Cap’n Fish’s Boat Trips

My fiancé and I went on vacation here and the whale boat tour was amazing!!! We saw three whales who hung around the boat for awhile, our tour guide was very knowledgeable. My only complaint is the price of drinks/​food on the boat. $ 3 for regular brewed coffee pot coffee and $ 6 for a beer. Really?

We had an amazing experience with ‘Cap’n Fish’s’. For starters, the boat ride out is worth the ticket price. Very beautiful
On the ride out we saw hundreds dolphins! The dolphins traveled in VERY large schools, and people on the boat were screaming with excitement as we passed several groups of them bobbing above and below the water.
Then we found 4 humpback whales (one was a baby). We spent almost the entire trip with them. They were absolute incredible creatures, rolling onto their sides, flipping their tales, and spouting.
The crew was great, and the boat is comfortable and well equipped. It seemed that everyone had a preference for the top deck, but I would actually recommend the bottom deck.

Reasonably priced and well worth it. Our captain was informative, entertaining and managed the boat beautifullly! We had spectacular weather (which made it even better) and our captain pointed out the seals. We were lucky enough to see some porpoises. We were pleasantly surprised at how much fun we bad!

We took the puffin tour… Saw puffins and many other marine birds, dolphins, seals, sun fish and even a minke whale! Captain and hosts were very professional, knowledgable, and genuinely enthusiastic about what they do. Very enjoyable morning on the water!

I feel weird about giving Cap’n Fish five stars, because I’m not sure I would be so quick to do so had I seen nothing.
As it happened, we had perhaps the best whale watching trip of the entire season. It surpassed my expectations. I went into the trip expecting to see maybe a minke whale or two, far off in the distance. Once we got out to the destination several miles off shore, it was a nonstop whale show. We saw two humpback whales (uncommon in this region and at this time of year), and no less than 10 fin whales. One of the humpbacks put on a show for us that you see when you watch a whale documentary on TV (and mind you, those folks film for months and months to get footage). It breached several times, slapped its fins on the water, and gave us many many views of its fluke.
The fin whales were no less stunning. We were able to get close enough that you could almost reach out and touch them! To cap things off, we saw a number of seals and porpoises. But let’s face it, when you’ve seen humpbacks and fin whales, seals are just not that exciting.
The guide was very informative. I’m kind of a whale nerd, so I didn’t really learn anything new, but to those who are less inclined to read obsessively about cetaceans, you would learn a lot.
I don’t get seasick (thankfully), but the ride was a bit intense. But hey, you’re in the open ocean, you shouldn’t expect anything less. The captain of the boat did a fantastic job steering the vessel so that we could get a good view, while trying not to disturb the animals.
I’d love to say I would use Cap’n Fish again for a whale watching trip, but I can’t imagine that any future trip would be nearly as spectacular as what I saw today. They do offer other trips in the region, so maybe one of those is in order.

Just got off the boat and had a great time! They can’t control how many whales we see but we saw 4 Fin Whales, lots of Harbor Seals, a Sunfish, lots of sea birds and a Minki Whale. Bonus is that the tour guide was very nice. Seven of us took the tour and we all enjoyed it.

Took the 1 ¼ hour trip around the bay. at $ 19 a person it was a great bargain. Toured lighthouses, seal rock and some private islands. Beautiful boat, snack bar and the pilot did a great job in narrating the sights and history of the area. Got right up to the seals on the rocks. Very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

We went on Captain Fish’s whale watch today (end of July) and, sadly, saw no whales. They did comp us with tickets (albeit, standby and only good through October of this year). I’d be interested in what percentage of trips see whales; seems they should publish that info. Anyway, the crew was courteous and informative. The boat was comfortable enough and not overly crowded. The trip was about the right duration (3.5 hours). You can bring food but no drinks and no coolers. I’d have rated 4 or 5 if we’d seen whales.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and cool, calm waters, and a perfect day for a ride out into the ocean. However, while we were told we saw whales, no one really did. We were standing there and they kept talking about «minke whales at 10:00» and everyone was staring into the water and no one saw them. They kept saying it was a silvery shadow or something we were supposed to be seeing. Apparently one whale did breach and a few people saw it. The announcer apologized that we weren’t seeing anything and did try and kept saying conditions were perfect and how disappointed he was that there were no whales. So was surprised when we got back and didn’t get return tickets. A lot of people were mad, especially larger families who had spent hundreds of dollars and basically saw nothing. I only give it two stars because we did see the dorsal fine of a huge basking shark and he came pretty close to the boat.

Very disappointing. We went to the booth yesterday and were told by the ticket seller that a bus was coming for our selected cruise. Assured of the cruise going, we purchased tickets. We lined up with a few others at the advertised boarding time of 12:30 and stood there, ignored, in a drizzly rain until 1:00. At that time, one of the people lined up with us asked when we were boarding, only to be informed that the cruise wasn’t going because there weren’t enough people. Apparently the bus story was a big lie. We had planned our entire day around this cruise and the ticket seller’s lie literally ruined the day since it meant we’d lost the opportunity to go on another vendor’s trip. The whole time a group of us were standing in the cold drizzle, the operator knew we likely weren’t going, but no one had the decency to tell us. That kind of rude treatment of your customers means I’ll never give them a second chance. Shame on the owners for treating customers like this.

My son and I participated in a Whale Watch Cruise. Being mid-​September we had our own doubts about seeing a whale, and as suspect — no luck. The cruise did stop by a fishing boat that had just caught a marlin over 400lbs. Cool site. So we were still completely happy with Cap’n Fish’s trip tho we didn’t see whales at this time. What completely cinched my satisfaction was the the cruise gave us new tickets free to try the cruise again — good for forever, so I was quite pleasantly surprised. In any event, given the 4 hours on the water I think their tickets were fairly price.
Later I found this company also has a hotel on the water. Investigating we found their rates were actually lower than the Comfort Inn where we stayed in Bunswick as part of our tour. In addition we would have had discounts on the whale watch tickets.
In sum next time I go to the harbor I will likely stay at their hotel as well.
My only suggestion for their website is to improve the directions.

This was really fun. 4 of us went whale watching in the morning, and saw an amazing amount of activity. They took us out 18 miles to a big feeding area for the whales, so there was a lot to see.
I would go again because the ride and sealife are beautiful, not necessarily for the service.
The biologist and the captain on the boat were really fun and provided a lot of good information. Especially the biologist-​she was great
The seats on the top deck were very comfortable and spacious.
I’m giving this 3+ stars but not 4 for a few reasons:
–The boat was very comfortable up top, but the enclosed area was VERY noisy, smelled of engine, and didn’t have any air circulation.
–One of my companions got sick (because she was cold up top and tried to warm up downstairs). When I told an employee-​he just looked at me. I asked for cleaning supplies and took care of the cleanup myself with no help from him.
–We saw a lot of stuff, which was great, but when we saw something the captain would point the boat right at it… so unless you had a seat right up front (and he would yell at you if you stood in front of his windows, which I can understand), you couldn’t see anything.

I’m pretty neutral on this experience and writing more to summarize than to comment.
I liked it, it was fun, I don’t regret doing it but I’m not sure I’d recommend it or do it again.
The trip the day before we went (late May) apparently many whales were seen. We saw two whales, both Minke. We saw small dorsal fins that look like seeing a dolphin in the ocean. If i didn’t have them to tell me, I would have thought they were dolphins. We also saw seals, which are adorable but not hard to find closer to land.
If you’ve never seen an animal in the ocean, probably worth the afternoon boat ride.
Also worth noting (especially for motion sickness folks), the boat is super loud, goes out far and travels pretty fast. It’s hard to hear the PA system.

There were 3 things I didn’t like about Cap’n Fish
1) They charge too much and do so in roundabout ways including a) charging for our 9 month old that doesn’t take a seat ($ 13), b) charging for parking $ 20, c) charging a $ 10 service fee when booking (even on the website)
2) We didn’t see any whales, which is fine, it happens. But their «guarantee» simply gives you another ticket for a non-​reserved seat (you have to go standby). And it isn’t like Boothbay is the most convenient place to get to (1.5 hrs outside Portland) so that makes getting value back on the guarantee that much harder and it costs the company nothing since all they are offering is otherwise unsold seats
3) Personally I found the ride unbelievably rough. Perhaps it is related to the location and not the company;s choice of boat or captain but people were getting thrown around like rag dolls. Very different than other ones in Maine and Hawaii that I’ve done.

Wonderful way to spend a day! I love this area, and go on a whale watch trip or other boat tour from Cap’n Fish’s whenever I’m back in this beautiful area. The boats are comfortable, and the staff is very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. I see and learn something new every time I take one of these excellent boat tours. Make sure you plan time to go on one when you’re in this area.