My wife (who is subject to motion sickness) and I went out with Eagle Wing this week, and it was wonderful! We originally booked a trip on their larger boat, which was nearly empty at the time; they were very up-front about the fact that the trip might not go (they want about 40-50% capacity before sending a boat, which is reasonable, as the capacities are quite low). (Though their morning trips seemed to generally be full during our trip, afternoons had many openings.) They did eventually cancel that tour, but we took space on their smaller boat for the sunset tour.

Although it is still a speed boat, and somewhat rough for some individuals (pregnant women, very small children, those with physical handicaps), the smaller boat still was much better than the Zodiac boats everyone else runs. The smaller boats do have much more range than the large covered boats (we had to chase the whales a long way; those in large boats got 20-30 minutes of viewing time, while we had 1.5 hours). The Eagle Wing boats are faster and much smoother than the Zodiacs; coming back in when the tide had turned and wind was against us, the trip was somewhat rough, but we remained dry and only slightly uncomfortable; the zodiacs we passed were bouncing almost completely out of the water and everyone was completely soaked. (They were wearing complete survival suits; we were wearing optional marine jackets for the wind.) Moreover, our driver Dave handled the trip in extremely well despite the rough conditions, definitely one of the best drivers available. He even remembered to stop on the way back when he found a bald eagle, as one of the other passengers mentioned in passing early on that he'd never seen one in the wild. Dave even dropped us off in the inner harbor afterward (passing his dock in the process) so we wouldn't need to catch a cab back to the hotel.

In short, although they aren't in the inner harbor and are slightly more expensive, they are absolutely worth it if. I've been on good whale watching trips elsewhere, but this experience was much better.

My grandson and I took this whale watch tour on June 23, 08. It was a highlight. We saw many whales close-up to the boat.

Brett answered all my pre-tour questioned promptly. The crew was professional. All in all, a great tour.

ABCrose

When my husband and I showed up for our whale watching tour with Eagle Wing, we were informed that they had cancelled our tour due to not enough people signing up. They had instead bumped us to a tour leaving three hours later.

Although this was an inconvenience (thank goodness we had no other booked engagements), Eagle Wing did happily pay for a full day's parking for us, and gave us a free coffee. In the meantime we had time to scoot over and tour Craigdarroch Castle.

Eagle Wing tours departs from Fisherman's Wharf, a lovely place to just hang out. There are lots of fast food stalls on the wharf, and you can buy fresh fish to feed the many harbour seals that come into the dock area looking for gullible tourists such as ourselves.

The tour was supposed to be three hours long, but ours stretched into four, because they used our tour to shoot some promo shots for their brochures. This involved doing some fancy speed boating. Doing the crazy eights would have been alright, except that our tour guide, with the encouragement of a four year old on deck, kept going long after the shots were finished, and so for about an hour we all felt like we were on one long sickening exhibition ride... a little much for older folk like us. Our tour guide obviously had way too much adenaline!

But despite all this, Eagle Wing did deliver on what was promised. For the remaining three hours we did see a pod of orca whales, a lot of harbour seals, some cormerants and oystercatchers (and another bird I have yet to identify), and we learned all about kelp as we each got to eat a small bite of it straight out of the ocean.

For safety reasons, the local coast guard no longer allows boats to get too close to the whale pods, so make sure you have a good zoom on your camera when taking pictures.

If you're looking for a good whale watching experience, Eagle Wing is not a bad bet... as long as you're flexible with the time of day you're touring.

I chose Eagle Wing Tours based on tripadvisor reviews, and it was truly one of the best experiences of my life. We were lucky enough to have a superpod (three pods swimming near each other) on the day we went out, so we were seeing whales almost constantly during our tour. Our guide was also extremely knowledgeable about the whales, telling us all kinds of cool information like how old they were, etc. He would also get really excited when a pod would start heading towards our boat - it was obvious that he loved the whales and that he loved his job, which just made the experience that much more fun. It also seemed like he was always one step ahead of the other whale-watching boats that were out there, like we would get a good spot to see a pod and then about 30 minutes later all the other boats would show up. I think he may have been communicating with the whales! :)
I can see why this company is #1 on this site - it's just such a unique experience and they really take care of you to make sure that you have the time of your life. If you're in Victoria, do not miss out on the opportunity to go on an Eagle Wing tour!!!