Alaska whale watching from Wonder?

[mjackson]

Will we see whales while on the Wonder ship while seeing Tracy Arm or another location? Or do we need to take one of the port whale watching tours? If we get to see whales while on the ship then we wanted to spend our port time doing other activities. Thanks

 

[bbagnall]

We saw whales on the boat twice. The first time we saw one do a full breach right out of the water while we were sitting on our balcony watching scenery. The second time we were in Palo Brunch and saw a baby killer whale just frolicking in the water! This was in the same week. We did whale watching with Harv and Marv's and had one come right up to the boat. The whale watching was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I think we were extremely lucky on our Alaskan cruise!

I hope you see some, I want to go back to Alaska so bad!

 

[Gilland18]

You may get some glimpses but that is all we got from the ship. A close view, especially one jumping or very visible is possible but I think fairly rare. If seeing whales is a "must" you should do an excursion.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Will we see whales while on the Wonder ship while seeing Tracy Arm or another location? Or do we need to take one of the port whale watching tours? If we get to see whales while on the ship then we wanted to spend our port time doing other activities. Thanks

Generally speaking, your best chance of seeing whales is on a small boat excursion. They aren't typically that close in to the cruise ship when they are around. You can see whales from onboard the larger cruise ships but they tend to be waaaaaaay overrrrrrrr therrrrrrrre!

 

[midwestpat]

You may get some glimpses but that is all we got from the ship. A close view, especially one jumping or very visible is possible but I think fairly rare. If seeing whales is a "must" you should do an excursion.

Absolutely agree. We never saw any from the ship.

 

[emilyann415]

We saw a few but NOTHING like we did on the Harv and Marv excursion. Highly recommend them.

 

[*pixie*]

We saw several during our Palo brunch. Everyone, including the servers, all went over to the windows to watch them. Another time, our last sea day I think, we happened to be out on deck and the captain announced there was a pod of orcas off the side of the ship. We would've completely missed them had we not heard the announcement!

We did the Rum Runner Charters fishing and photo safari with Captain Chris. Best thing we did the whole cruise. Saw so many whales, and up close too!

 

[Momma2Jax]

We saw zero I was watching the waves like crazy, but never did! Others on our trip saw some, and we did see porpoises (poroise? Porpoisei. Who even knows?) jumping our waves right next to our verandah!

 

[clten]

We have seen whales from the Wonder on our two DCL Alaska cruises. Both times the best time to see them was on the morning of Tracy Arm (before we entered the inlet). But they can be far away (the first time, they were pretty visible, fairly close to the ship; the second time, they were further away but still visible -- we were amazed at how many people walked right by and didn't realize they were missing the whales even when we said something because it takes a little patience to spot them / figure out how to spot them.)

We have seen them at other times too. But seeing them from the cruise ship is not the same as seeing them from a smaller boat. If other excursions are more appealing, then by all means, use your limited port time for those. But know that your chance of getting a good whale encounter is very slim from the cruise ship itself.

 

[pillow]

I noticed that the whale watching excursions out of Victoria tend to cost less than the ship excursions and Harv and Marv. If you plan to visit Victoria pre or post cruise, you might want to consider doing your whale watching there. Does anyone have experience with this? Is there any reason why we wouldn't want to do our whale watching in Victoria to save $$, and then do something else in port? Harv and Marv will cost $626 for the 4 of us. Victoria tour is $408. Same size boat and same approx time on the water.

Jodie

 

[deebits]

We saw a lot of whales while sitting on our balcony, but they were all in a distance. On the whale watching tours, they were so close.

 

[Jimbob22]

it sounds like Harv and Marv get up close to the whales. We did the official Disney listed whale watching excursion, and the boat very deliberately would not get within 50 yards or so, saying that it didn't want to disturb the whales or scare them off.

Thus, all we got was a lot of sedentary sitting in the boat, and some quick glimpses of distant whales. I was kind of underwhelmed by it all. Mind you, the boat is quite comfy, kind of a big room with cushioned pews, large windows, binoculars provided.

If you have binoculars, you could probably see some from the ship.

 

[jenf22]

We saw whales from the ship a couple of times. I think we saw humpbacks twice and a pod of orcas on the last day. We did the whale watching excursion in Juneau and the whales were right up next to the boat. My photo book is online if you're interested. The whales from the ship are on pages 20, 68, and 87. I used a 70-300mm lens for the boat pictures and I was zoomed all the way out. For the excursion, pages 59-61, I used an 18-135mm lens and wasn't zoomed out all the time. Here's the link:

https://disneywonderalaska2012.shutterfly.com/pictures/8

Bottom line is I would recommend an excursion.

When we lived in Seattle, we took a boat trip from WA to Victoria and saw several orcas. We saw them breach and even swim under our boat. It was truly an amazing experience. I don't think we saw humpbacks though. And I don't actually remember how close we were to Victoria. I imagine if you did a pre-cruise stay in Victoria, you could try a whale watching excursion. Then if you didn't see any, you could book an Alaska excursion on the ship. Just a thought.

 

[holula]

You may get some glimpses but that is all we got from the ship. A close view, especially one jumping or very visible is possible but I think fairly rare. If seeing whales is a "must" you should do an excursion.

This. We got a few glimpses from the ship but the whale watching tour we saw LOTS of whales and was absolutely worth doing!

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We were on the Wonder last year, not on any other cruise ship and we saw lots of whales some quite close up the bridge made announcements saying port side aft, or starboard and from Palo brunch
H dsy entering Tracy Arm area we saw a lot. All servers were stopping and watching themselves.

To OP, we were on the Wonder last year, do check if other people were on the Disney Wonder and went to Tracy Arm for their replies. I am sure most people are replying directly to your question.