Rudee Tours — Attraction in Virginia Beach

Definitely deserves 2 stars. Besides from the fact we did not see any whales, I will start out on one staff member that made me very uncomfortable the entire time. He was not personable at all and I heard him discussing with another staff member how they have had a pretty miss season with seeing whales. Which kinda confuses me because why would u make someone pay $35 a ticket just to see no whales?? Now mind you I drove 10 hours from New York to come see whales during whale season. I do not plan on coming to Virginia Beach again because it’s not one of my top spots, it was a one time thing. With that being said, with seeing no whales, we got a free coupon to come on the boat again. I told them repeatedly even if I get half of my money back I would be happy because I am not planning on coming back. They said no and that “it doesn’t expire”. Well even if I did come back I would never go on that boat again because this one staff member made me feel so unwelcome that I would never come on AGAIN. The rest of the staff was fine, the boat was pretty and they had motion sickness medicine on the boat which was nice. Also had a heated cabin with snacks and drinks. But I also talked to an older couple on the boat which was really angry too because this is their third time booking thru rudees boat tours and it either got rescheduled or they saw no whales. Also, I wanted to mention I have been on tons of dolphin tours, whale tours before, and every single time even if we didn’t see anything the staff was still very nice and I would always go back. This definitely was not the case with that one staff member. But the one guy that was on the taller side was amazing. Thank you and...

Round and Round and Round… I went out of the Rudee Angler on May 17th. There were so many people that they decided to take a second boat.

I hope the other boat had better luck than we did.

Our captain was a younger man, not the usual one that has been at the helm on my previous trips. His inexperience showed in his choice of fishing locations. We traveled to one site and we fished that same site… FOR THREE HOURS! The problem was the site was fished out after the first 45 minutes. After that, it was drop your lines for 3-4 minutes, reel up, ride around in a circle (3 minute ride) and then drop for another three minutes. We did this same routine for the next 2 1/2 hours; catching little to no keeper size fish. After the third hour, the captain did move to another spot about 10 minutes away and we did catch some decent fish.

My only other concern was that the boat wreaked of marijuana smoke all trip, to the point of being nauseating. Complaints were made to the crew and not much changed.

On the positive side, the mates were phenomenal. They were there to untangle almost every tangled line (there were TONS!). They also kept everyone in bait and took all of the complaints about riding around in circles from the customers with a smile.

If there was a way to know in the future if this captain was going to be taking the charter, it would be helpful. This way I’ll know not to go...

We had a great charter today 4/19/24. We went out about 25-30 miles and we moved 3 different times til everyone started having bites. Our deck mates Tyler and Kyle were super helpful with baiting, answering questions, taking fish off of our hooks, and worked the snack bar as well. They also cleaned and packaged our fish as well. They had also had restrooms which was a plus and a dining area. Even though we were targeting Tautog which was in season, not many were caught. We did catch a bunch of Sea Bass(not in season) and I caught 2 small sharks and we seen another shark and skate caught. It seemed like everyone caught multiple fish which was enjoyable. The only thing that we didn't enjoy was getting tangled with other lines because of how close together we were fishing, but everyone was very helpful with untangling lines. Overall, even though I did get sea sick, I would plan this charter again. It was a very enjoyable experience and we were out almost an hour longer than our 6 hour charter because we didn't have many bites at our first 2 locations, so we spent longer at the last location. For $80/person last minute plan(reserved 12 hours in advance), this was a 5 star experience! I hope you enjoy it as much as my...