Where does whale watching excursion board?

[Dena]

I remember reading that the whale watching excursion in Maui boards directly from the ship. However, the Princess website says it boards from the pier. I also saw a video where it looked like it boarded from the ship. Does anyone have recent experience with this. Could the Princess website be wrong or out of date?

 

We have thought about booking directly from Pacific Whale Foundation, but have no idea when we will get ashore. For example, last time we went, open tenders were called at 10 am, but we did not actually get ashore until 11:45 because the tenders were stopped (both before and after we boarded) to give other vessels priority.

 

So if the whale watch boards directly from the ship, this seems like a big plus to me.

[sloth]

We tendered in and left from the pier just a few weeks ago. This was the tour booked thru Princess.

Cindy

[Dena]

Thank you! Did you enjoy the excursion?

[sloth]

Yes, it was great! We saw lots of whales, even a double breach! If I had it to do over again, I would've put down the camera (as hubby suggested) and just sat back to enjoy. I was so intent on getting pics/video, I missed a few spectacular things!

 

We had the noon tour, so tendered in a couple of hours early (we docked at 0700 and the tendering process seemed to work very smoothly);spent some time wandering around the pier area, visited the Banyon tree, and then boarded the whale watching boat.

 

Enjoy!