Eagle Eye Whale Watching — Local services in Sri Lanka

I'm writing in response to a 'review' that I saw in TripAdviser and how the "Manager" responded to the review. Very few people actually does this so called 'whale watching' tour properly and following the guide lines, but this has become a massive cluster F where almost anyone with a boat is a certified professional in whales & whale watching, but I digress. So there were customers with kids who wanted a whale watching tour, they go out into the deep sea under bad weather and there were no whales for a good amount of time and they were able to get a glimpse of a whale breathing after about 7 hours or so. To any future travelers, please use or ask someone who is knowledgeable about the topic because there are many people out here claiming to 'know it all' and just blatantly rips foreigners and locals off as there's no one to regulate proper standards. What made me most upset about this whole shenanigan is the response from the "Manager" afterwards. It's so condescending, disrespectful and made me ashamed as a person who promotes Sri Lanka as a safe travel destination. Basically he is slamming the customers back for leaving a bad review (not surprised) and shifting the blame for the bad experience on a different company (name wasn't mentioned). These were some of his/her remarks "You should have blamed them or whoever told that it only takes 3 hours instead of writing essays here just to show off." "So get your facts first." "you don't have to care about load of passengers thing since there are 145 seats on the boat." I do not understand the relationship between buoyancy, safety of passengers and number of seats... "People who get sea sicknesses badly are adviced to avoid this tour.But if they really wants to join,what can we do?" "Thanks for taking your time to write a such review.Choose your company wisely next time. Keep in mind that whale watching boat tour ain't a road tour.Good luck"... Appalling... They were also claiming that they were on tour for a discounted price. No matter the price someone paid to go on tour, isn't it your responsibility to offer a good service to your customers? Obviously traveling into deep sea is going to cause people some sea sickness, but I don't see these guys talking about providing with sea sickness tabs and such. There are better ways to respond to a comment or rather bad review instead of being a complete a** hole and discrediting the Islands name. They were right about one thing though "Choose your company wisely next time" or else you would have to face something similar... Greed for money knows no bounds... To all tourists, contact a professional or get in touch with experienced travelers. Do...

To all those lovely people who mention rough seas, storms and rains, Please understand that the sea is not like a national highway. To leave the shore, the ship has to cross the waves, battle currents, sometimes wind even rain, which ANY captain of ANY ship is not responsible for.

Our experience.

There was a very well organised setup, Right from being guided at the harbour to the ship, to the last moment when we got back on our vehicle.

The boat was clean, life jackets, light breakfast, water and seasickness tablets etc were provided.

The crew was smiling and helpful, even supported people to get down the stairs to the toilet.

The biggest part was after we saw the dolphins, The Whales was still unseen. After 2 hours into the journey, when we had finally given up ,the captain still kept searching. We saw the other boats in the distance leave after some time, only our boat was left. After 90mins, we finally saw the first whale and then we saw another. What an experience!!

The crew kept providing cake, pineapples, watermelon without even us asking.

At the end they helped us take selfies. That was a beautiful personal touch. Even the son of the owner was present on the boat as a random check to make sure quality was up mark.

I would totally recommend Eagle Eye over any other company.

Keep up...

We left the harbour on time but soon after there was a problem with the engine, we were stranded for almost 30 minutes while they fixed it. Although we understand that things like this can happen, it was the way the crew handled the situation that was the problem. Initially they said they will fix it and they somehow managed to, but by that point most people in the boat didn't feel safe and wanted to return. And they didn't listen and kept saying the whales are just ahead and kept moving the boat away from the shore. Maybe there was a problem in communication but they didn't handle the situation well. People were really scared and felt unsafe. I'm sure they thought that if we see the whales we will forget the experience but overall it was disappointing. We managed to see 3 whales from a long distance. Later they said they would have showed us more but they are returning because there are some people who wanted to go back. They could have gone back even before, why turn it around and blame the passengers now? The whole thing felt...