Ningaloo Whaleshark Swim — Local services in Exmouth

I should preface this over-written review with two things I've learned. 1. Nature doesn't always deliver us what we want, but when it does, it's something you never expected. 2. When you pay for a tour company to help you access something wonderful in nature that might not deliver, you should just consider yourself lucky if you get to experience anything. So now, on with the review (story).

After a smooth bus pickup in town, we had a great spiel from one of the crew, and the best advice of the day: take your seasickness meds now. This will factor in later.

We began our day with a practice snorkel. I've done a little bit of diving, and quite a bit more snorkelling in my 40 something years, and was happy to use the company's better fins (I call them flippers), and clean mask. The wetsuit fit, and they found a size to fit our 8 year old as well, for whom things sometimes don't fit well. The crew were really communicative and helpful. They had a Spanish speaker on board, so that covered an extra language too.

After the practice snorkel inside the reef, we hit the open ocean. And the swell was big. I don't know how big, but it looked like 2 metres. Here is when I was thankful we had taken those seasickness pills. Buy them. Take them. I wish we'd taken a second pack for later in the day!

It being late in the season, there were no whalesharks straight away, so our captain (Dave?) cruised for a while, and then we saw the whales. A pod of humpbacks....I will tell a fishing tale here and say 15...started splashing around, chatting and playing maybe 50 metres off the bow. Dave slowed the engines, and for what felt like an hour, we got to float there watching this pod of whales just BE around us. It was the beginning of the magic.

Our two kids went wild, and were running from port to starboard, then up to the bow, screaming and yelling...and I hope no one minded too much. We had paid for the photo package, so for us there was no desperation around capturing moments: their brilliant photographer was doing her work.

Then we joined the other boats on the whaleshark race. Because these guys have their own spotter plane, I think it gave them a little edge at the end, but at first, we just joined the queue of boats. The way the snorkel worked was the boat stopped, we edged down to the splash deck or whatever you call the bit where you get in and out of the water, then when Pete said "go go go", we followed our snorkel guide in. It's all very rushed because the whaleshark doesn't give two f*s about us, and it moves...like a shark. Then the guide pointed us to where to look underwater, and as it swam past, we got to join it.

It's a pretty magical thing to swim next to something so big.

On our tour we swam 5 times with two different sharks. I was too exhausted after the 4th time. The one hard part was hoisting our kids back up on the splash deck in the big swell: it lifted up quite high off the water sometimes, and then smacked back down hard. However, don't be put off if you're not the best swimmer: the guides and crew hoisted in all types out of the ocean on our tour.

After the whalesharks, the part where nature delivered unexpected magic was seeing a whale and a pod of dolphins playing together. We stopped and they swam around the boat for half an hour or so. It was staggering. I imagine you will find a photo of this somewhere on their website soon.

The lunch at the end was excellent and plentiful, although I think they should provide some gluten free wraps as well as the cornthins for the GF folk!

I cannot recommend this company enough. Even though the group was big, because we were out on the wild ocean, having 20 other people with us made the whole thing feel a bit safer, as well as the fact the bigger boat meant less of the rocking from side to side.

All up, a magical day with a great bunch of people. I'll be doing this again if I can...

The experience we had is difficult to describe and can only be grasped if I described the whole story.

17th Jan 2018; booked with Flight Centre for an amazing experience in 3rd August 2018 (7 months in advance) in Exmouth WA, for both swimming with the whalesharks and humpback whales.

We arrived at our hotel on the 2nd August 2018, and asked the hotel to ring and confirm our booking for the next day. Shortly after we checked in and settled down. We received a phone call from (Kate) the office representative for Nigaloo Whaleshark Swim. Kate advised us the last correspondence she had received was on the 18 Jan 2018 with a cancellation from Flght Centre.

We have already paid the for the full trip and had a confirmation number on our records.

Kate advised us she would try and get us on other boats for the next day as the boat was fully booked for the Whaleshark Swim. I advised Kate to contact the Flight Centre representative. Two hours had passed and we have heard nothing, so I had called the Flight Centre representative myself to let her know the run down of the events.

The Flight Centre representative asurred me that everything was booked and paid for and they would handle it from there.

Flight Centre advised; Apparently Nigaloo Whalesharks Swim missed an email and that Kate admitted they missed an email so we weren't actually booked in for the tours. We paid and did not receive any spot on the tour.

Not after hearing from Nigaloo; i rang Kate from Nigaloo Whaleshark Swim and Kate advised she was reinstating our booking and we could now fit on the arranged tours that we booked 7 months in advance for.

I shortly received an email after that confirmated what was advised. Long story short; I am only rating the experience 3/5 for this reason; if you book in 7 months in advance and flight to Exmouth WA and then we were told that our tours were cancelled 12 hours before the tour actually starts.

The team at Flight Centre and the wholesales team had to work really hard to get our tour reinstated and if it wasn't for them, we would have missed the tour and been out of pocket for this experience.

Once this booking experience was over; the tour swimming with the whalesharks and Humpback whales was an amazing experience!

We cannot say a high enough recommendation for the crew on the boats and the lucky break we had with the weather and sightings of the whales.

We would highly recommend coming and seeing the Whalesharks and Humpback whales (just hopefully you received a better booking experience then we...

Wow! What an amazing trip we had. We took our two children as well as my dad and had an age range of just turned 6 to 67, all with minimal to no snorkelling experience. The crew was FABULOUS! Skye's sharing of knowledge on the bus ride out was informative and entertaining. When on the boat, we were never once made to feel like we were a hassle even given our inexperience. When our 8 year old was really struggling and we were finding it hard for him to even consider getting in to swim with a whale shark, Peter and Kieran (KB) found a way for him to participate and made him feel confident enough in the water for Sian, the magical, spectacular, photographer, to get a picture of him with a whale shark (the picture package is worth it, I promise!). Volunteer Barb also helped the kiddos with their fins and masks and lots of reassurance.

Due to the greatest of spotters, Pilot Brockley, Skipper Jordan was able to take us to the beautiful creatures and Skye and Kieran ensured we got maximum time in the water, with great direction and skil, keeping us and the whale sharks safe.

The food was very tasty and plentiful, exactly what we needed after a big morning snorkelling. Volunteer Holly washed up after us and it was all hands on deck from the crew to dry up. It really was a team effort by the crew who worked spectacularly well together in order for us to have a day out with the whale sharks that we will never forget, and will have a hard time beating (my 6 year old said it was even better than his birthday a month ago). Thank you to today's crew, if I could give an even higher...