Our family of five had the pleasure to do whale watching with Eagle Wing tours. I chose this company after reading the great reviews on Trip Advisor . We chose to be on the 12 passenger sportscar of the seas, the Eaglewing. Brett was our captain for the adventure. This was definitely the highlight of our pacific northwest trip. Brett's enthusiasm and knowledge are superb, and the boat is a blast. We all agreed the trip on the Eaglewing would have been great even if we hadn't found any whales ( we found plenty). I kind of felt sorry for the other whale watchers we saw on double decker boats bobbing up and down in the water. Don't hesitate to take this trip.

Just got back from a stunning whale-watching trip with this company, chosen originally after browsing through the leaflets from about ten different operators - then pleased to find that TripAdvisor members gave this one the thumbs-up too. Of course I can't say whether or not Eagle Wing Tours are any better than the others, having had no experience of the rest, but looking at the rest of the boats out at sea (and there were many), ours was certainly the coolest. The other boats seemed to be either fast and flimsy (which would test anyone's sea legs), or larger but slower. There was no other boat out there like our "Goldwing", a large stable vessel which could still manage an astonishing 35 knots plus. Eagle Wing has two boats, with "Goldwing" being the larger of the two - you can choose which one you want to travel on if you're flexible about departure time. Although larger, "Goldwing" is still a thrill ride.

I can't really think of any criticisms. The company does appear to charge about 20% more than some of the others, but if the boats are as good as they appear to be, that's a small price to pay. Study the company's (pretty good) web site FAQs beforehand, especially regarding clothing. It gets VERY cold out at sea, even on the hottest of days inland, and although you'll be given waterproof jackets, take them up on the offer of optional waterproof trousers. They didn't have small trousers for our 7-year-old, so he had to make do with a blanket; if we'd have known, we'd have put him in warm jogging trousers or something.

The boats depart from Fisherman's Wharf - the little harbour ferries will take you to the exact landing stage!

And yes, we had an absolute result - plenty of sightings, but a spectacular finale with three whales swimming close together past us, all jumping out of the water (and two simultaneously). An extraordinary experience.

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