Stagnaro Charter Boats

Finding Whale and watching them the way you expect is some times difficult as we experienced during our activity tour. We were lucky to locate first one in about 30 minutes but didn't want to surface out the way we expected, we gave chance to a whale to entertain us for over 20 minutes but it didn't like us and escaped. Crew members assured us that we will find bigger group of whale, we roamed around in water for couple of hours and finally we found two of them who entertained us couple of times before they escaped. It was almost 50 minutes over 3 hour time to complete the activity. But, crew members entertained us watching blue whates.

Whale watching was fantastic and definitely worth every cent! Even the boat ride was fun! We followed whales northward along the coast and they even breached out of the water! Just like in National Geographic!

I took my husband whale watching as a suprise Valentines day activity. He was so excited. What made it so awesome is the crew of the ship were so determined and patient while looking for the whales to see. When we did find three gerogeous grey whales, the crew was so respectful of the whales space and purpose. The crew was fun and knowledgable which added to our trip. Not to mention the views of the land, sky, and sea were spectacular. AND we saw whales breech 4 times: up and out of the water and spun all around, we saw fluke flips and watched them cruz gracefully on their journey. I dont think they would have felt as comfortable had the captain and crew not shown them such respct. We will be returning many times. SAVE THE WHALES!!!!

I have recently moved to the bay area and had been wanting to do this. Since the cold, rainy season has been unseasonably warm and dry I decided to book it. That being said, I had no clue about the migration, or anything else, of the whales. I did not know what kind, if any whales, I would see. The crew on our boat, Velocity, was extremely informative about this. We followed a pod of 4 Gray whales for over an hour! We were told by our boat captain, Ken, that it was somewhat unusual for them to stay at the surface. He said they were feeding and that it was also unusual for them to be feeding on their trek south. While the whales were not very playful, they were truly enjoyable to watch. We were told the Humpback whales are more entertaining as far as jumping out of the water and showing their tails. Apparently you can see whales pretty much year round in Monterey Bay, but there are different kinds of whales at different times and of course they are more plentiful at different times as well. The friend I went with, and I, plan to watch the sighting report and as soon as they start seeing Humpbacks we are going again! Loved it!

The Stagnero crew did a good job keeping us informed about the whales. Once they spotted a pod they stayed running parrallel to it for about 30 minutes. They could have cut the viewing time shorter, but they could sense the enthusiasm of the viewers and so continued the run . I will probably look into the spring whale watching since we had such a good experience with this one.

It was a great day. We saw several whales and got some good pictures. The boat captain was very informative about the whales and got us up vey close. I would recommend this trip to anyone.

We had a great time on this trip. My teenaged daughter loved being out on the water, and my parents had a great time as well. We didn't see any whales until the tail end of the trip, but it was awesome when we finally did get to see them. Got some great pictures, and also enjoyed seeing a sea otter close up and some dolphins and sea lions leaping out of the water. Our fellow passengers were nice. No small kids, mostly adults and a couple of teenagers. No problems at all in that regard. I get motion sickness very easily, but I took Dramamine the morning of our trip and also wore a set a Seabands & I had no problems even though it was a little bouncy on the way back to the marina. It was a cleary sunny day, but it gets fairly cold when the boat is moving fast and you're out on the open water. Make sure you've got a jacket or a warm hoodie. We'll be doing this again later in the year so that we can see the humpbacks!

thank you so much for a great experience. The crew was nice and helpful and we will be back on the boat soon. -helbard.

We spent a wonderful day on the sea. The crew put much effort in fiding whales. At the same time, they were very careful not to disturb them. We saw a wonderful two tail dive (two whales that decided to dive at the same time), many water fountains and dolphins. The best, however, was the seawater biver who just hung out in the middle of the ocean.

The professionalism of the staff and their endeavors to provide us with an enjoyable and fruitful experience (actually seeing whales and other sea life) was wonderful. The large swells and bitter cold, despite the clear skys were tough to take, though.

I wanted to write to comment on my most recent trip on your boat. On Saturday, January 3, 2008 my boyfriend and I went aboard (pre-paid) at 1pm for the 3 hour whale watching tour. I can honestly say that this boat trip was one of the top ten worst experiences of my life - AND I paid for it! Not only did we not see any whales (only sea lions and otters which I could have easily seen myself here in San Francisco), but the winds were so strong that the waves out on the ocean must have been at least 20 feet high. I have experience with boats, my stepfather owns a J-47 here in the bay area. I've been through rough waters (the SF bay is choppy as you know) but I had never experienced anything like this. 20 minutes into going out at sea I was so sick that all I could do was sit with my head in my hands. I was seasick for 2 and a half hours straight. I slowly watched as one person after another came inside to lay down because they were so seasick. My boyfriend, who has NEVER gotten seasick before was sick for 2 hours straight. He threw up at least 5 times. I witnessed at least two other people throwing up on the boat. I didn't see one person on the boat that was having a good time. Instead, the inside area with chairs was filled with 8 people at once with their heads in down or their eyes closed, extremely nauseous. While I understand that none of these things were of your control, I do question why you guys chose to go out on such a windy day (one of the guys had mentioned that that morning the fishing trip consisted of strong winds and people getting seasick) why you would not either a) warn the patrons and allow them to go another day or b) cancel the trip altogether. I don't know one person that had a good time on that boat. It was one of the worst experiences of my life and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I took relatives from the midwest on this trip. We were between the end of the humpback migration and the beginning of the gray migration, so things were sparse. The crew took the boat all the way down to Big Sur on the strength of a report by radio from another boat out of the Monterey harbor. They found us two California gray whales and got quite close on a day when there was really NOTHING out there. With the cost of diesel fuel, I'd guess they would be lucky to have broken even financially on this particular outing.

We were a party of 13, had high hopes of which all were met. We saw otters, sea lions, and orcas. This was a fun filled day with the captian and DJ marking all the high lites. They went out of there way to show us as much as they could and this was great.

I thought Stagnaro's guys did a good job with this trip (except for waiting 20+ minutes for a couple late-comers). And we did stay out a bit longer than advertised. Their comments about marine life were informative, and they didn't push their refreshments too much. We saw some whales - they seemed apologetic there weren't more, but that wasn't in their control anyway. I believe they followed applicable guidelines about maintaining proper distance from the animals, but by the time the trip was done, I felt as if we were hunting the whales and that made me rather uncomfortable. I wonder what impact whale-watching has on the whales? Overall, I enjoyed the time on the water, even though it was a bit choppy, and the boat was comfortable.

I have been a Santa Cruz local for 35 years and I always had the impression whale watching wasn;t as good from Santa Cruz as from Moss Landing, which is much closer to the very deep water preferred by the more "exotic" whales like blues, humpbacks, fins, seis, killer whales, exotic porpoises and dolphins, etc. So I resisted going on the local boat until my 12 year old son talked me into it, for lack of anything better to do this past Sunday. Besides the obligatory (and for us, extremely common) sea lion and otters up close, we saw harbor porpoises (very shy!), and a huge herd (hundreds, literally) of sea lions porpoising along feeding on some kind of bait fish. We also saw uncountable interesting seabirds, otters and sea lions miles farther out than where I would expect to see them, and vast schools of big white Moon and orange Lion's Mane jellies below the water. We saw a couple of Humpbacks that didn't want to stick around, and then found two more that we spent about an hour with as they played around and under the boat, spyhopping, feeding, diving, showing their massive white, barnacle-encrusted flippers and chins, blowing near us, etc. If the boat hadn't been so big and elevated from the water I could have touched them with my hand. It was quite an experience! It was easily the best whale watching trip I have had of the five or so I have been on. The boat went about halfway across to Monterey, along the north slope of the canyon, to a water depth of about 2000'. Out this far you can see many of the cool creatures in the giant Outer Bay Waters tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The food on the boat was simple and good but CHEAP. The Stagnaros clearly haven't learned you can overcharge for lackluster food sold to a captive audience. I think chips were .75 and a ham and cheese sandwich was 3.50. The captain and boat hand were nice, friendly, relaxed, informative without being obtrusive, and didn't shill continuously for tips (I hate that!). Your experience will vary with the time of year and types of whales targeted and of course with sea conditions. But if you keep your eyes open and pay attention there is lots to see in the extremely deep, outer waters of the Monterey Bay even if you don't see whales. I would say the Stagnaros offer a whale watching experience and fun day on the bay as good or better than any of the others I have tried in this area. We will almost certainly be doing it again soon.