch

I went on the 9:00am 4 hour whale watch trip with Nancy Black. It was amazing! We saw many humpback whales at a fairly close distance. We also saw different kinds of dolphins and many of them, including Northern Right Whale dolphins that have no dorsal fin and are black. We saw many sea lions feeding way out in the ocean. And some sea otters as we left and returned from the trip. We were out 5 hours. There were about 20 people on the Point Sur Clipper, which was very comfortable and did not raise any COVID-19 concerns about social distancing. Everyone wore a mask. The bathroom was cleaned each time someone used it. There were a lot of swells, the ride was sometimes like a disney ride and some people got seasick. Don't ignore the company's advice to take sea sickness medication before the trip. It's also pretty cold out there, even on a warm day, so wear/bring a warm jacket. The only issue I had was when we returned to shore at 2:00pm - the wharf area was super crowded. Very hard to avoid close contact with people. Lots of people out waiting to go whale watching, shopping and eating outside in the restaurants and waiting in line for the public restroom. I recommend they figure out how to limit the number of people in the wharf area.

I have been on many whale watches before and this was definitely one of the best! The crew (Captain Liz, Colleen, and Dane) were all fantastic, friendly, and super knowledgeable. Captain Liz did a great job not crowding the whales and allowed us to get great views without harassing the animals. Colleen and Dane shared great info about the whales and made the whole trip more fun. We were able to see over 20 humpback whales, dall’s porpoises, and a small mola mola, not to mention a ton of sea lions feeding among the whales. The boat was nice and not crowded, and the company did a great job making sure everyone followed proper safety protocol for covid-19. I would definitely recommend!

We chose the 8-hour cruise in late April. The vessel (Sea Wolf II) is sound and roomy, with limited seating inside the cabin and good benches out in the sun and the breeze. We saw the harbor sea lions right away. The skipper found a pod of about ten orcas quite quickly and followed them, at a safe distance, for six hours. We were able to observe orcas of several sizes doing what they do. We were able to take many decent photos of the whales. Great cruise !

We chose this company because they have fantastic naturalists (and had seen Nancy Black on a documentary). The trip was well organized and COVID precautions were observed. I recommend you pay a few extra dollars to sit on the top deck, if the larger boat is available - you can an excellent view from up top. We saw tons of dolphins, sea lions, harbor seals, and 15 humpback whales! We'll definitely be going back in the spring for orca season. Highly recommended!

I really hate to write a negative review but this was not an enjoyable tour [9 AM morning tour]. I gave it two stars only because we did not get sick. People were puking everywhere around us, which makes for a very unpleasant experience. You could not sit down anywhere without seeing someone vomit. It took over 1.5 hours to see one whale dive down not to resurface and another hour to see another one [and we could only stay with it for less than 5 minutes because we had to get back]. My parents were good sports and I realize you can’t control Mother Nature, but They should have offered to refund peoples money. the guide was saying things like “National Geographic shot!” To seeing a few dolphins in the water and “folks, were going to get you back early so you can get a head start to your day!” When we headed to shore, he exclaimed “this was a great trip by anyone’s measure!” and that was clearly not the case and quite the stretch. As someone whose been on several whale watching tours in the area and had excellent sightings, It would have helped to be honest. Our best pic of the trip was of a dog onboard.

They also had some sort of boat issue and frantically sent the crew Inside the hull without ever explaining the situation. All in all, It felt more like an ocean cruise in choppy waters than any kind of wildlife tour.

We booked the 3-hour trip starting at 9am. We had the chance to see sea lions, dolphins and whales. The boat got us close to them and we were able to watch them for a long moment, it was truly magic. We even was some whales jumping! We had great comments from Kyle, who explained very interesting things about whales and dolphins. I highly recommend this experience, especially with kids. Make sure you bring warm clothes and restrooms are available on the boat.

Well worth the bucks! Maybe a little long for us but thats not really a complaint. Staff were excellent and one guy on the boat took time to record a video for a 'whale mad' nephew of ours at home. would recommend

Pre-booked online in the UK, as MBWW had a very flexible rebooking policy if we had to postpone due to Covid etc.

In the end, all good & we were able to make our booked 9.00am trip in June 2022. Arrived at the jetty, paid, & had a short wait before boarding (we had premium upper deck tickets).

On the way out into the bay, saw lots of sea lions, & pods of dolphins around the boat. We soon found a number of humpback whales, which was amazing to see. After a while we moved on, but the fog appeared so it was a while before we saw any more whales. When we did, it was great seeing a breach, & also a lunge feed!

The return to dock also saw more humpbacks, dolphins, porpoises, & sea birds. In total, we'd seen 36 humpbacks, over 100 dolphins, some harbour porpoises, & untold sea lions.

We really enjoyed our trip, which lasted just under 4 hours (by way of comparison, another company's trip left about 5 minutes before us, but the same boat was already on it's next outbound trip when we were docking back in the harbour).

Of course, the nature of whale watching is that you never know what you may see (or when), but overall we had a great time & I'd happily recommend MBWW.

The Thursday morning 12/1/2022 boat was cancelled due to weather but we were easily able to reschedule the trip to Friday morning 12/3/2022. The boat crew was friendly and helpful and the naturalist was very friendly and informative. We saw about 10 humpback whales on Friday morning and a couple of large pods of Risso's dolphins as well as several bobs of sea lions that were dolphin diving (jumping out of the water like dolphins do). And we got a really special treat when one of the young humpback whales did a tail splash on one of its dives. It was a great trip.

We have been fortunate to have used Monterey Bay Whale Watch a number of times and it has never disappointed. If you are thinking about whale watching then book it. On this trip we spent about 45 minutes with a very splashy humpback whale who gave us a show of their behaviour - full breaches, pectoral fin and tail slapping.
After this the captain found a school of about 300 risso dolphins including casper, plus a few abtrosses, porpoise, sea otters and sea lions.

The boat also had marine biologist to explain what we were seeing and to answer questions about.