This post will share our photos and experience on a whale watching tour in Victoria, British Columbia Canada during our Alaskan Cruise.
Victoria, BC was our final port stop on our 7-day Alaskan Cruise onboard Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas. When searching for Victoria, BC shore excursions, we noticed many that were related to the Butchart Gardens or venturing through the city. While those sounded lovely, we knew our kids wouldn’t prefer them. Most other Alaskan ports have a whale-watching excursion of some kind, but since we had other types of excursion planned for each one, Victoria was our last chance for a whale-watching excursion.
We booked our excursion through the ship, as there was an option that was fairly priced. There was only one option, but I’m sure there were plenty more available through private companies.
We had done whale-watching in 2009 during our trip to Seattle. We took a sea plane from Seattle and then went on a small-ish boat in the San Juan Islands. It was amazing, especially for my photographer husband. We knew we wanted the kids to experience something similar.
But here’s the thing…we wish we would have cancelled this excursion. Why, you ask?
By this time in the trip (our last day) we had seen whales directly from the cruise ship several times. We would be lounging on the pool deck and see guests gathered on one side looking out windows, so we would venture over and whaddya know…whales in the wild.
Perhaps one of the most incredible unplanned times of our cruise was like after midnight sometime, while it was a little light out with that dim pink and blue sky (because it’s Alaska and the sun almost never fully sets during some times of the year) and we were on our balcony, it was super quiet and we saw a momma humpback whale and her baby playing, doing little breach jumps and swimming around each other. And here we were just sailing on by with no one else around. You can’t beat that.
We also saw many other types of wildlife from the ship (bring your binoculars! We used these.) so to leave a boat to get on another boat to go out in search of them and pay hundreds of dollars to do something you’ve already done throughout the week just seemed silly at this point.
We also arrived at Victoria late in the afternoon…we were in port 5-10pm, so going on the excursion meant we would miss our last Suite Lounge Happy Hour and normal dinner hours.
But we chose to go because otherwise we wouldn’t get off the ship and we wanted to bring the kids to Canada 🙂
After getting off the ship, we went through customs and then found the meeting location of the tour.
There were a lot of us. We waited for everyone to check in and then we took several busses to the pier where the whale-watching boat was. The boat was pretty large. It had two stories…both with an enclosed area. The bottom floor was fully enclosed with windows all around and seating against the windows.
The top floor also had windows all around with seating, but it also had an outside portion that full wrapped around the boat. So if you sat inside downstairs, you wouldn’t have anyone standing outside to block your view, but the outside area upstairs was completely full once we started seeing whales, so you weren’t able to see past people if you sat inside.
It took a good 30-45 minutes or more to venture out to where the whales are typically spotted. With any wildlife tour, there is no guarantee of what you will see. But the tour operators all communicate with each other when whales are spotted so they can all venture to the same spot and increase the chances of everyone having a successful tour.
First we saw a small pod of whales, I want to say humpback, but they were pretty far in the distance and we didn’t stay with them for long.
We then traveled some more and arrived at an orca pod. We stood outside and the boat followed them from multiple angles, allowing everyone a good view.
We followed this pod for the rest of the tour. So the excitement eventually wore off and the kids asked to go sit inside. There was a small snack stand there, so the kids bought chips and soda from Canada. Not sure how they’re different, probably healthier haha.
We then went downstairs to find a spot we could relax by the window and see outside, since we couldn’t see out much from inside upstairs with all the people standing outside.
We got bored 🙁 I know that sounds awful, but it was just too much of the same thing for too long. I would have preferred a shorter trip for less money. It probably also didn’t help that the kids were a little cranky from being bored and I wished I had brought electronics of some sort. I was trying to be the good mom but didn’t realize just how much downtime there would be.
Do we recommend this shore excursion?
We would recommend A whale excursion depending on your circumstances. If you are in an area as part of a land vacation, sure, and maybe even look at other Alaskan cities as options, as Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, etc. all also offer whale-watching tours. As part of a cruise where you may have already seen whales from the ship? Perhaps not. However, if we hadn’t already seen whales from the ship during the week, this was a guarantee that we would see them during the trip. So perhaps be flexible and book somewhere that allows cancellations/refunds.
I would have also preferred a smaller boat with less people that could travel a little faster and maybe not take so long.
If you are into nature photography, then this will definitely get you closer to the whales for better photos.
Last but not least, there is a cute shop right on the cruise pier where you can get Canada souvenirs before returning to the ship, but that was pretty much the only shop right there. Any more than that will require you to venture towards the city more.
Looking for more Alaska Shore Excursion reviews? Check out these posts!