Whale Watching Adventure with Kids {Dana Wharf Southern California}

We went hoping for a Whaleapalooza.

And that’s exactly what we got the day we went on a 2 hour whale-watching adventure with Dana Wharf.

After we boarded the “Dana Pride” with about 50 other whale-watchers, we found a spot to sit down inside. I figured it would take us a while to get out into the water and then we’d venture out to the outside of the boat to see some marine animal action.

Boy was I wrong.  From the moment we launched off the dock, there were animals to see. We abandoned our spot down below and remained on deck for almost the entire 2 hour trip.

I was a little worried about The Baby and his 2-year old attention span during our 2-hour tour, but he loved every minute of it.

It helped that we found a HUGE pod of dophins about 5 minutes into the tour.  There must have been at least 100 surrounding the entire boat.

Then we spotted our first gray whale.  Spotting the gray whales took a little more patience since they only surface every 3-5 minutes.  I missed getting a photo, but we saw those beautifully barnacled animals spray, surface and even whip their tales a few times.

Even though we were on a search for whales, our favorite part of the trip might have been when this friendly sea lion swam right up to the edge of the boat and said “Hi”.

Sidenote: in our rush to get out of the house for our 10am trip, I didn’t have any breakfast. Turned out to be a fortuitous mistake because this breakfast burrito they made me right there on the boat was the MOST DELICIOUS breakfast burrito I’ve ever eaten (lots of other snacks, drinks and burgers are also available).

We said good-bye to the gray whales and went on a search for a group of fin whales that had been spotted close by.  With five of them surrounding the boat, you’d couldn’t miss catching a glimpse of the second largest whale in the world.  Truly amazing.

On our way back to the wharf, Big Brother got a refresher lesson on all the different animals he had seen from one of the ship’s many knowledge members of the crew.  We learned so much on our trip from the crew and Captain Todd which made me feel silly about the tiny bit of guilt I had for pulling the kids out of school that day.

Now’s the time to take the family on a whale watching trip with Dana Wharf since Gray Whale season runs through April.

Disclosure: We were provided the whale watching adventure at no charge by Dana Wharf in hopes we would have a great time and I would choose to blog about it.  Guess what? We had a blast and I was so excited to blog about our experience.  All opinions are my own and my good reviews cannot be purchased.