This had always been a bucket list item for me so I was so excited to go whale watching. We arrived an hour before our trip as suggested and once we boarded we were extremely happy with our seats. We were outside on the lower deck in a shaded area near the back of the boat. However, right before our cruise started a large party boarded at the last minute and since they couldn’t find seats they decided they would just stand right in front of us the entire trip and attempt to “push people out” as they said. They successfully got the family in the back row to move, but continued to stand directly in front of/on top of us. They had 5 children and let them run around as they wished. I had a two year old stranger sitting on my feet, a 5 year old girl rubbing my legs and another young boy sitting on the bench next to me trying to push me off the seat. I know this families behavior is not the Cape Ann Whale Watch’s staffs fault, but it really ruined our trip. I have MS and am unable to move about easily so I had planned to stay planted most of the time and didn’t really get to see anything other than the backside of this family who stood directly in front of me. My husband searched the boat for other seats for us to move too without success. Also, I shouldn’t have read other reviews previously because in doing so I was expecting interns and an “educational” team to come around and talk with us and the kids about the whales. I head great things about this, but not once did I see a staff member except for when the unruly children from the other family had thrown shoes into the water and the mother had found a staff member to try to retrieve the shoes. The staff member came down and told her they couldn’t get the shoe out of the water and left, and that was the only staff sighting I had the entire trip until docking. We saw very few whales, especially as our view was obscured by this family, the whales were close to fishing boats and we never got close enough to see anything other than an occasional dorsal fin barely out of the water or the tail sticking out a little bit far in the distance. This was supposed to be the highlight of our trip and instead we left rather disappointed. I suggest if you have a rude family near by to move ASAP, and don’t expect to have an education crew for your kids to ask questions to or interact with as this never happened.