Whale Watching Tour - Grenada

[cruiseaholic13]

Has anyone had any success with seeing whales in Grenada? It has always been my dream to see a whale in the ocean, and our cruise is offering a whale-watching tour. Just wondering if anyone has done this with any success!! By the way...we are cruising the first week in Feb.

[Johnthed0g]

I'm sure people DO see whales but a lot don't that's whales for yer!!

[Duckfeeder]

Sorry for a very late reply and bumping an old thread, but my wife and I took a whale watching tour out of Grenada back in December. Sorry, can't remember the tour operator, but it was the tour offered on-board Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas. I'm writing this review as a caution to others who might be tempted by this excursion.

 

After about an hour of unadventurous looking, we did see whales, about 3 or 4, it was hard to tell because they were all grouped together. We also saw what had to be about 20 dolphins, which were quite a bit more interesting than the whales. I have a decent DSLR camera and could fire off quite a few shots in a row and got some ok pictures, but the people with point-and-shoot digital cameras would have a hard time timing a good picture.

 

Unfortunately, after we saw the sea life, this tour turned into nothing but a very slow and very rough 2 and 1/2 hour boat-ride to nowhere. Even though we were on the leeward side of the island, the water was very rough and several ladies on the boat were visibly sick. There were 3 'guides' on the boat, and none of them were very interested in talking to any of the passengers and they offered almost no narration the entire time. The boat itself was much smaller than expected (maybe 30' bi-hull catamaran-style diesel) and while not particularly in disrepair, it was fairly spartan and uncomfortable.

 

Most aggrivating, was that after we saw the whales (and admittedly, we did see whales) they didn't appear to be actively looking for anymore, the operators almost seemed to be feel like they were obligated to occupy our time with an extremely slow ride back to the dock. With water that rough, I'm fairly certain every single person was ready to head back to shore, whether the excursion was advertised as 4 hours or not.

 

In all, this was the most disappointing aspect of our entire cruise and most certainly wasn't worth the $75+/pp premium it commanded. I'd love to go back to Grenada, but this whale watching tour was simply a waste of time and money.