Channel Islands Adventure Company — Attraction in Santa Barbara

My wife and I did the longer (5 hour) kayak tour for intermediate to advanced paddlers that visited a bunch of amazing sea caves. We paddled from Scorpion Bay to Potato Harbor and back, a total of six miles. Our guides were Chuck and Forrest - they were both outstanding. Chuck has a huge amount of experience and knowledge of the islands, the wildlife and the flora - along with the history of the islands. He has authored a few books about the islands and is a very talented photographer as well. I bought one of his books after the tour. The weather was good. We had moderate swells, with bigger ones on the way back. We visited a Sea Lion rookery(?) just south of Potato Harbor and saw probably 40 Sea Lions with a lot of youngsters - it was pretty amazing. The sea caves were incredible - and a couple offered some challenging paddling, including a long, tunnel-like cave that was nearly pitch dark. I had a bit of a mis-adventure in that one, but Chuck was there to help get me back in my kayak. The day was physically challenging for all of us. I was pretty worn out when we got back to Scorpion Bay. Chuck and Forrest were amazing guides - both of them were patient and reassuring. Being out on the ocean in places where there is nowhere to land can be intimidating. It was an incredible experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Another really cool part of the trip was the boat ride to and from the island. We saw dolphins, humpback whales and even blue whales. The ship's captain was awesome and stopped the boat to point out the whales. We probably spent 20 minutes on the way back stopped so we could watch whales. A huge blue whale surfaced about 20 feet from the...

I went to Channel Islands National Park - Santa Cruz. Upon booking, I had some questions and I was always able to reach a human operator to answer questions. She was very nice and I really appreciated her extra guidance. The ferry took us to Scorpion Anchorage from the Venture Harbor at 8am. This island and transportation and team is very well organized from the moment you depart to arrival, which is lovely as a first time nature-adventurer coming from the city. We saw Dolphins and kind of a whale. The captain gave us time to stop and see!! We arrived and had an orientation about the island/National Park Federal Regulations from the kayak leader (she was amazing!). Very kind, knowledgeable, friendly person. We then went to the corrale as they call it where they do group calls for each kayaking time slot. I did the Adventure (2-2.5 hrs on water). We had the option to wear wet suits, water proof jacket provided by them. Required are helmets and shoes/sandals (they have crocs if need to borrow). My tour was with DUSTIN who was AMAZING!!! He brought the energy. Easy to talk to and very accommodating. Also note I have only ever kayaked 3x in my life. Dustin said to find where we are comfortable and push ourselves a bit but we are the leaders of our own ship. This team is very well supported with their knowledge in medical emergencies or if you needed assistance to come back to shore before the end of the tour. I had a wonderful experience seeing wildlife, learning neat facts about the caves, evolution, etc. I highly recommend this. The value is 10000% there. Everyone here seems like they love their job and are happy to be there. Thank you DUSTIN and team and...

Cassy was a terrific guide- she gets 5 stars! We also had Cate, who was training as a guide and was also terrific, although she was still learning the tour, procedures, etc. We really enjoyed the trip and both were wonderful guides. 1 of our party couldn't attend, so we only took out 1 kayak instead of 2. We asked the island manager, Christine, if we could get a refund for the 3rd booking and she said they can't refund, but could get a credit to use the 3rd booking at a later date and to call the office to check on that. We did that and the office refused to give us a credit. I guess that is our loss, but should point out that Christine asked me to make that call and also want to point out that our tour took about 1 hour longer than normal because Cassy was training Cate, which slowed down all of our movements. I loved having Cate along and hope she becomes a group leader in the future and believe that SB Adventure Company should have been more responsive to our change of plans given that we worked with their training of a new leader on our paid for trip. Also, had we known there was no chance of a credit, we would have taken out the extra kayak and had a single kayak per person rather than putting 2 people in 1 kayak. I think they are a safe company, with solid guides, but the administration and their inflexibility is not customer focused. They must know that if we have a credit, we are expecting to return and will almost certainly book other people on to the return trip as well- poor management= -2 stars. if you review all of my reviews, you can see I am balanced and reasonable, but there is no accommodation from SB...