San Diego Speed Boat Adventures | San Diego Boat Tours — Attraction in San Diego

It was a beautiful sunny day in San Diego. The afternoon wind had picked up and the air was crisp. No one knew this would turn out to be a three-hour tour much like the one of Gilligan's Island fame. First, I will say that the reservation process through Viator was painless and efficient although details about Speed Boat Adventures were minimal. We arrived and gathered with the other patrons to listen to the spiel from the tour guide a young college aged man (will call him Chad to keep his identity secret) that I am sure was not raised in a sea fairing family judging by the cut of his jib. We received some not so detailed directions on how to operate the boats while gagging on some cheesy jokes that he peppered into the speech here and there. After filing down to the dock, we saw the boats as we eyed the sleek yellow machine that I would be captaining the terms scow and jalopy floated into my head. Like six baby ducks following their mother Chad led us out of the safety of the harbor, we made it out to the "open seas". It was time to peg the throttle and race the wind! Alas, our trusty yellow machine would barely press on beyond jogging pace. As much as we willed her forward, she just wouldn't plane and reach speed. After several minutes Chad finally came back to render us aid. After pulling alongside he opened the hatch behind our seat and discovered several gallons of water sloshing around inside. The bilge was not functioning. Chad was able to coax it back to life and water flowed out once again. After the water was removed from the stern we were back in business. I threw the throttle forward to the stop and the mighty Tohatsu outboard motor strained and then propelled us at a somewhat amazing speed for a boat of its size. Let me fast forward to the interesting part of the story. Upon returning to the harbor, we were given instructions about the docking procedure. The first three boats including ours safely pulled alongside the dock, ropes were secured to the cleats and we disembarked thankful to be back on terra firma. While standing on the dock and waiting for the rest of the ducklings to park their boats we witnessed what no mariner ever wants to see a vessel and her crew being swallowed by the briny deep. And so ended our adventure as Chad rescued our fellow sailors from the clammy depths. In conclusion; it was windy, cold and wet but fun was had by us anyway. If you managed to get this far in my review our take aways from this (mis)adventure are the following: Don’t expect shiny lightning-fast boats like the ones in Miami Vice. Prepare yourself beforehand by knowing a few things about boat operation because the information from the guide is not detailed enough. Were warm clothes. Know how to swim! And now a few words to the management of Speed Boat Adventures. Proper maintenance is important! Personnel should be trained how to handle emergency situations. This could have been much worse had this young couple’s boat had sunk out in bay. We rated this with two stars because we did have fun after all. But this adventure is not for the faint of heart. You have...

Our experience was a bit disorganized for an 11:00am cruise. The website says arrive 30 minutes early and the emails say 15, but it was all a wash because nobody was there until 5 minutes before the start time and just to tell us all they were running late and would be checking us in at 11:05. Finally had the guide greeted us around 11:15. After the safety check. We left the dock at 11:40 for the tour. The primary issues arose when we made it out of the no wake zone. Every driver needs to appreciate this is a speed boat tour in a somewhat choppy harbor. This is not an activity for the timid and would recommend shorter folks consider visibility might be difficult when traveling at higher speeds. It was a bit hectic getting to the first point of interest (sea lions) but once everyone got there, our guide did a lovely job of giving us a breakdown of local wildlife. Unfortunately our tour was cut short when one boat broke down and we lost the rest of the sightseeing. The next 30-45 minutes gave me the following take aways: 1) it sounds like the broken down boat ran over some kelp. It would be a good reminder for participants to avoid those when doing the safety check prior to launching the boats. 2) this operation would benefit from two way radios (instead of just one for the guide to broadcast to us) so people in trouble can radio for assistance. Also recommend increasing radio range as some folks did not hear clear instructions once we were separated. 3)if one boat is in trouble, all boats need to circle back with the leader so the group is not separated. 4) directions need to be overly specific. “Return to the marina. The tour has concluded” caused most boats to do that and head to marina and the docking area. Unfortunately, the marina is large so some folks assumed this was the mouth of the marina, some the docking areas within the marina, and some folks ended up at the wrong marina due to the separation between us and the guide. Fortunately, we called the central phone number and someone came to meet us after circling the marina channel for another 10-15 minutes. We still got back a bit later from the scheduled time and since we missed ~50% of the tour, it was disappointing. Overall, I’m not sure I’d recommend this to folks right now. I think there is a ton of potential, but they need a better contingency plan for when one boat is...

We booked through CityPASS, which appears to be a common way to reserve this experience. Based on the description, we were expecting a self-guided adventure with the freedom to cruise at our own pace with the description stating "You can choose to cruise slowly like a houseboat and take in all the sights or whizz across the water" In reality, while you do operate your own boat, you're required to follow a tour guide in a single-file group. That means no freedom to explore, and you’re limited to the guide's speed and route, regardless of your own preferences. Things went downhill from there. Our boat had an outboard motor that randomly shut off and would take multiple tries to restart throughout the tour, making it incredibly difficult to keep up with the group. The steering was even worse—it was honestly one of the worst handling experiences I’ve ever had, on land or water. It felt like trying to push a shopping cart with a broken wheel and two cases of water stacked in the front—constantly veering to the right and requiring full upper-body effort just to stay straight at any decent speed. To make matters worse, the boats in the group were clearly not calibrated the same. Even at full throttle, they moved at different speeds, which made it hard to maintain a consistent, safe distance—especially for us, since our motor often died when we changed speeds. After the tour, we also noticed a large crack in our boat’s hull, which probably explains why my leg kept getting soaked every time we accelerated. Overall I would not recommend this experience unless you are only expecting to get an arm workout and multiple heart attacks when the boat in front of you decides they do not want to want to keep going at the same speed with no warning and puts their...