Whale watch report??

[heid5]

Anyone have any reports of whale watching excursions this year?? Private or NCL sponsored? We will be there in 2 weeks.

[IluvZ]

We didn't go on the excursion but actually saw whales from the Pearl when we were coming into the area on the morning of Samana. We were there on 1/12/08.

[heid5]

Thanks for the response. Anyone else have any reports about the whale watch excursions. ( either ship sponsored or private.) We are scheduled to go with Phipps Marine the week after next.

[welove2cruise*]

We didn't go on the excursion but actually saw whales from the Pearl when we were coming into the area on the morning of Samana. We were there on 1/12/08.

 

We are hoping to catch a sighting of the whales ourselves from the ship.

 

Did you need to be on a certain side of the ship to see them on the way into port?

 

Thanks!

[kruzingtogether]

We just got back ... the people on the whale watching tour through NCL said that they did not see any whales. Apparently the guide pointed out one tail in the distance at some point, but that was it. The water was also a little rough the day we were there, and we heard several reports that a majority of the people on the excursion got seasick, and had to use seasickness bags that had to be kept on the boat for the whole excursion. Again, we did not experience this first hand, but we do know that several people were asking for their money back after this terrible experience.

[samdham]

I was on the Dawn last week, too, and heard the same complaints as kruizingtogether did. We did the Safari Adventure tour and loved it, but it sounded like the whale watchers didn't have as good of a time as we did. We did see some whales from our balcony cabin as we pulled into the area, however. That was pretty cool.

[Mekamax]

I posted this above before I saw your posts - Whale Watching Review NCL Dawn

 

Samana was our first port off the NCL Dawn - we watched us pull in from our balcony and it was gorgeous! Tons of pictures - I hadn't seen and island with all palm trees... Met in the front show lounge and it was packed - I think they should have staggered the meeting times - or they did but there was problems due to rough waters. Our Whale Watching tour should have been canceled (was canceled two days before on the Jewel for no whales) due to rough water but instead all boats left out. 5-7 foot waves in a small boat for two hours - the only thing we saw was the next wave coming at us! :eek: At least half of all the boats were sea sick and throwing up over the sides or in bags. :( So anyway finally got dropped at the beach - of coarse no whales... The beach was beautiful and I got a nice painting and some of the local jewelry and the people were very nice. THe dancers were very good too. So was the beer after the tour! NCL waited till the last night of the cruise to inform us they were giving us 35% back. Unfortunatly this was badly done and hubby is very upset with NCL and will not sail on them again.... TO make matters worse the captain came on the next to last day and announced that due to high waves (smaller than in Samana) and the safety of the passengers (the safety of passengers doesn't matter if they pay $100 a person I guess) we will be missing the private island... How ironic.... OK enough on that you get the picture.....

[HNP]

Dawn1/20-1/27

I was on the morning whale watching trip, so I can give 1st hand accounts of trip. We left the Dawn late due to rough seas. At first the seas did not seem rough because the Dawn was blocking the waves, but that changed very fast:confused: . Let me state that my DH & I felt like a lot of the people on the boat should have not taken the excursion. I will say I wanted to go back as the seas were getting rougher and rougher but only about six people wanted to so we continued to go futher in search of whales (there were only about 2-3 people getting sick). My DH felt the captain knew what he was doing and was handling the rough seas the best he could. There were 3 men on board working and looking for whales. They were determined to spot whales. About an hour into the trip they spotted a spout from the whales it was a mom and her baby so the spout was not very high and hard to see with the rough seas. The workers tried to make sure everyone saw, but many missed them. The captain moved to another area where we saw other whales. I saw whale spouts about six times and three whale humps. I was happy and ready to go:p . I learned you have to be patience and watch for the whales. As my husband said, "it was hard to enjoy yourself and relax with the seas being so rough".

I am glad I went on the excursion for I did see spouts and whales;) do I wish I saw more, sure. But I can mark it off my to do list before I die. And I can say for sure it is an experience I will never forget:D .

 

My DH and I both feel the excursion should have been cancelled due to rough seas. Although we did not complain to the desk my Dh said he was going to write a letter when we got back ( he does not like to complain).

We were surprised to find a letter under our door later in the week telling us we got a 35% credit for the excursion. So we were happy and never had to complain.

 

To us vacation is about experiencing things you are not able to do at home. If you are adventurous and want to see whales than give this excursion a try.

 

Happy Whale Watching:cool: .

[Mekamax]

HNP - were you on the two deck boat? It went further out I could tell but it was so rough and we had been out for 2 hours so our boat headed in. No one I talked to saw whales at all - so you must have been on the only boat that did. The waves were too high for us to see anything but the next one... Debbie

[HNP]

Hey Deddie,

We were on the two deck boat that was just Whale watching and back to the DAWN.

[Mekamax]

OK - we saw ya'll head further out. It seemed you were doing much better with the waves in the bigger boat. Too bad they couldn't have put everyone on bigger boats. Glad you at least got something out of it. Debbie

[schiltgen]

Does anybody have a recent whale watching report?

[heid5]

I posted a report on the NCL thread. We were in Samana last Tuesday.

[Ottawa Lynne]

I also posted a response in the NCL thread.

 

We loved the whale watching tour. We did it through NCL. The captain of our boat was awesome - he handled the waves with great expertise. I was never frightened.

 

We saw a few whales' backs and blow holes. And then we saw two whales jumping in the air and their tales (our tour guide said he saw a dolphin too but I don't think anyone else did).

 

It was awesome. We had a great time. We took gravol (dramamine) and were fine. There were a few people who were sick.

 

I'm not good at measuring waves but others said the waves were about 12 feet high.

[thorno]

We had signed up for the whale excursion prior to crusing last week. When we reported to the theater for departure we were informed that the waters were fairly rough. Due to the conditions we were given the choice to go on the excursion anyways, or cancel on the spot with no penalty. After reading the reviews of people hanging over the side and seeing nothing but waves from a couple of weeks prior we decided to cancel. Quite a number of others did also who apparently read the same reviews. Did run into a couple that went on the tour but only saw a couple whales in the distance.

[gmhohio]

Hi,

I was at Cayo Levenatado on Feb 16th and took the Whale watching excursion booked through the MSC Lirica. The first hour we were out we saw nothing, then we started seeing large number of whales. Over the next couple of hours, we say three breeches, numerous flukes coming up in the air and several waves of pectoral fins. At one point a whale surfaced so closely, we could hear it breathe. It all was quite exciting.

 

The seas were not too bad. No one in my boat was ill, although we did get a couple of good soakings.