Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching

The crew was fantastic, informative, professional, experienced, zealous of what they do. They managed the trip exceptionally. We were fortunate to track a whale for an hour, see sea lions, blue shark and best of all, the Dana Point sighting of the Orcas. The crew did a great job in making this a better experience than I ever imagined.

My parents were visiting my house, and I took them to the whale watching trip. Luckily, we could see killer whales, a whale, sea lions, a blue shark, and dolphins. Especially, killer whales are really rare, so we are really lucky.

The success of our trip was primarily due to the fact that the weather was perfect and pod of orcas showed up. Since orca sightings are rare this far south, even the captain was excited. Still, I would recommend this trip as long as one realizes not every trip gets to see whales.

We spotted a gray whale on the surface just as we were leaving the harbor, then locked on two two grays who were on the surface off the bow for more than an hour. Great views of flukes. When the dolphins came to play, one of the whales surfaced and rolled over. Really a great show.

We left on time, the crew was friendly and informative. Slow fishing in the winter but we moved around a bit to try new locations as needed (we hit 4). We are inexpereinced fisherpeople and the crew was good about helping when lines got caught and even helped set up the poles we borrowed.

Nice way to spend time. Highly recommended.

We have been out with these guys before. We did the 2 hour whale watch. The captain was knowledgable and personable. The boat was clean. We didn't see any whales but we saw a ton of dolphins and some sea lions. It's a bummer not to see a whale but it's still a really beautiful way to spend a couple hours out at sea. We will keep taking our out of town visitors out and maybe one day we will see a whale!

Although we didn't see any whales, the trip out was great! Smooth seas a few dolphins, some sea lions and lots of blue sky. This is my fourth trip with this company and they are always friendly, the boats are clean and it is a great experience.

The boat (Dana Pride) was clean and big. There were plenty of seats in the galley. There are seats on the upper deck but it's limited and you need to get in line early to snag one of those. We preferred to stand in the front of the boat anyway so it didn't matter to us. We didn't see any whales the day we went but we saw a large pod of dolphins and several sea lions. The captain rode along with the dolphins for a long time which was nice, everyone had plenty of time to shoot video and take pictures. We have more family coming next month and we are going to do it again. Even if we hadn't seen a thing, it was a nice way to spend a couple hours out on the water. It was a beautiful warm day but still chilly on the boat. We definitely needed a couple layers (as their website suggests). Grab a drink at Turk's afterward. It's a great day out!

We're satisfied with the activity because we watched lots of dolphins. However we couldn't see whales at all. If we had seen whales,I would have given five stars on this review.

I live in Carlsbad and usually take visitors on whale watching out of San Diego. They were not offering whale watching on Saturday 11/26, so I found one in Dana Point. It was AWESOME! The harbor is much smaller, so parking is easier, We were on the open ocean in 5 minutes and spotted a grey whale 10 minutes after leaving the dock! They later brought the boat right in the middle of a school of about 20 dolphins with babies! The guides were extremely knowledgable about the whales, dolphins and local birds. HIGHLY recommend Dana Wharf tour!!

Went whale watching between seasons so expectations for seeing a whale were not high so of course did not see a whale. The captain of the boat spotted a large pod of dolphins and did a good job keeping the group entertained by traveling with the pod for about 45 minutes. Captain provided good commentary as we "mingled" with the dolphins. Will go back during season to see whales.

It's getting late in the season, so I didn't have my hopes up on spotting whales. It seemed the crew had that attitude as well. The weather was great, the catamaran handled the chop well and it was a good day on the ocean, even if we didn't spot anything. We'll be back to try again, thanks to the guarantee and free return offer.

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We thoroughly enjoyed the whale watch. We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather, smooth seas and multiple viewings of wild life (20+ whales, sea lions and a large pod of dolphins). Probably conditions are not always as favorable as we experienced. The boat was comfortable and the crew was very accommodating.