Whale Watching Excursion at 7:00 pm?

[Randenise]

Ok so our last port of call on our Alaskan cruise is the beautiful city of Victoria.  Unfortunately, the port of call is from 7:00 pm-11:59 pm, the stop over being a government requirement.   Anyway, we are sailing on Princess in June.  An excursion offered s Whale watching for 3 hours.  So in your experience is the excursion feasible given the amount of time it takes to get the masses off the ship, onto another boat, and out to see whales given daylight????  Thank you in advance!

[martincath]

June does have sunset after 9pm, and in theory you get potential for really nice photos in the hour or so beforehand - but you absolutely will be spending a significant chunk of that whalewatch in poor lighting. Plus, if it's a cruiseline excursion you're probably being hammered with: a) the loss of the normal guarantee from the whalewatch company - which is a lifetime of free rides until you do see a whale locally; b) a heavily jacked-up price (ordinarily 3hr tours out of Victoria run <CAD$130pp, and the folks that do run 'sunset' cruises often knock an extra discount off because of the less-good conditions for whale spotting) in USD, that's probably already higher than the CAD number without even factoring in exchange rate!

 

If you don't have any other possible excursions of interest, check into booking an indy Sunset whalewatch (e.g. Prince of Whales) so at least you get the whale warranty, and literally any time you return to Vancouver or Victoria you'll ride again free even if it's many years from now as well as enjoying a sunset small boat cruise.