Keltic Express Zodiac Adventures Whale Watching — Local services in Ingonish

We drove for 2.5 hours to go on this boat trip. The office was closed when we got there, and the lady showed up late by 15-20 minutes. The boat was coming back from another tour and was 45 minutes late. They gave us a discount price but said that we had to go for a seal trip instead of the wale trip if we still wanted to go out because of the weather condition (little windy) We only saw a few seals heads poking out of the water. Apparently, the 3'-4' waves were too big to go see the wales......I do bigger waves than this doing figure 8 in the lake to jump my seadoo boat and bring it under water. We boated across the bay and hit a few nice size waves so the kids had fun, but that wasn't for long. They have 2 glass cones to see under water, which is pretty cool but the boat seat 10-12 so that's not enough and by the time you spot something you want to see and give the cone to the next person, it's time to move location. We looked at a few interesting cliffs.

In conclusion, this tour was just ok, nothing special. When we go back to Nova Scotia, we might try it again on a calm day (so that the capitain don't get scared), if we can make sure to see some whales but we would call before we drive there to make sure they're still going out to see the whales that day.

Parking was strange, the road ends at the harbour authority and there's signs next to it that say something along the lines of "authorized personnel only" so we parked at the end of the road instead. Turns out they're in a small hut tucked behind the harbour authority and past the sign. So, a little confusing.

Our trip had a small group, but they advertise up to 12 people on the boat which I think would be a nightmare. They're also very firm that they're only out for two hours, whereas I've seen other companies offer more flexibility.

I did enjoy the trip itself however. We did see one whale, fairly close, and then spent another hour or so chasing it around with less success. They also took us by a nearby island to see a few seals, and we were told that earlier trips that day were lucky enough to see dolphins. The views during the trip were excellent as well.

Overall, the experience was decent, although maybe more expensive than we were expecting. I would recommend this as a good experience, but there's a lot of comparable options nearby.

Edit: I originally believed there were additional charges, but I was mistaken. 100% my fault.

The captain was friendly and we have never been on a zodiac before. The captain did warn everyone that we might not see a whale but will try his best to a new location to see if there was any luck. We were looking forward to seeing a whale but guess what. We got to see Seals, looked into the water to see baby lobsters and we got to see a Sea Turtle. We followed for awhile to see it come out and back under the water quite a few times. Plus at one moment it swam under our zodiac! It was a huge sea turtle! We had so much fun and would recommend this to anyone to check out the sea life along with the scenic views of the island while being out on the zodiac,