Gray Whale Watching this Winter (and a Ticket Offer)

1.8.14

The press is reporting unusually high numbers of Gray Whale sightings this year. It’s time for a whale watch!

Whale Watch - Laura Cornell for The Family Savvy

Even though it is winter, it’s worth taking your kids out on the ocean for a few (potentially) chilly hours to see one of these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat. It will certainly be an experience they’ll remember forever.

Know that it’s always a gamble when you head out to find whales that you will return to shore without seeing anything … the tour boats can’t promise sightings, and it’s true that an excursion without a sighting is a bummer. Yet, seasoned naturalists have gushed with uncharacteristic excitement about the whales they’ve been seeing this season and with nearly double the whale sightings this time of year compared to last, your odds for seeing whales are very good.

Our recommendation is to head down to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and take their two and a half hour Winter Cruise to see the Gray Whales.  Tours are offered twice a day at 12:00 and 3:00 pm. Here is a link to book your tickets.

We have a 4 Pack to take this trip, so write to us at familysavvy@gmail.com — we’ll award tickets by 1/16/2014.

Here are the last two tweets from the Aquarium of the Pacific’s Whale Watch Twitter account — they’re seeing plenty of wildlife:

Spotted yesterday: fin whales, a breaching gray whale, and a huge pod of Risso’s dolphins, as well as common and bottle nose dolphins.
 
We saw bottlenose, common, & Pacific white-sided dolphins, along with 3 gray whales and 5 fin whales! One gray fluked & some fins lunge fed!
 

And, just for fun: here’s a link to the Kids Off the Couch adventure we wrote about whale watching a few years back. It includes several relevant tips for bringing kids on this adventure.