Our whale watching cruise out of Friday Harbor was an expierence of a lifetime- our only regret was not booking two days in a row so we could double the fun. The staff on the boat were so knowledgeable and enthusiastic, they made the expierence for us. We had never done anything like this before, and had never been to the part of the country so were going in totally blind, but San Juan Safaris were super helpful. They called at the time of booking to answer any questions, then called again the day before our sailing to make sure we were set to go.
Getting to Friday Harbor was easier than we were prepared for- we did this as a day trip as we didn't have time to stay a night in Friday Harbor. We stayed in Anacortes the night before our sailing then took a morning ferry, and had a few hours to walk around, we visited the Whale Museum and ate lunch- both were lovely.
We then set sail- we first encountered seals and bald eagles, then about an hour in we found two humpback whales and followed them for about 45 minutes! It was all quite exciting. Our naturalist, Piper (who was awesome) kept a map updated with each sighting, then as we made our way back to Friday Harbor she came around and told us the ID's for each of the humpback whales we saw! That was an unexpected surprise and a really interesting part of the cruise.
The whole expierence was carefully curated and easy, which we really appreciated. We were slightly unprepared in that we didn't bring hats, snacks, or anything besides cameras, really, so if we had it to do over again we would pack accordingly. It gets pretty sunny out on the water and we were sailing for about three-ish hours. Once we disembarked, we took the ferry back to Anacortes and drove into Seattle, which made for a long day but definitely do-able.
We would love to re-book with San Juan Safaris someday!