Whale Research EcoExcursions, LLC — Attraction in Depoe Bay

Basically, the owner and team working there overbooked themselves, were stressed out and busy, and decided to take it out on us and refused us a refund when they refused to take us out at our reserved time. The whole story: Our family had made a reservation several weeks in advance to make sure we would be able to plan out when we would be able to go. We called the day before and the morning of our scheduled reservation to confirm that we would be able to go out at our scheduled time since it's a 3+ hour drive. We arrived on time and were told there was a backlog due to the weather and that we'd just have to an hour before we'd be able to go. They told us to just hang out in the "museum" and they would come find us when they were ready. No big deal. An hour and a half goes by so we walk back up front to see the receptionist prepping two other groups who had just arrived. Then he proceeds to walk them down to the dock so they can get ready to go out. We walk out to follow them and ask one of the boat drivers why other groups were being taken out before us when we'd already waited more than an hour. He rudely responds with "Well, that's not really my fault, is it?" Then we hear Carrie, the owner, yell at this guy over the radio to come help her. He says he's got people on the dock waiting and she says "Forget about them, and just come help me." She proceeds to pull up to the dock with 4 people sitting in the boat and hops out to help take one of the other groups. We stop her and ask when we can expect to go out and are told that she can only accommodate us at the end of the day or on another day. We explain we can't go much later because of the long drive back and we can't come back another day, again, because of the long drive. She starts to rant at us about how things have been going wrong all day with the weather and the fuelling situation, how she and her colleagues haven't eaten and haven't gone to the restroom because they've been so busy. We're not upset or anything, we just want to know why other people are being taken ahead of us and why we're being asked to wait another several hours. Instead of explaining, she starts yelling at the other people on the dock that they won't get to go, and that she'll have to take us out first. We stop her just to ask for a refund, and she refuses, telling us that we're going to have to ask Living Social for the refund. We left really upset, not because there was a wait or that we had wasted a lot of time and gas, but because they gave us no communication prior to our arrival when we confirmed our reservation that morning and because we were...

We booked a 3:00 tour for my wife, myself, and our two kids (ages 7 and 4).

At 2:15 they called us to see if we had left our hotel because someone had not shown up for the 2:00 tour and they wanted to move us up. We told them that we get extremely motion sick and didn’t want to move times because we had not taken our anti nausea meds and they need at least a half hour to work. They said there would be time for the meds to kick in while we got geared up. I should have stood my ground and said we didn’t want to move, but I felt like they knew best. We immediately took our anti nausea meds (we were still driving) and continued on our way.

When we arrived, they met us at the curb and rushed us through unloading, signing the waivers, going to the bathroom, power walking down to the boat, and getting on life jackets. It seemed like we had an employee over our shoulder through this entire process. Our seven year old started feeling nervous and we felt like we didn’t have the time to properly address his concerns because they were hurrying us to the boat. He was a little scared but when we stopped to address it, our guide was another 30 feet ahead of us and looking back to see why we were lagging.

When we finally get to the boat, the only spot left is in the very back next to the engines, a difficult spot for a scared kid and for someone who gets seasick. The whole boat is waiting on us so we load up as fast as we can and immediately shove off. Needless to say, there was not enough time to have our anti nausea meds kick in.

We spend the next hour and a half throwing up and dealing with a crying 7 year old. It seemed like the rest of the boat had been taught about the whales we were going to see, how to identify the individual animals, and that some guests had watched a video. We got nothing - no prep whatsoever. We didn’t even know the kind of whales we were seeing until another passenger told us.

In our opinion, our captain and the employees were kind but the pushiness in trying to move us up to an earlier tour was beyond what was acceptable. Even if we didn’t get seasick or have kids in our party, they should not have moved us up. It ruined the user experience to know nothing about what we were seeing. This was somewhat of a luxury for us - especially bringing the kids, but we did not feel like it was a good experience.

The captain saw we were struggling and paid for our kids to get some small finger puppets which was...

Captain Carrie is awesome! I was vacationing in Depoe Bay for a few days with my two adult sons & my older son’s girlfriend. Whale watching with Carrie & Koda (the whale watching dog) sounded like fun, so we booked a 1.5 hour tour. First of all, everyone at the whale watching center and museum was super welcoming and nice. Make sure to get there early because finding a parking spot can be challenging, and that made us a few minutes late for the pre-trip informational video. Captain Carrie’s boat is extraordinarily cool - a Zodiac rigid hull inflatable boat, used by Navy SEALs. My crew enthusiastically volunteered to sit up front, where you experience the most movement. None of the young folks had been on a boat in the ocean before, and it’s been years for me, so we were game for the full experience! On our short cruise through the harbor we saw some fairly new, very sweet seal pups with their moms. Carrie is a marine researcher and educator and provided lots of interesting information about all of the marine life that we saw. Her grandson, ZZ, was also onboard and shared his knowledge, as well. Once out in the ocean, Carrie picked up speed and it was exhilarating. As soon as we stopped to view some sea lions, however, my entire group and I became extremely seasick from bobbing around in the water, although I was the only one who needed the bucket. It was my first time meeting my son’s girlfriend and I’d venture to say I made a memorable impression. 😄 Captain Carrie & her assistant were super nice and didn’t make me feel bad about my lack of seaworthiness - they even provided us with ginger ale afterward. We weren’t able to find any whales that day but there was still plenty of cool marine life to see. Despite the seasickness, we really enjoyed the trip and laughed quite a bit about the experience. I’d highly recommend this tour although - if you tend to get seasick - you might want to opt for a seat toward the back...