The Hornblower whale watching cruise was a great experience. They advertise it as 3-3.5 hours, but our cruise lasted closer to 4 hours since we saw a lot of interesting whales. The crew was informative, friendly, and slowed down or turned to get a good look at various group of whales.

They have 2-3 naturalists on board to show pictures of what to look for and to explain about the different types of whales. The naturalists gave an optional presentation aimed mostly at kids, and they seemed to enjoy it.

Regardless of the temp on shore, take a jacket! It is colder and windier on the water and a warm hat or hood will be welcome! One note for small kids - since most sightings are very fleeting with just the back of the whale coming up and going down, small children might not get a lot out of it. A zoo or aquarium might be a better experience for them where they can see them up close or through an underwater window.

To save money, check the tourist publications for coupons. We found a $5.00 per person off coupon in the "Reader," a local free publication we found in a newpaper box in Balboa park. Unfortunately, we forgot to take it! We did get $2.00 off per person with our AAA card.

I have been on the Sunday brunch numerous times; it's a great place to take people visiting SD! A great way to see some of the highlights of the city; the food is above average and more than you would ever expect for being prepared on the boat. The free flowing sparkling wine definitely makes it worth it...they can be slow pouring sometimes, but you can make your way to the bar and pour it yourself...they have more than enough open bottles at one time! Don't bother with the dinner cruise...the food is mediocre, the DJs are tacky.

My grandparents booked a table for the dinner cruise to celebrate their 64th wedding anniversary. Although it was fine, I could not help but walk away feeling relieved that I had done some investigating ahead of time and knew what kind of trickery to expect.

First of all, when my grandmother mentioned that it was a special occasion and requested window seating over the phone, she was not informed that this would cost an additional $10/person. That also includes champagne glasses, a bottle of Mumm' s (bleh), and truffles, but we couldn't have cared less about that. When she was told about these additions, she thought they were being included gratis because of the celebration.

As other people have mentioned, any "upgrades" with your meal are an additional cost, which I had to explain to our table because our server did such a poor job. When he saw that he wasn't going to make much extra off of us in upgrades and drinks, he seemed to ignore our table. My aunt requested some bread for my starving seven-year-old cousin, but nothing came of it. I think they want to starve you into getting appetizers. I had to go to the bar and get drinks myself and even then, they seemed to want to make you think it was included. I had to ask to pay at the bar so it wouldn't be added to the 'bill' at the end of the night.

When the salad came out, our server served half the table and then went on to serve his other tables. When he got back to his station and saw three extra plates, instead of looking around and seeing if he'd missed anyone, he took them downstairs! We had to wait for him to refill everyone's water before we were able to flag him down and ask if we could get the rest of our salads.

The DJ came around to see about making announcements, but then he did them all at once and fast, so we didn't even hear the announcement about my grandparents' anniversary because of all the shouting.

When we got the 'bill' with the suggested 18% gratuity (and charges for coffee, which wasn't apparently included either), we couldn't figure out how they came up with the number because they didn't show the total on there anywhere. We figured they must've include the coffee (and maybe the drinks that I paid and tipped generously for at the bar), but also the tax on the prepaid total. The way it's presented makes you feel like you have no choice, but we certainly did NOT leave the full amount.

PROS: The one glass of champagne and the table setting were nice. At one point, a different server offered a kid's meal (but since we were paying $40 for hers, we got her the regular meal).
NEUTRAL: The food was mediocre, like first class airplane food maybe. The vegetarian option is large, but equally bad.
CONS: The whole thing seems to be a con. You're constantly being tricked into add-ons without complete explanations. Some people probably wind up with huge bills and wonder why. There are the usual 2 5x7 photos for $20.

We were so looking forward to this cruise as we wanted to learn more about San Diego and all the ships in the harbor and have a nice time out on the water at the same time. The whole first half of the cruise there was something wrong with the sound system and you couldn't understand anything the narrator was saying. I told him several times but nothing changed until the 2nd half of the tour. I don't know how the other cruise companies speakers are but if you're really wanting to listen and learn I'd beware of this one. The crew were all great and the ride was nice, just couldn't hear what we wanted to hear so we were pretty disappointed with that.